What is Lobbying? (From Wikipedia)

What is Lobbying?

Lobbying (also lobby) is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies.

Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or advocacy groups (interest groups).

Lobbyists may be among a legislator's constituents, meaning a voter or bloc of voters within his or her electoral district, or not; they may engage in lobbying as a business, or not. Professional lobbyists are people whose business is trying to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest who hires them.

Individuals and nonprofit organizations can also lobby as an act of volunteering or as a small part of their normal job (for instance, a CEO meeting with a representative about a project important to his/her company, or an activist meeting with his/her legislator in an unpaid capacity).

Governments often define and regulate organized group lobbying that has become influential.
The ethics and morality of lobbying are dual-edged. Lobbying is often spoken of with contempt, when the implication is that people with inordinate socioeconomic power are corrupting the law (twisting it away from fairness) in order to serve their own conflict of interest.

But another side of lobbying is making sure that others' interests are duly defended against others' corruption, or even simply making sure that minority interests are fairly defended against mere tyranny of the majority. For example, a medical association, or a trade association of health insurance companies, may lobby a legislature in order to counteract the influence of tobacco companies, in which case the lobbying would be viewed by most people as justified (duly defending against others' corruption).

The difficulty in drawing objective lines between which lobbyists are "good lobbyists" and which ones are "bad ones" is compounded by the cleverness with which lobbyists or their clients can speciously argue that their own lobbying is of the "good" kind. At heart, the effort to influence legislation is a power struggle.

As in other forms of power struggle, such as war or law enforcement, motives range from predation to self-defense to fighting for justice, and the dividing line between predation and justice is subject to rationalization.

Lobbying in Australia

Over the past twenty years lobbying in Australia has grown from a small industry of a few hundred employees to a multi billion dollar a year industry.

Lobbying has become a political fact of life and is now endemic in local, state and federal government. It is not just the local councillors, state and federal politicians being lobbied. What was once the preserve of big multi-national companies and at a more local level, property developers, has morphed into an industry that would employ more than 10,000 people and represent every facet of human endeavour.

Lobbyists must organise a pass to get access to the federal parliament. However, this is not necessary as some are simply signed in as guests of Senators or Members on the day of their visit.

When lobbyists visit most federal government departments they must also sign a register.
 The Parliamentary Pass must be signed by two parliamentarians. It is administered by the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) and has the enforcement of the Criminal Code Act 1995.
The Pass is valid for 2 years.

There are some advocacy groups in Australia that can lobby without passes. For example in 1995, following the lobbying done by The Affiliated Residential Park Residents Association Incorporated (ARPRA) and other interested tenant organizations, the Government created new legislation to provide residential park residents with improved protection. The Residential Parks Act of 1996 became the operating tool for the conduct of residents and park owners alike. In 1998, following further lobbying for the legislative review and revision of the 1996 Act, the Residential Parks Act of 1998 became law.

From the Australian Government Website: http://lobbyists.pmc.gov.au/faq.cfm#4

A lobbyist is defined in clause 3 of the Code to mean a person, company or organisation who conducts lobbying activities on behalf of a client or whose employees conduct lobbying activities on behalf of a client.

These lobbyists are sometimes known as consultant lobbyists, or third party lobbyists.

The Code does not apply to in-house lobbyists, such as government relations staff employed by companies to make representations to Government on behalf of the company that employs them, or staff employed in peak industry bodies or trade unions who make representations to Government on behalf of their industry or their members. These people are not required to register.