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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-06-30 Daily Xml
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Lobbyists (Restrictions on Lobbying) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 5 March 2020.)

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:36): In November last year, I spoke in support of the second reading of an earlier iteration of this bill and that position has not changed. The bill itself extends the existing restrictions on lobbying to certain political party officials and those of associated entities and the Greens support those changes.

When we looked at last year's bill, the Greens introduced amendments that go to the heart of what the act is trying to achieve, and our amendments clarified that the restriction on lobbying that currently applies to former South Australian state ministers should also apply to former federal ministers. I have reintroduced those same amendments in relation to this bill this year. If the purpose of the bill is to restrict the lobbying activities of people who have in recent times been in a position of some authority such that they may still hold influence over current members of either the executive or the parliament then the list of those caught by the restriction should be grounded in that reality.

In relation to this bill, the Greens believe that the restriction on former ministers working as lobbyists should apply to both former South Australian and federal ministers. The importance of this provision came to light recently in relation to the lobbying activities of Christopher Pyne, a former long-serving federal member of parliament and former minister.

Since leaving parliament, Christopher Pyne has, amongst other commitments, worked as a lobbyist with his lobbying firm, GC Advisory Pty Ltd. Mr Pyne was a federal minister, until the House of Representatives was dissolved on 11 April 2019 ahead of the last federal election, which was on 18 May. Under federal laws, as a former minister he is banned from lobbying in relation to federal matters for 18 months. That period expires on 11 October this year, as I understand it.

According to The Guardian newspaper, on 15 January this year the Attorney-General's Department formally warned Christopher Pyne that he was banned from lobbying for a defence contractor that won millions of dollars in government work, including during his time as minister. This follows earlier revelations in The Guardian on 9 October last year that the former defence minister's lobbying firm, GC Advisory Pty Ltd, was lobbying for a Sydney-based space company, Saber Astronautics. That company won more than $2 million in contracts from the defence department in the previous year.

A representative of Mr Pyne's lobbying firm—incidentally another political insider and Mr Pyne's former chief of staff, Adam Howard—responded that Mr Pyne was 'acutely aware' of his obligations and that measures had been taken to ensure he would not lobby for Saber. I note that Mr Howard had left Christopher Pyne's office sometime earlier and had already served his time on the bench, as it were.

That is the federal situation, but at the state level there is no forced time on the bench after leaving a ministerial office because the state act only prohibits state ministers from lobbying within two years of leaving office. It does not apply to former federal ministers. As members would know, former federal minister Christopher Pyne has been involved with lobbying on state issues here in his home state of South Australia. On 1 October last year, the Australian Financial Review's senior reporter Simon Evans wrote an article under the headline, 'Billionaire Con Makris applauds hiring Chris Pyne as land tax lobbyist'. The opening paragraphs of that article read:

Billionaire property developer Con Makris says proposed land tax changes by the South Australian government are a 'disgrace' as he warned the state economy was at risk of falling further behind other states.

Mr Makris applauded some of his property developer counterparts for hiring former federal cabinet minister Christopher Pyne's advisory firm GC Advisory in the fight against a revamped land tax package.

The entry of Mr Pyne's firm into the land-tax debate is awkward for Premier Steven Marshall because Mr Pyne, a powerful South Australian Liberal, was instrumental in elevating Mr Marshall into the position of Liberal leader in the state in 2013.

The whole purpose of the restriction on ministerial lobbying in the Lobbyists Act is to deal with people who have that level of influence and to make sure that they spend some time on the bench. Under the current South Australian Lobbyists Act, Mr Pyne, a former minister, is not on the restricted lobbyists list, but I will say that there is no suggestion from me, and I have not heard from anyone else, that he has actually breached the law. I think the issue is that the law is inadequate. There is a loophole in the law that we need to fix. We need to fix it so that in future it is clear that both former federal and former state ministers spend time on the time-out bench before engaging in any lobbying of state ministers, state MPs or state officials.

The clear intention of the act is to remove inappropriate influence, and my amendment addresses precisely that issue. In relation to Mr Pyne—and I just use him as an example—the bill as amended would make it clear that people in that position need to cool their heels on the bench, in his case until 11 April next year, which is the same two-year period that his counterparts in the ranks of former state ministers are required to serve. With those brief remarks, the Greens will be supporting the second reading of this bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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