Andrew Cornwell, the first-term member for Charlestown, has resigned from the Liberal Party after admitting taking a total of $20,000 from two property developers before the 2011 state elections; $10,000 used to fund his campaign and $10,000 used to pay his personal tax bill.

A second new Liberal MP, Tim Owen, the member for Newcastle, initially lied about accepting another envelope containing $10,000 to the developer-donor, and allowed that developer and a second one jointly to pay the $20,000 salary of his campaign media adviser.

Both MPs have apologised for their misbehaviour without accepting much personal responsibility. Both Cornwell and Owen have now resigned from Parliament.

All this follows a string of allegations before ICAC that have brought down the premier, Barry O’Farrell, former minister Chris Hartcher, two other Central Coast MPs, and a parliamentary secretary, Marie Ficarra. The revelations have also engulfed the former chairman of the Liberal Party fund-raising organisation, Paul Nicolaou, and the former federal Liberal parliamentary secretary, Arthur Sinodinos.

The previous Labor Party government had itself descended into a shambles of corruption, musical chairs and factional bitterness.

Since then, ICAC has revealed major corruption inside the Labor government involving not just the major figures, Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, but other ministers as well. The truth is still emerging more than three years later. It was the self-interested shambles as much as policy failures that led to the wholesale rejection of Labor at the 2011 election. The electorate’s opinion of Labor has probably fallen even further since then as more has become known about the failures of that government.

On the basis of what ICAC has revealed, one can only conclude that such corruption - petty, middle-range and major - is business as usual at the higher levels of public life in NSW. There appears to be acceptance of a way of doing political business that is not just illegal but contrary to high ethical standards.

The major political parties are not the only ones responsible for this state of play. It takes two to tango and civil society, business and trade unions are guilty of encouraging falling standards in public life. Politicians have no mortgage on self-interest. Nevertheless, it is no wonder that voters are looking elsewhere and it would be no surprise if minor parties, such as Palmer United and the Greens, as well as Independents, do better at the next NSW elections. Nor is it any surprise that Senate crossbenchers have public support.

Both sides of NSW politics claim to have turned over a new leaf and support tough new lobbying regulations, separating lobbyists from party office-holding, and increased transparency surrounding all dealings with ministers.

But at the heart of the shambles is personal and institutional ethical failure, often driven by the lure of self-interest and advantage, whether it is in getting elected or re-elected or in feathering their own nest. That is hard to regulate against.

This is the context in which it has been announced that the ACT will be introducing what will purportedly be the toughest third-party lobbying rules in the country. All three ACT parliamentary parties are united in stressing the importance of such a new regime and the need for vigilance about special interests in politics. That’s fine as far as it goes. No one would disagree that ACT politics should be kept clean, in the words of the Chief Minister.

But the NSW example shows what a small part of the influence industry is covered by third-party lobbying, which involves paid intermediaries only. The guilty parties in the NSW corruption scandals appear more often than not to be business owners, especially developers, chief executives, board members and interest groups. None of which is covered by narrow third-party lobbyist regulations.

The NSW example also demonstrates the key intersection between campaigning and lobbying. Many of the failures in NSW have involved fund-raising for election campaigning. The same has been true in other states, including the activities of the lobbyist/former premier Brian Burke in Western Australia uncovered by that state’s corruption commission.

Some of the corruption involves party head offices, but in NSW it clearly also extends to the local level. These latest cases involve MPs who were corrupted even before they entered Parliament. Local contests are expensive. What is remarkable is that a single candidate such as Owen in Newcastle, not yet an MP, would have a paid campaign media adviser.

The NSW cases also show that corruption of the political process is a game that is both long and broad. It is long in that it involves new backbenchers who are initially far from the inner circle of ministerial power. It is broad in that it involves not just major public policy issues at the heart of cabinet government, but also the local implementation of government rules and regulations. That is where development proposals enter the picture.

These insights mean that the new ACT lobbying rules should, so far as is practicable, be as wide-ranging as possible. Yet the national pattern, even in the new environment of increased concern about corruption, remains quite narrow. The essence of effective exercise of influence is long-established relationships. The new 25-member ACT Assembly will include many new members and those seeking influence will already have their eye on the likely new candidates.

John Warhurst is an emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University

John.Warhurst@anu.edu.au