Former LNP MP Ewen Jones

Here at Crikey we’ve been complaining for years about how flawed the Commonwealth lobbyist register is. In fact, we were criticising it a decade ago before it was even established. But here’s a nice example of just how flawed it is.

Scott Briggs is a senior NSW Liberal figure, former TV lobbyist and close mate of Scott Morrison who has been the subject of some interest this week, and questions in parliament, over the bid by a consortium called Australian Visa Processing for a mammoth immigration visa contract. Briggs is also CEO of Pacific Blue Capital, a “private investment firm that specialises in the Design, Build, Finance and maintenance of government projects.”

So, governments are an important client for and target of Pacific Blue Capital. Lobbying would be an important part of their business. Indeed, the firm advertises that it has two senior lobbying figures: former Labor staffer Chris Fry, its “Director of Government Relations” and Daryl Hoffman, “Director of Strategy Government Affairs”. But is Pacific Blue Capital on the lobbyist register? No. And why not? Well a couple of reasons: as an investment firm, it probably falls under the exemption category “other service providers, who make occasional representations to Government on behalf of others in a way that is incidental to the provision to them of their professional or other services” and probably under another, “engaging in lobbying activities on their own behalf”, which is the biggest exemption of all, and the reason the vast majority of lobbyists don’t appear on the register — because they’re in-house lobbyists.

Except, Fry is on the register … but under his own company name, Public Policy Solutions. Is Pacific Blue Capital listed as his client? No, he’s Pacific Blue’s in-house lobbyist, so they don’t appear. But Pacific Blue Capital is a client of another registered lobbyist: All Points North Advisory. Who is All Points North? One Ewen Jones, the former LNP member whose very narrow defeat in 2016 deprived parliament of one of its best MPs.

So Pacific Blue isn’t itself registered, the bloke whose job is as its chief lobbyist isn’t registered; it only appears because for whatever reason Ewen Jones had some work with it at some point.

To be clear, neither Pacific Blue nor any of the people mentioned here have done anything at all wrong. That’s actually the point: the current lobbyist register has holes big enough to drive an investment firm through. The same holes that law firms, accounting firms, consulting firms and large corporations use to stay off the register, even if their lobbyists are wandering around the ministerial wing and the corridors of Parliament House as much as the people who have to register. The same holes that mean a firm can appear on the client list of a registered lobbyist but not on the client list of its director of government relations, who is registered not in that capacity but in a different capacity altogether.

Nope, doesn’t make sense to us either, but those are the rules.