When NSW Police launched Strike Force Tuohy against protesters in 2021, the publicly stated justification was ‘public safety’.[1] In contrast, a Freedom of Information request revealed a different priority: a senior Deputy Commissioner explicitly noting ‘continuing engagement’ with the very coal corporations the protesters were targeting.[2] Yet, the actual content of those discussions, which might have demonstrated exactly what the coal lobby asked for and what police promised in return, was redacted under ‘operational’ exemptions.
This is the transparency paradox at the heart of Australian democracy: the current system allows us to see the handshake between government and industry but blocks us from seeing the deal. Australia hasn’t always tolerated this level of secrecy. The federal Freedom of Information Act 1982 was introduced to end the culture of executive secrecy inherited from Westminster. This push for transparency reached its peak with the Fitzgerald Inquiry (1989), which exposed systemic corruption in Queensland and cemented openness as a democratic safeguard. Today’s practices represent a stark departure from those hard-won reforms.
The retreat from these historical reforms is becoming increasingly dangerous given the speed at which our freedom to dissent is being eroded. The extent of protest criminalisation in Australia is significant and growing, part of a broader global trend in democracies worldwide.[3] Almost fifty laws affecting protest rights have been introduced across federal, state, and territory parliaments in the last two decades.[4] These sit alongside 350 instances of potentially problematic laws which encroach on democratic rights and freedoms, most of which have entered the statute book since 2001.[5]
This legislative activity has accelerated in response to climate activism that challenges powerful extractive industry interests,[6] into a situation that some researchers have described as ‘the silencing of activism’.[7] This expansion of protest-limiting laws marks a dramatic shift from Australia’s long democratic tradition of public dissent; a tradition that includes the Franklin River blockade, the anti–Vietnam War marches, and the Wave Hill Walk-Off. These moments, now celebrated as nation-shaping civic interventions, would today risk criminal penalties unheard of in their time.
The investigation: Stress-testing the system
In a democracy built on the contest of diverse viewpoints, a fundamental question remains: can citizens actually see who is influencing the decisions that curtail their implied constitutional freedom of political communication?
To answer this, we stress-tested transparency mechanisms against six recent cases where protest rights were curtailed, ranging from the hurried passage of legislation criminalising dissent to the deployment of aggressive new policing tactics across five jurisdictions.
The answer is a resounding no.
This systemic failure points to a phenomenon political scientists call ‘state capture’. As Liz David-Barrett defines it, this is a form of corruption where private interests do not merely influence a specific policy, but infiltrate the machinery of government to shape the rules of the game in their favour.[8] Australia has seen the consequences of weak transparency before: from the WA Inc scandals of the 1980s to the ‘sports rorts’ affair, and the more recent Robodebt Royal Commission. Each episode revealed how secrecy and unchecked discretion allow governments to bend rules in favour of political or corporate interests. What we found in this investigation was not an anomaly but the continuation and intensification of a long pattern.
The symptoms of this capture are visible across six key indicators:[9]
- Financial intervention: Buying access through donations.
- Lobbying networks: Privileged access to decision-makers.
- The Revolving Door: Officials moving seamlessly into industry jobs.
- Institutional repurposing: Turning public agencies (like police) into private security.
- Shaping evidence: Dominating the policy research landscape.
- Public influence campaigns: Manufacturing consent through media dominance
Current transparency mechanism fail the test
Existing transparency mechanisms are failing to illuminate these dark corners of influence. Across the country, lobbying registers, ministerial diaries, and donation logs confirm that meetings occur and money flows, but they reveal almost nothing about what was demanded or promised in return.
- In Western Australia, when we sought details of communications between Premier Cook and Woodside about the Disrupt Burrup Hub protests, critical information was redacted under ‘commercial-in-confidence’ provisions.[10]
- In Queensland, mining companies met with the Minister just days before anti-protest laws were fast-tracked.[11] Yet, lobbying registers reveal nothing of the demands made or the deals struck.
- In South Australia, this capture manifested as the elimination of democratic process. Just 48 hours after the Energy Minister told a gas industry conference the government was ‘at your disposal,’[12] the Lower House rushed through anti-protest legislation in 20 minutes with no public consultation.[13]
Time and again, the same pattern can be inferred: corporate interests align with government actions, transparency mechanisms fail to reveal the connections. Communities are shut out of processes that fundamentally impact their democratic rights.
These findings have implications for every policy area. If transparency tools cannot reveal influence on fundamental freedoms, they will not reveal it in welfare, healthcare, or infrastructure: anywhere powerful interests seek to shape outcomes away from public scrutiny.
Letting in the light
When people are unable to see how decisions are made, they lose faith in institutions. Trust is the foundation of democracy, yet opaque and shrouded decision-making destroys that trust.
We see this erosion continuing in the federal government’s handling of integrity reviews. In late 2025, after a delay of more than two years, the Commonwealth finally released the Briggs review into public sector board appointments. [14] The report laid bare a culture of ‘jobs for mates’, finding that appointments are routinely used to reward loyalty rather than merit. Yet, despite sitting on these findings for years, the government’s response was to reject key recommendations for legislative independence, effectively ensuring the cycle of patronage continues.
Worse still, rather than strengthening our right to know, the government has shown little appetite for transparency. Proposed changes to the Commonwealth Freedom of Information (FOI) regime which would have introduced new fees and barriers to access, ostensibly to stop “vexatious, abusive and frivolous” requests were ultimately dropped.[15] But their emergence at all signals a troubling direction of travel. Critics warned the could have helped cover up the next Robodebt,[16] and with the underlying instinct toward restriction rather than openness still intact, there is little guarantee they won’t resurface.
Ironically, a chorus of voices, including the Labor government before it came to power in 2022, has called for strengthening Australia’s transparency regime.[17] Now is the time to enact these reforms, not roll them back. We need immediate reform: real-time disclosure of ministerial diaries and lobbying content, not just schedules; a consistent multi-year ban across all jurisdictions on the ‘revolving door’ between cabinet and corporate boardrooms; and strict limits on ‘commercial-in-confidence’ excuses when the public interest is at stake.
Democracy requires constant vigilance
Corporate influence in our political decision making thrives in the dark. Yet governments are elected by citizens and exist to serve citizens’ interests first and foremost. Whilst these may sometimes align with shareholder interests, hiding decisions drives politicians to protect wealthy, powerful interests above those of ordinary Australians.
Consider the crackdown on climate protesters: advocates with the weight of the UN and other global institutions behind them, calling for a liveable future, have been pre-emptively arrested in Australia. They have been subject to onerous bail terms, and served higher fines for handing out flyers than coal mines receive for repeatedly polluting precious and unique environments.[18] Yet history shows that those punished for protecting the planet often become the visionaries we later celebrate, as the Franklin blockade proved.
Hiding influence in the dark may benefit some political representatives some of the time, but our collective wellbeing and future generations will pay the price. Governments must choose transparency even when it’s inconvenient, because history shows that secrecy protects the powerful, damages democracy, and leaves future generations to pay the price.
References
[1] Eden Gillespie, ‘Australian climate activists battling increased repression and surveillance, new report says’ (SBS News, 25 November 2021) https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australian-climate-activists-battling-increased-repression-and-surveillance-new-report-says/0uql927a6
[2] Freedom of Information Decision, A6245476, NSW Government Premier’s Department, 13 December 2024. (On file with author)
[3] Grata Fund & Australian Democracy Network, In Defence of Dissent (2024) https://australiandemocracy.org.au/indefenceofdissentreport
[4] Human Rights Law Centre, Protest in Peril: Our Shrinking Democracy (2024) https://www.hrlc.org.au/reports/protest-peril/
[5] George Williams, ‘The legal assault on Australian democracy [Blackburn Lecture]’ (Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, 12 May 2015) https://www.actlawsociety.asn.au/article/the-legal-assault-on-australian-democracy
[6] Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Human Rights Law Centre & Environmental Defenders Office, Global Warning: The Threat to Climate Defenders in Australia (8 December 2021) https://www.edo.org.au/publication/global-warning-report-the-threat-to-climate-defenders-in-australia/
[7] Mark Heath & Patrick Burdon, ‘Silencing of activism in Australian law’, Alternative Law Journal, 42(3) (2017) 190–194, https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969×17730193
[8] Elizabeht David-Barrett, ‘State capture and development: a conceptual framework’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 26 (2023): 1–21 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10034251/pdf/41268_2023_Article_290.pdf
[9] Australian Democracy Network, Confronting State Capture (2022) https://raisely-images.imgix.net/ca877520-8363-11ee-bc9e-c317a5e9d690/uploads/state-capture-report-2022-online-pdf-d2cfd0.pdf
[10] Freedom of Information Decision 20240041, Government of Western Australia Department of the Premier and Cabinet, 20 February 2025. (On file with author).
[11] Queensland Government, Cabinet Ministers’ Diaries – October 2019 (2019) https://cabinet.qld.gov.au/ministers-portfolios/assets/diary/2019/october/mark-ryan.pdf
[12] Royce Kurmelovs, ‘South Australia tells gas industry the state is “at your disposal”’ (The Guardian, 16 May 2023) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/16/south-australia-gas-industry-appea-national-conference-2023
[13] South Australian Parliament, Summary Offences (Obstruction of Public Places) Amendment Bill 2023 (18 May 2023) https://hansardsearch.parliament.sa.gov.au/daily/lh/2023-05-18/6
[14] Anthony Whealy, ‘‘Jobs for mates’ review is damning – and the government’s response is a failure of the highest order’ (The Guardian, 3 December 2025) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2025/dec/03/jobs-for-mates-review-damning-government-response-a-failure
[15] Michelle Rowland (MP), ‘Strengthening the Freedom of Information Framework’ (Media Release, Attorney-General’s Department, 3 September 2025) https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/strengthening-freedom-information-framework-03-09-2025#
[16] The Australia Institute, ‘Government’s FOI changes could cover up the next Robodebt – new research’ (7 October 2025) https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/governments-foi-changes-could-cover-up-the-next-robodebt-new-research/
[17] Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, Parliament of Australia, The Operation of Commonwealth Freedom of Information (FOI) Laws (Report, 2023) https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/CommonwealthFOI2023/Report
[18] Robyn E. Gulliver, Robin Banks, Kelly S. Fielding and Winnifred R. Louis, ‘The criminalization of climate change protest’ (2023) 11 Contention (1): 24–54 https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/contention/11/1/cont110103.xml
