Your obligations under the codes
When you can't engage with lobbyists
Public sector employees becoming lobbyists
As a Victorian public sector employee, lobbyists may contact you to influence Government decisions.
This guide helps you understand your obligations and what to do when you’re working in the office or remotely.
When you’re working in the office or remotely and a lobbyist contacts you, you have obligations under the:
When a lobbyist contacts you, you must behave in line with the 7 public sector values in the Code of Conduct.
You must also comply with your organisation’s relevant policies, including those on probity and grants.
Relevant values and behaviours from the Code of Conduct include:
Integrity
Impartiality
Accountability
Under the code, you must check if a lobbyist is on the register of lobbyists before you meet with them. This will assure you of their credentials.
If a lobbyist is not on the register, you must tell them you can’t meet until they register.
If a lobbyist contacts you and isn’t on the register, email [email protected] or call 03 7004 7243 to advise that a lobbyist tried to meet with you but wasn’t registered.
To check if someone is a lobbyist, you can also check their company website.
Their website may advertise services like government relations or public affairs. It may also have a list of clients or former political links of its staff. Having this information on their website also suggests they are a lobbyist.
If you want to check if a lobbyist is registered but can’t access the register of lobbyists, email [email protected].
Under the code, you can only meet with a person who says they’re a lobbyist after they confirm:
Lobbyists must provide you with the above information under the Lobbyist Code. These requirements help transparent and well-informed decision making.
Lobbyists must behave in line with the Lobbyist Code of Conduct.
They have a duty to be ethical, transparent and act to the highest standards of professional conduct in line with probity requirements.
This helps to uphold public expectations of transparency, integrity and honesty.
You must not engage with lobbyists when they’re involved in a government tender process.
Buying for Victoria’s how to plan for probity says all buyers must provide the same information to all suppliers, be fair and not preference any bidder.
This means if you engaged with lobbyists during a government tender process, you may give the lobbyist’s clients an advantage and have a conflict of interest.
You must not discuss information you’re not authorised to disclose.
This includes:
You can become a lobbyist when you leave the public sector, with some restrictions if you were an executive.
For 12 months after you leave your employment as an executive, you must not engage in lobbying activities on any matters you had official dealings with. This is to prevent a conflict of interest.
Under the Lobbyist Code, a lobbyist is a person, company or organisation who works on behalf of a third-party client to influence government outcomes.
Lobbyists seek to influence public sector employees or politicians to support an outcome favourable to their third-party client.
Government affairs directors have a paid role to do the same kind of work as lobbyists in either:
To keep it simple in this guide, we refer to government affairs directors as lobbyists.
A person, company or organisation is not a lobbyist if they act on their own behalf, rather than a client, to influence government outcomes.
A lobbyist doesn’t include:
Lobbyists try to influence favourable outcomes on government decisions like:
But lobbying activities don’t include things like:
A lobbyist might try to engage with you if you work in the following areas:
As a public sector employee, you’re not obliged to meet with a lobbyist unless you’re lawfully directed to do so.