who needs to register?

For the purposes of the Register of Lobbyists, a lobbyist is any person, company or organisation who conducts lobbying activities or whose employees conduct lobbying activities on behalf of a client.

There are a number of exclusions from this definition:

• charitable, religious and other organisations or funds that are endorsed as deductible gift recipients;
• non profit associations or organisations constituted to represent the interests of their members that are not endorsed as deductible gift recipients;
• individuals making representations on behalf of relatives or friends about their personal affairs;
• members of trade delegations visiting Australia;
• persons who are already registered under an Australian Government scheme regulating certain professions (such as tax agents, custom brokers, company auditors and liquidators) who make representations to the Government on behalf of clients, as part of the normal day to day work of people in that profession;
• service providers (such as lawyers, doctors, accountants and other service providers);
who make occasional representations to the Government on behalf of clients in a way that is incidental to the provision of their professional services; and
• representatives of other Governments, or Government agencies or Inquiries.

For the avoidance of doubt, a lobbyist does not include any person, company or organisation, or the employees of such a company or organisation, engaging in lobbying activities on their own behalf rather than for a client, and does not require any such person, company or organisation to be recorded in the Register of Lobbyists unless that person, company or organisation or its employees also engage in lobbying activities on behalf of a client or clients.

Lobbying activities means communications in an effort to influence Government decision-making.

Detailed definitions of lobbying activities, lobbyist, client and Government representative are contained in clause 3 of the Lobbying Code of Conduct (PDF, 42KB).