The revolving door between roles in the Australian government and lobbyists for the alcohol, food and gambling industries poses a risk to public health, a new study claims.
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A third of the people on the Australian government register of lobbyists stated they'd formerly been a government representative, with half of those whose careers were examined by the researchers working in government either as an MP or an adviser for more than 10 years before moving to lobbying.
That just amplifies the disparity and the influence between the industry and the community sector, the sort of revolving door.
- Former political staffer
The study, by Narelle Robertson, Gary Sacks and Peter Miller at Deakin University and published in the Public Health Research and Practice Journal on Wednesday, finds this gives industries like alcohol, food and gambling an advantage over public health advocates in their ability to influence government policy.
As part of the study, politicians, journalists, public health advocates and former staffers were interviewed and asked about their experiences interacting with the representatives of alcohol, food and gambling companies.
A former political staffer said politicians would step in if regulatory measures aimed at reducing alcohol-related harm would affect the economic side of the industry.
"The politicians would go nuts [be strongly opposed to such measures] if it was felt that the regulator was going to suddenly do things that would be entirely consistent with reducing [alcohol-related] harm, but might reduce economic benefits of the [alcohol] industry itself," the ex-staffer said in an interview.
"You'd find pretty quickly that they'd step in [to avoid changes to regulations]."
A former staffer said a new minister's chief of staff was as recently as six months previously the lobbyist for the industry group in the same area.
"That just amplifies the disparity and the influence between the industry and the community sector, the sort of revolving door."
A journalist interviewed even pointed out the issues with registered lobbyists taking leave from their jobs, working on political campaigns for members of parliament and then rejoining the lobby firm when the person they campaigned for could be in government or even a minister.
"it still raises questions about whether or not that creates a situation where there may be undue influence on that MP/Minister."
The "revolving door" between government and industry is "relatively commonplace" in Australia, the study suggests and "poses a substantial risk to the development of effective public health policies".
The study also explained how a health star rating system for food products was endorsed by the government and opposed by several major food companies in 2014, when it was revealed the chief of staff to the then minister responsible, Fiona Nash, co-owned a lobby firm representing major food companies.
The rating system was temporarily shut down by the minister, causing a wave of controversy and accusations of a conflict of interest, leading to the chief of staff Alastair Furnival to resign from the role.