Integrity Briefing: Launching the NZ Lobbying & Influence Register

New Zealand politics is getting a dose of disinfecting sunlight. Today the Integrity Institute is proud to announce the launch of our “NZ Lobbying & Influence Register” on our website. This is an independent, “unauthorised” public register shining a light on who is influencing our politics. We’re doing this because, quite frankly, New Zealand still has no official lobbying register or adequate transparency rules, leaving us lagging behind most other democracies. In the words of Justice Louis Brandeis, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”, and this register is built on that ethos. It’s a public good initiative to demonstrate exactly what a proper lobbying register should contain – until our lawmakers catch up and implement a mandatory one.

Filling the transparency gap with an ‘unauthorised’ register

For years, experts have warned that New Zealand is a Wild West of unregulated lobbying. The OECD recently ranked us 34th out of 38 countries for regulating influence on policymaking, noting that New Zealand “is not close to the frontier of international best practice… which does not foster a level playing field.” Successive governments have been slow to act, so The Integrity Institute has decided to step up. In the absence of any mandatory public register of lobbyists, we’ve created our own “unauthorised” version.

This “NZ Lobbying & Influence Register” details the political activities and influence of a wide range of players – companies, lobbying firms, industry groups, unions, NGOs – anyone with a hand in shaping government policy. Our mission is to assist the public (and journalists, and honest politicians) in scrutinising these elite political participants. We are essentially performing a civic watchdog role, scrutinising and challenging vested interests, especially wealthy individuals and entities who often wield outsized influence.

What’s in our register? Already, it contains dozens of entries covering the Who’s Who of political influence in Aotearoa. You’ll find major corporate lobby groups and PR consultancies, from BusinessNZ and the Chambers of Commerce to lobbying firms like Capital Government Relations and Thompson Lewis. You’ll also find powerful corporates and law firms – the likes of banks, Big Four consultancies, and legal powerhouses (e.g. Westpac, Deloitte, Chapman Tripp, Russell McVeagh) – alongside prominent industry associations for everything from farming to pharmaceuticals. We’ve even included public interest groups and unions. In short, if an organisation often spends its days bending the ears of ministers or officials, it belongs on this register.

Crucially, this is a living document. It will be updated regularly and improved over time as we gather more information. We’re releasing the first batch of entries now, but consider them drafts – the register is constantly evolving and we openly invite public input. In fact, we want crowdsourced information: if you spot any errors or missing details, or have tips on who else should be listed, please let us know.

As the intro to our register explains, “Our first entries are just drafts… We hope the public, or even the entities listed, will contact us with corrections or further information”. You can email us in confidence or leave comments on our Substack. This collaborative approach means the register will become more comprehensive and accurate as more eyes scrutinise it. By publishing what we can find – even if incomplete – we aim to “show by doing” what an official lobbying register could look like, and prod the powers-that-be into action.

(To explore the register, visit our Substack here – and please send us your feedback or additional intel. This project belongs to all New Zealanders who care about open government.)

‘Let’s Level the Playing Field’: A welcome campaign – with a gentle touch

It’s not just us taking action today. In a happy coincidence of timing, a coalition of respected organisations has launched a major campaign to “Let’s Level the Playing Field” on lobbying. Transparency International New Zealand (TINZ), the Helen Clark Foundation, and Health Coalition Aotearoa (HCA) are behind this joint initiative, unveiled this morning. We congratulate these groups – and the esteemed figures backing the campaign such as Helen Clark and Christopher Finlayson – for putting the spotlight on our under-regulated lobbying industry. When Transparency International NZ chair (and former Cabinet Minister) Anne Tolley and HCA co-chair Boyd Swinburn speak up about the need to “end hidden lobbying” and restore fairness in government decision-making, it sends a powerful signal that momentum is building for reform.

The “Level the Playing Field” campaign is a much-needed push for transparency and integrity. It comes with a comprehensive five-point reform plan to overhaul how lobbying is managed in New Zealand. The coalition is calling for sensible, internationally proven measures – a publicly accessible register of lobbyists and their meetings, a mandatory code of conduct for lobbyists enforced by an Integrity Commission, a “cooling off” period to slow the revolving door (so ministers and officials can’t jump straight into lobbying roles), stronger conflict-of-interest rules for officials, a modernised Official Information Act, and tighter political donation laws. These changes would go a long way to bringing New Zealand up to first-world standards of transparency.

The tone of campaign launch is deliberately moderate and non-confrontational. The focus is on principles and systems rather than pointing any fingers. “Policy must serve the public, not just those with money and access,” said Professor Boyd Swinburn, underscoring the need for fairness. He warned that “when industry lobbying goes unchecked, powerful interests override public good. We need transparency, accountability, and a system that works for everyone.”

Similarly, Anne Tolley – a former National Cabinet Minister now lending cross-partisan gravitas to the cause – struck a pragmatic note about working with reality. “We want some clear rules,” she said simply. Tolley emphasised that lobbying itself isn’t evil, just opaque: “you’re never going to stop the lobbying industry, but we want it to be much more open and clarified at the same time”. In other words, the goal is to bring lobbying into the sunlight, not to demonise it. Tolley even acknowledged that politicians inevitably get lobbied “the minute you walk out the door” – it’s part of the democratic landscape – but argued that clear rules and transparency can dispel public suspicions of backroom deals.

This diplomatic, good-cop approach is designed to win broad political support. It avoids naming and shaming any specific lobbyists or politicians, instead appealing to all parties to support systemic fixes that improve trust in government.

We applaud the Level the Playing Field campaign for its constructive spirit. It has heavyweight support – including plenty of former senior politicians. The campaign is well-resourced, highly professional, and focused on building consensus. It’s exactly the kind of mainstream momentum that could finally help get our Parliament to act on lobbying reform.

Of course, there’s a risk that such a moderate strategy might pull its punches. Achieving political buy-in is important, but if it comes at the cost of glossing over the real culprits and power imbalances, the effort could end up being too soft and, ultimately, ineffectual.

Playing ‘Bad Cop’: The Integrity Institute’s more radical approach

The Integrity Institute’s role in this fight is deliberately different. Think of it as a “good cop, bad cop” dynamic – with us cast as the bad cop. While the TINZ/HCF/HCA coalition is working inside the tent, seeking polite cooperation and cross-party agreement, we’re quite happy to be on the outside, turning up the heat.

Our approach is unapologetically more radical and confrontational, and we believe it’s a necessary complement to the more moderate campaign. Why? Because some truths need to be told bluntly, and some vested interests need to be named and shamed before they’re forced to change their ways.

In practice, this means The Integrity Institute will do things that the other campaign can’t. For one, we name names. Where the Level the Playing Field coalition talks about lobbying in general terms, we’ll call out specific instances and actors of undue influence.

If a particular industry lobby or well-connected consultant has the ear of Ministers, we think New Zealanders should know exactly who they are. Indeed, our new register is all about naming names – listing each lobbying firm, each corporate advocacy front, and even individual influence-peddlers where possible, out in the open. We won’t shy away from pointing to, say, the role of tobacco, alcohol, or gambling industries in policy U-turns, or identifying ex-politicians who’ve spun through the revolving door into lucrative lobbying jobs.

For example, the Level the Playing Field campaign politely refers to a “worst case” of a minister-turned-lobbyist without naming them; in contrast, we have no problem noting that former Cabinet minister Kris Faafoi left office and almost immediately set up a lobbying firm – a stark illustration of the revolving-door problem. Likewise, when a tobacco giant’s lobbying plan (revealed last year) showed how it convinced the government to weaken Smokefree laws, we believe in calling that out explicitly.

The campaign led by Anne Tolley has tactfully highlighted such cases of policy being skewed by private interests – mentioning the recent repeal of world-leading Smokefree laws and the watering down of infant formula regulations under industry pressure – but understandably they don’t want to name the companies or lobbyists involved. But in our view, the public deserves the whole story, with the names attached.

By playing the “bad cop” – by being willing to confront and even offend the powerful – we hope to push the envelope of debate. And hopefully our more aggressive stance can actually make the “good cops” (the TINZ and friends coalition) more effective: it shifts the Overton window of what’s acceptable to talk about. Politicians may prefer to deal with the moderate reformers across the table rather than be chastised by us in public.

In that way, we see our campaigns as complementary. We’ll be cheering the mainstream campaign’s progress, but also holding it to account if it pulls its punches or if political pressure threatens to neuter its demands. New Zealand has seen well-intentioned integrity initiatives in the past that were co-opted or quietly shelved under lobbying from the status quo. We want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

That means we won’t hesitate to speak up if we feel any “consensus” is leading to compromise on real transparency. Our loyalty is to the public interest alone, not to maintaining anyone’s comfort level in Wellington.

This “bad cop” role also involves digging deeper and investigating the dark corners that many would prefer remain unseen. Over the next two years, the Integrity Institute will roll out a series of investigative reports exposing how elite influence operates in New Zealand. We’ll scrutinise case studies of lobbying wins, follow the money, and trace the networks of influence between politicians, corporates, and lobbyists. Some of this might get uncomfortable for those in power (and even for those in the good cop camp), but that’s democracy.

Robust debate and fearless inquiry are what ultimately drive change. We firmly believe that by naming and shaming where necessary, and refusing to compromise on systemic reform, we can build public pressure strong enough that politicians of all stripes will find it impossible to ignore. The good cops argue for reform on principled grounds – we’ll argue for it by exposing the gritty details that make the status quo indefensible.

Join us – This is just the beginning

The launch of the “NZ Lobbying & Influence Register” is just the first step in what will be a sustained campaign to clean up political lobbying in New Zealand. We invite everyone — the general public, journalists, whistle-blowers inside the system, and yes, even ethical campaigners and politicians — to use this register, contribute to it, and hold us to high standards in maintaining it. You can find the register on our Substack website (link below) and we welcome feedback, corrections, and additional information to keep it up-to-date. This project will only thrive with crowd-sourced vigilance. Together, let’s crowdsource the monitoring of those who have for too long operated in the shadows.

Finally, it’s great to see the Let’s Level the Playing Field campaign kick off today. It’s heartening to see broad consensus that the time for lobbying reform is now.

The fight for integrity in politics is on, and it won’t be won overnight. Both the gentle persuaders and the noisy muckrakers have a part to play. We’re in this for the long haul – in fact, the Integrity Institute has mapped out at least a two-year campaign of research and investigative journalism on lobbying and influence leading up to the next election. This is the beginning of a new era of scrutiny. If we keep the pressure on, and keep the sunlight shining in, New Zealand will join the ranks of countries with robust lobbying transparency and oversight. Let’s level the playing field – and ensure it stays level.

Explore the NZ Lobbying & Influence Register here, and please get in touch if you can help improve it. We look forward to your input as we continue to expose how power really works in our country, and how we can reclaim our democracy for the public good.

Dr Bryce Edwards

Director of The Integrity Institute