Opinion: In March, the Urban List NZ asked me to do a takeover of their social media platform for International Women’s Day. Suddenly, Urban List’s 87,000 Instagram followers were exposed to the day in the life of a lobbyist.
Now, my takeover was not nearly as exciting as those that have gone before; for example a look into the world of talented bass player Turanga Porowini Morgan-Edmonds, from Alien Weaponry. But it was a much needed glimpse into the activities of an industry that not nearly enough of our rangatahi know could be a viable career.
So why do we have such a generational reluctance to pursue a career in lobbying? It most certainly isn’t because there is not good money to be made: the industry has enjoyed undisclosed financial success that would easily measure in the tens of millions, within an unregulated environment and limited impetus for continuous improvement.
I think the answer lies somewhere between affable arrogance, profit maximisation and abrogation of duty.
Let me deal with the final contention, first: abrogation of duty.
In a nutshell, abrogation of duty is to avoid something that you should do. This has been most apparent in recent months in the ways in which parts of the professional lobbying industry (that is those who market themselves as government relations professionals, such as myself) remain conveniently fixated on who should be captured by lobbying reforms, rather than the more important question of what it is we are trying to achieve?
For me, what we need to achieve is exceptionally simple: if lobbying has a legitimate role in our democracy, then those who our democracy belongs to—that is, us all—should be able to have trust in these activities.
Many careers have ethical obligations and duties of care: doctors and lawyers immediately come to mind. If the ethical obligation of the former is to provide medical treatment to the patient irrespective of the patient’s profile, and the overriding duty of the latter is as an officer of the court, then why is it so difficult to consider that while lobbyists maintain a fiduciary duty to clients, this could (and should) be balanced with an unalienable duty to the maintenance of trust in democracy.
Which leads me to affable arrogance: there is a pervasive belief that lobbyists in Aotearoa do not need to respond to legitimate questions regarding the nature of activities undertaken and on behalf of whom.
Recent efforts to improve transparency in lobbying across Aotearoa have made clear how deeply this belief is held, and how our naivety as a nation—where we all have each other’s best interests at heart—somehow prevails over the considered and relentless lobbying strategies of legacy industries and vested interests.
It was reflecting on this state of affairs that my firm, Awhi, decided to launch www.lobbyist.nz – with freely available industry principles made for anyone lobbying in New Zealand.
These principles guide our business activities and are underpinned by the belief that the overriding duty of those who undertake lobbying activities must be the maintenance of trust in democracy. This means that anyone who lobbies, in any way, should not participate in activities that could reasonably be believed to erode trust in our democratic institutions.
After all, you do not have to look very far to find recent examples of behaviour that draws fair criticism and consequently erodes trust.
For example, government agency Pharmac sought advice from a lobbying firm to better manage negative media coverage. Yet in June 2022, as questions mounted around why Pharmac had not yet funded Trikafta, the lobbying firm recommended a staged exit for the agency to avoid media questions at a select committee hearing at Parliament. The firm advised that the CEO and Chairman should “arrive very close to start-time” and after the hearing, the CEO and Chairman “(are) to leave (the) hearing room immediately … either after answering one or two questions, if they want, or not – looking fairly hurried!” Presumably, it was a tactic to avoid answering media questions which, of course, is the antithesis of accountability.
Another example is from business advocacy organisation Business NZ, which faced accusations of misrepresenting information from an International Labour Organisation (ILO) document. The document was a list of alleged breaches of international labour treaties titled “Preliminary list of cases as submitted by the social partners Committee on the Application of Standards” however Business NZ’s version of the document was entitled “‘Worst case’ breaches of international labour treaties”. While attempts to justify the contextualisation fell flat, Business NZ had to admit that it changed the name of the list and effectively destroyed the veracity of its lobbying on an issue that was of utmost importance to the wider business community at the time.
Which brings us to profit maximisation. As a business owner, my first priority is operating a profitable business. This means that I am constantly looking for efficiencies in our business operations and ways to improve our work. I am also extremely particular about the kaupapa we choose to support. I personally abhor the idea of government utilising taxpayers funds to pay lobbyists to tell the government how to speak to its own ministers: the Chief Executive should be a department’s chief lobbyist after all.
In that same vein, my political disposition also causes me to question every and all acts of anti-competitive behaviour. We should welcome competition and actively reject patch-protection. We should be encouraging competitive pricing, delivery focused on outcomes, and allowing users of our services to understand what each dollar spent gets them. It’s one of the foundations of our integrity principle: “I will charge a fee that is fair and reasonable”.
Ultimately, an uncompetitive government relations sector puts the owners of our democracy—us all—at a disadvantage.
So turning back to why there is a generational reluctance to pursue a career in lobbying, my working theory is that the industry has got comfortable self-perpetuating its privilege: an entitlement to the idea that it’s always been done this way, so it always will.
As one of few wahine Māori who owns her own firm free of investor influence, I am acutely aware of my responsibility to emulate the change I want to see. This means proactively seeking to improve transparency and accountability in the industry, as www.lobbyist.nz seeks to do. Once we do this, we may very well be able to encourage the next generation of advocates into our industry and make sure this industry of representatives is truly representative.
