Purpose
Enhancing Australia’s transparency mechanisms to preserve trust and citizen engagement in our democratic system
The problem
Transparency is the bedrock of democratic trust. Citizens must be assured that representatives act for the public good, not private gain. Yet public trust in Australian political institutions is declining, eroded by scandals like Robodebt, a lack of transparency in decision-making, and concerns around political corruption.[1] Restoring this trust requires proving that corporate influence does not override the public interest.
Background
Australia was once considered a pioneer in democratic transparency. The introduction of the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act 1982 marked a shift towards open government, with the goal of increasing government accountability, exposing administration and decision-making to public scrutiny, and ending the tradition of executive secrecy inherited from Westminster. This era of reform was cemented by the watershed Fitzgerald Inquiry (1989), which entrenched a commitment to transparency and accountability.[2] However, historical analysis suggests a steady regression from these ideals. As noted by Professor Peter Coaldrake in his definitive review of public sector accountability, the culture of “frank and fearless” advice has been eroded by a modern machinery of government designed to curate and suppress information.[3] This represents a systemic shift from the open governance of the 1980s to a culture of concealment, where the very mechanisms designed to empower citizens, such as Freedom of Information (FOI) processes and lobbying registers, are now routinely used to delay access and obscure decision-making.[4]
Systemic analysis
We tested the strength of Australia’s transparency regime by examining six examples of protest criminalisation across different jurisdictions.[5] The objective was to determine whether existing mechanisms could reveal who influenced key policing and policy decisions around these laws.
Our investigation found that Australia’s transparency regime is too weak to enable the public to understand this influence. Decision-making appeared to be routinely hidden by claims of commercial-in-confidence, inadequate record-keeping, and secrecy provisions that can mask corporate influence.
The invisible lobby
Current registers fail to capture the vast majority of corporate advocacy, with up to 80% of lobbying occurring outside the register rules due to loopholes exempting in-house government relations staff from registration requirements. The sponsored ‘Orange Pass’ loophole also grants undisclosed lobbyists unescorted access to the private corridors of Federal Parliament House,[6] a practice that has drawn growing crossbench pressure for reform, so far without meaningful government action. Corporate actors appeared to routinely secure high-level, opaque access to legislative drafting. For example, Santos received a Minister’s second reading speech hours before it was delivered in Parliament,[7] and our investigation showed the WA Premier adopting Woodside’s talking points within 24 hours of a corporate request.[8]
Systemic FOI dysfunction
The ‘right to know’ has been bureaucratically dismantled. Our investigation encountered processing delays of up to 402 days (QLD Department of Resources) and blanket refusals.[9] Agencies routinely invoked exemptions to conceal information: the Queensland Government applied Cabinet privilege to suppress 16 pages of communications with Adani, withholding them for 10 years, while NSW Police redacted the entire substance of their coordination with the coal industry under “operational” exemptions.[10] Bureaucratic failures and record-keeping gaps erased the trail of influence. For instance, NSW departmental restructuring lost any documentary trail regarding Santos’s legislative influence. In Victoria and NSW, significant police deployments for the IMARC mining conferences occurred despite “nil” documented communications between organisers and government, creating a transparency void where accountability should exist.[11]
Dark money and access
Political finance transparency is undermined by high disclosure thresholds, allowing donations under $17,300 to flow undeclared at the federal level until recently. While the 2025 Electoral Reform Act will lower the federal threshold to $5,000 from July 2026, a loophole allowing donations to be split across state and federal party branches remains unaddressed and some jurisdictions still lag far behind. Corporate entities secure privileged access that community groups cannot match. Woodside, for example, donated almost $2 million between 1999–2019, securing ‘platinum’ access to ministerial briefings.[12] While direct causality is unclear, patterns suggest a link: Queensland fast-tracked ‘Dangerous Device’ laws one day after the Police Minister met with the Adani CEO.[13] Meanwhile, the NSW Minerals Council secured 61 ministerial meetings over four-and-a-half years, ensuring their policy preferences were heard while public stakeholders were excluded.[14]
Erosion of parliamentary scrutiny
Governments appear to be utilising ‘urgency’ to introduce restrictive new legislation while circumventing democratic oversight. The South Australian Parliament passed anti-protest laws in just 20 minutes, rendering committee scrutiny and public submissions impossible. In NSW, the Inclosed Lands Act was passed in just eight days without public consultation. Where consultation occurs, it is often perfunctory or performative. While Santos received a draft of a Minister’s speech hours before Parliament, the Queensland Law Society’s ‘consultation’ on dangerous devices consisted only of police officers showing them photographs.[15]
Options
Policymakers face a choice. The first option is to maintain the status quo, where transparency frameworks create an illusion of accountability while hidden corporate influence expands, likely accelerating the decline of public trust. The second is to urgently strengthen these mechanisms to allow the public to better understand how policing and policy decisions are made. Democratic governance requires that citizens can scrutinise decisions, know who shapes the rules, and verify that the public good is prioritised over private gain.
- Close the invisible lobbying loopholes: Current legislation fails to capture up to 80% of lobbying activity. To fix this, governments must remove exemptions for in-house government relations staff, abolish the ‘Orange Pass’ loophole for unescorted parliamentary access, and mandate monthly disclosure of specific meeting outcomes to replace generic subject headings.
- End the weaponisation of FOI delays: To address processing delays that act as de facto refusals (e.g., 402 days in Queensland), strict statutory timeframes must be enforced; agencies missing deadlines should forfeit access charges. Furthermore, the definition of “Cabinet documents” must be legislatively narrowed to apply only to those created for the dominant purpose of deliberation, preventing the withholding of non-sensitive documents.
- Mandate minimum democratic scrutiny periods: To prevent the rapid passage of legislation without scrutiny, a minimum 30-day public consultation period could be legislated for any Bill affecting civil liberties. This must be accompanied by a “Corporate Influence Impact Statement,” detailing which stakeholders accessed the drafting process and justifying the adoption of corporate feedback over community objections.
- Reform political finance and the ‘Revolving Door’: To capture influence through financial and personnel channels, donation disclosure thresholds should be harmonised to $1,000 with “real-time” (7-day) reporting. Additionally, a mandatory three-year cooling-off period or more could be required for Ministers and senior advisors to prevent them from moving immediately into paid roles within the industries they previously regulated.
- National data consistency and accessibility: A centralised ‘Open Democracy’ portal is needed to mandate that all jurisdictions publish Ministerial diaries, donation returns, and lobbying registers in a homogenised, machine-readable standard. This would allow journalists and citizens to track influence across state and federal borders without navigating incompatible systems.
Contact Officer: Dr Robyn Gulliver
University of Queensland
Footnotes
[1] Mark Evans, ‘Australian democracy is not dead, but needs help to ensure its survival’ (The Conversation, 30 January 2025) https://theconversation.com/australian-democracy-is-not-dead-but-needs-help-to-ensure-its-survival-235638
[2] Chris Salisbury, ‘Thirty years on, the Fitzgerald Inquiry still looms large over Queensland politics’ (The Conversation, 1 July 2019) https://theconversation.com/thirty-years-on-the-fitzgerald-inquiry-still-looms-large-over-queensland-politics-119167
[3] Peter Coaldrake, Let the Sunshine In: Review of Culture and Accountability in the Queensland Public Sector – Final Report (Queensland Government, 28 June 2022) https://www.coaldrakereview.qld.gov.au/assets/custom/docs/coaldrake-review-final-report-28-june-2022.pdf
[4] Bill Browne and Skye Predavec, The Price of Freedom: Australia’s Flawed Freedom of Information System (The Australia Institute, 2025) https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/P1899-The-price-of-freedom-Australias-flawed-freedom-of-information-system-Web.pdf
[5] The six case studies examined were: Woodside Energy Protests 2023 – Perth; Blockade Australia Protests 2021 – Newcastle; International Mining and Resources Conference 2019 and 2022 – Melbourne and Sydney; Dangerous Attachment Devices Act 2019 – Queensland; Summary Offences (Obstruction of Public Places) Amendment Bill 2023 – South Australia; and Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law NSW 2016. See https://www.theenvironmentalmovement.org/state-capture
[6] Centre for Public Integrity, A Seat at the Table: Embedding Integrity, Transparency and Equality into the Federal Lobbying Regime (Position Paper, 10 July 2025) https://publicintegrity.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/A-Seat-at-the-Table-Embedding-Integrity-Transparency-and-Equality-into-the-Federal-Lobbying-Regime-_10.07.25.pdf
[7] Peter Hannam, ‘Documents reveal “close and cosy” CSG relationship between Santos and government’ (The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 July 2016) https://www.smh.com.au/environment/documents-reveal-close-and-cosy-csg-relationship-between-santos-and-government-20160728-gqfhzg.html
[8] Freedom of Information Decision 2025007, Government of Western Australia Department of the Premier and Cabinet, 17 July 2025. (On file with author).
[9] Freedom of Information Decision 7253673, Queensland Government, Department of Justice, 3 January 2025. (On file with author).
[10] Freedom of Information Decision 199455, Queensland Government, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, 3 October 2024, and Freedom of Information Decision A6245476, NSW Government, Premier’s Department, 13 December 2024 (On file with author).
[11] Freedom of Information Decisions ‘NSW DPIRD 25-12’, ‘NSW DPHI Correspondence’, ‘NSW Energy Minister A6233556’, ‘NSW Attorney General A6236821’, NSW Government, various Departments and dates. (On file with author), and Freedom of Information Decisions 0619194 and A6245476, NSW Police Force, 27 September 2024 and 13 December 2024 (On file with author).
[12] Centre for Public Integrity, Industry Political Donations and Disclosable Payments: Resource and Energy Industry Case Study (2021) https://publicintegrity.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Donations-case-study-resource-and-energy-industry.pdf
[13] Queensland Government, Cabinet Ministers’ Diaries – October 2019 https://cabinet.qld.gov.au/ministers-portfolios/assets/diary/2019/october/mark-ryan.pdf
[14] Nick Evershed and Christopher Knaus, ‘Mining sector met NSW ministers almost every week over four years’ (The Guardian, 22 March 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/22/mining-sector-met-nsw-ministers-almost-every-week-over-four-years
[15] Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee, Public Hearing Transcript: Summary Offences and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 (Queensland Parliament, 11 October 2019) https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/committees/LACSC/2019/SummOff2019/trns-ph-11Oct2019.pdf
