Lobbying is a longstanding and legitimate feature of democratic governance dating back hundreds of years and is an important feature of any healthy democracy.

The term ‘lobbying’ is generally understood to refer to communication with a public official with the objective of influencing legislative, policy or administrative decisions. Representative democracies are founded on the ability of citizens, individually or collectively, to lobby their elected officials and the government to ensure they are acting in the public interest.

Recent decades have seen a significant professionalisation of lobbying practices in response to major events, technological developments and changing social, economic, and political conditions domestically and globally. This has seen lobbying transform into a multibillion-dollar industry.

The report contains 6 chapters:

• The introductory chapter provides an overview of the inquiry and report structure.
• Chapter 2 sets out the regulatory challenge of discerning lobbying as a form of civic participation from lobbying as a profession. This includes exploring the regulatory tensions between effectively capturing professional lobbying activity without deterring or imposing undue compliance or administrative burdens on other forms of civic participation, including advocacy and activism.
• Chapter 3 details the history and current regulatory arrangements of lobbying in Australia. It considers the adequacy of the Lobbying Code of Conduct and the Register of Lobbyists at the Commonwealth level. This chapter also considers lobbying regulations in other jurisdictions within Australia and internationally, seeking to identify best-practice regulatory schemes.
• Chapter 4 provides an overview of the current processes for obtaining and maintaining a sponsored pass to access Australian Parliament House and the mechanisms by which information and data held within the pass system can be accessed and scrutinised.
• Chapter 5 considers the concerns and options that submitters and witnesses put to the committee.
• Chapter 6 sets out the committee's views and recommendations on additional measures that might be introduced to best ensure transparency and integrity around lobbying activities in Australia.