Boyd Swinburn: Health Coalition Aotearoa Co-Chair on calls to level the playing field, when it comes to lobbying

A desire to level the playing field, when it comes to lobbying. 

Health Coalition Aotearoa's pushing for stronger regulations alongside the Helen Clark Foundation and Transparency International. 

They want a public register of lobbyist meetings, a cooling-off period to prevent ex-ministers immediately becoming lobbyists, and a lower limit forcing someone to disclose political donations. 

Co-Chair, Boyd Swinburn says told Andrew Dickens those with vested interests are getting a bigger say on public policy, than groups pushing for positive social outcomes. 

He says nothing wrong with balanced lobbying -- which gives policy for public good, not private good. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So a group calling themselves level the playing field, rallying
against New Zealand's lobbying regulations and they're calling for more transparency.
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Attorney General Chris
Finlson where some of the speakers at the campaign launch
last night. They're calling for stronger lobbying regulations, a cooling
off period to prevent former ministers from immediately becoming lobbyists,

(00:22):
and a tightening of political donation rules. So Health Coalition
ar TROS co chairperson Boyd Swinburne joins me, Now, goodby
to your board.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Andrew, So you.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Held the launch party last night. What were the headlines
that came out of it.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, those sort of things that you said, we recognize
as the problem that we have with access and influence
on public policy is at the moment too dominated or
has been for some years by vested interest, by commercial interests,
and those groups that are pushing for the common goods
for social outcomes, health outcomes, environmental outcomes don't get to

(01:00):
say so this is the sort of the playing field
that needs to be leveled. Nothing wrong with lobbying so
long as it's in balance and we get a public
policy for public good, not for private good. So there's
a fair consensus building around the need for lobbying laws.
You know, New Zealand has no lobbying regulations, makes us

(01:22):
an outlier in OECD countries and so we need lobbying regulations.
We need a whole bunch of things to try to
strengthen our democracy.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
The fact that you had a former labor politician Heving
Clerk and a former National politician Chris Finnison there speaking
on the issue, does this mean this issue has bipartisan support.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, it has to have bipartisan supporter, Scott, and it's
an issue which cuts across the political spectrum. We also
had Antolli there who's a formal National minister as well.
We're not going to get progress on this unless both
main parties at least are on board and see this
slide that we have and trust in government. The Transparency

(02:06):
International figures show that New New Zealand's corruption index we
used to be top of the world and now we're
sliding down each year. We need to rebuild that and
get trust back in government.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
And you and your coalition Health Coalition or you actually
got into the views you called on New Zealand first
to come clean due to the Associate Minister of Health
Casey Costello's links to tobacco giants. So this is your motivation.
Would this sort of regulation stop that?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, it's not going to be one our magic bullet.
There's a whole bunch of things we need to do
to retrieve our our democracy and make it a fair
playing field. But yes, in health where we have tobacco,
alcohol and unhealthy food. These things cause a third of
the health damage in this country and yet we have

(02:53):
not been able to get policies through successive governments because
of the pressure of lobbying, and so we really need
that to improve our health.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
So can I just ask, very briefly, what's the coalition
government saying? Are they on board?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, now that we've had the launch, we're going to
be taking this around to the governments and to the
opposition parties as well, because as you said, this needs
to be across parties. The Attorney General, Paul Goldsmith has
had some lobbying regulations and reports on it on his
desk for some time, so we want to be able

(03:30):
to put this stronger case to him. He's had this
report about a voluntary code for lobbyists. But that's not
nearly strong enough. I need a whole raft of things.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Boyd swinburn I thank you that as Professor Boyd Swinburne,
who is the tail Royal Health Coalition Co Chairperson.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
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