Page 1955 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 August 2014
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(n) a lobbyist who is appointed to a Government board, committee or other entity must not represent the interests of a third party to a public official in relation to any matter that relates to the functions of entity and must, where they have made such representations prior to that appointment, ensure that they comply with all honesty, integrity and conflict of interest provisions and procedures applicable to appointees to that entity;
(o) a lobbyist who:
(i) is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 30 months or more;
(ii) is convicted of an offence, one element of which involves dishonesty, such as theft or fraud; or
(iii) becomes or commences to act as a member of a federal, state or territory political party executive or administrative committee, or similar;
shall thereupon cease to engage in lobbying activities and shall so advise the Clerk of the ACT Legislative Assembly; and
(p) a lobbyist shall ensure that any owner, partner, shareholder or other individual involved in the management of the business of the lobbyist does not occupy or act as a member of a federal, state or territory political party executive or administrative committee, or similar.
I thank members for allowing me to move this motion today. It is an important motion and it builds on previous debates the Assembly has had in terms of improving our own accountability and integrity framework. I think more than most, my own view around the lobbyist register, and it is something that members will acknowledge that I have been after for some time now, is that our constituents, the people we represent, expect good government and good processes through our parliament. This will only strengthen the processes that we have available to ensure that our constituents have trust in the way that we conduct our duties and that, following on from Mr Coe’s speech on the electoral report that was tabled earlier today, we keep ACT politics clean.
You do not have to look too far over either side of the border to see where problems have arisen with the way politicians conduct their business and, importantly, with the way interested stakeholders, lobbyists, also conduct their business and seek approvals, favours, influence or power within particular administrations and, in a parliament with one house with very strong Assembly committees, to influence all members.
I believe very firmly that by agreeing to this continuing resolution today we are strengthening the processes available to us. We are improving accountability to our community. By doing so I hope that, with some of the odour that hangs around politicians it seems in this day and age, we are continuing to provide confidence to the ACT community and hopefully generating some view that politics can be an honourable profession.
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