Julie Haggie: Transparency International CEO responds to proposed lobbying guidelines

An update concerning the proposed lobbying crackdown has been met with disappointment from transparency advocates.

The Ministry of Justice revealed a new code of conduct co-written by lobbyists - featuring significant changes to the original document.

Transparency International CEO Julie Haggie says the new code isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

"Just about every single element of actual conduct - that is, what you would do to actually prove you had ethical standards - was removed."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now do you remember the crackdown on lobbying that Chris
Hopkins promised in April last year when he was Prime Minister. Well,
it looks like that's going nowhere fast. The Ministry of
Justice drew up a code of conduct for lobbyists and
then went ahead and asked lobbyists to help design it.
Even further. Significant changes were made and now apparently it's
not worth the paper it's written on. Transparency International CEO
Julie Haggy is with.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Us a Julie Kyoda, good to lead you.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
It's very good to talk to you. Some of those
changes were material, weren't they.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh, the changes from the original draft that the Ministry
drew up, which was based on best practice, to the
one that resulted that eventuated after they'd talked with the
Ministry with the lobbyists was like chalk and cheese. So
it was just every single element, just about every single
element of actual conduct, that is what you would actually
do to prove that you really had ethical standards, was removed.

(00:50):
So it's not really a code of conduct. It was
a code of intending to be nice.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
It seems to me one of the things that they
did was they redefined lobbyists as anyone trying to influence
the government. But that would be like any citizen that
goes up to any member of the government would suddenly
be a lobbyist, wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
They anybody who turned up at Parliament with flag and protested,
anybody who met anybody, anybody wrote a letter, anybody possibly
who attended Parliament and clapped. You know, honestly, there's good
models for what has defined as lobbyist overseas, and we
usually follow overseas good practice, and in this case we

(01:29):
just seem to be meandering around where there's clear Sure,
sure there's arguments about where the edges of that are,
but it's you know, a third party lobbyists. It's people
who are lobbying on behalf of another organization or the
lobbying largely for their own organization, like a like a
union or a powerful professional group. We know, we know

(01:49):
generally who they are. So it's it's that that trying
to broaden it out so becomes a morphous is just ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
What do you make of EWE who said that they
didn't want their law beists to be considered lobbyists because
they are different than treaty partners.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, yeah, that's another good it's another good argument. I
hadn't actually taken that into the it's just.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Trying to get out of being defined as a lobbyist.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I think, you know, it's about transparency no matter what.
There will be sometimes we will lobby on an issue
and sometimes they'll have conversations, so maybe they are also
non you know, maybe there's there's other international models that
show you there's a difference between those elements as well.
So you know, but when you're going up and you're
saying we think this, you're making a decision on this,
you're putting out a position on this. We think this

(02:34):
should be the way that you should do it, then
that's and here is our proposal that is how you
should do it. Then that's lobbying.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Really yeah, I mean the other problem with it was
there was going to be voluntary. It really needs to
be mandatory, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, there has to be some mandatory elements if you
otherwise it's pointless. It would have been great though, we
could have had self regulation and at if the lobbying
sector had actually said yes, we face risk, Yes, the
work that we do involves risk of conflict and interest
of undue influence, you know, and so and that's why

(03:09):
you would need to have ethical standards. But we didn't
see any of that. They didn't talk about that, So
that would have been if they'd been able to say
we need to have that and we are going to
make sure that happened, then you could have possibly stepped
down and have a go, you know. But now now
it just says, well, no, you really do need regulation.
And that was the second part of this proposal back

(03:30):
in last year, to have regulation, and that we haven't
seen anything mentioned about that recently, so that's the really
important part of it.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Mark Unsworth, who's been in the industry for something like
thirty years, reckons this is probably going to go the
way of every other attempt to regulate lobbyists and just
eventually just die a death. What do you think.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I think that we're going to get a pushback from
overseas and also a pushback from people in.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
New Zealand who overseas cares about this.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, there are things, it's like, there are international mechanisms
like the United Nations Convention against Corruption which have a
look at we in New Zealand sits in terms of
its control of potential corruption across various areas and political
corruptions there, and that's we see the number of those
that apply. So we might get a bit of push
back there. And I think we'll get pushed back from
New Zealand the twenty twenty value. So they said that

(04:21):
a lot of New Zealanders feel that New Zealanders that
the government is being affected by strong groups, strong industry groups.
And so there is that element as well that people say, look,
I want to see more, I want to know who
they are. I want to see them having to be
called to account. And that's so I think there will
be a push against that. I don't think he's quite

(04:42):
of that approach. Also, I'm not sure if I've heard
him call for greater ethical standards either.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, Julie, thank you. Well, I don't ask me. I
don't know, but you're no more than me. Listen. I
really appreciate your time. Julie Haggey, Transparency International New Zealand CEO.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
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