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Jobs gures looking good for Coalition's new lobbyists


Heath Aston Published: January 27, 2014 - 8:21AM

Federal politics: full coverage


Prime Minister Tony Abbott's insistence that Australia is ''open for business'' is being embraced by lobbyists, with dozens of the biggest companies having signed up to Coalition-aligned inuence peddlers already this year for representation in Canberra. The torrent of activity in the increasingly partisan lobbying industry has in turn sparked a mini jobs boom for former Howard government ministers, retired Coalition MPs and Liberal operatives.

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Nick Minchin, the Howard-era nance minister, has joined Alexander Downer at Bespoke Approach whose client list includes Wesfarmers, coal seam gas miner Santos and Chinese-owned coal miner Yancoal. Former treasurer Peter Costello co-owns Melbourne-based ECG Advisory Solutions with his one time political adviser David Gazard. ECG has Westpac, Transurban and detention centre operators Serco on its books. Several lobbyists expressed surprise that Mr Costello and Mr Minchin are not listed on the ocial register of lobbyists. Ian Smith, owner of Bespoke, said Mr Minchin was a special adviser and was not directly lobbying the new government. ECG did not return calls. One lobbyist, who did not wish to be named, said the nexus between business interests and power within the Liberal Party meant there would be greater potential for perceived conicts of interest. The biggest winner in the rush to conservative-aligned lobbyists is Barton Deakin, chaired by former NSW Liberal leader Peter Collins. Since the September election its client list has quadrupled to 63. Barton Deakin is taking on eight out of 10 clients of the Labor-aligned Hawker Britton. Both companies are owned by STW Group and clients are migrated from one to the other depending on which side of politics is in the ascendancy. Barton Deakin, which represents power provider Alinta, multinational contractor Leighton Holdings and computer giant Apple has senior lobbyists who include former chiefs of sta to John Howard, Joe Hockey and Malcolm Turnbull.
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Crosby Textor, headed by Mr Abbott's campaign mastermind, Mark Textor, has taken on 21 new clients. It has also taken on board Mark Neeham, the NSW Liberal state director who steered Mr Abbott's campaign in western Sydney. Former Coalition politicians working in the industry include Helen Coonan, Michael Wooldridge, Gary Humphries, Larry Anthony, Santo Santoro and Phil Baressi. The trend to cash in on party links has already posed a danger for Mr Abbott, who declared shortly after the election that ''you can either be a powerbroker or a lobbyist but you can't be both''. Lobbyist Michael Photios, who has also set up in Canberra under the name Capital Hill Advisory, and Liberal powerbroker Joe Tannous were forced to quit ocial party positions as a consequence. Bruce Hawker, the founder of Hawker Britton and most recently, Kevin Rudd's political adviser, said the industry was quite scrupulous and there was far more oversight of specialist lobbyists than in-house lobbyists retained by most top 100 companies which do not have to list on the register. Follow us on Twitter
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/jobs-gureslooking-good-for-coalitions-new-lobbyists-20140126-31gvg.html

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