This past week there has been much speculation about the Lobbying Disclosure Bill put forward by Green MP Holly Walker. The bill has come under criticism for being poorly drafted and far too broad in scope.

However, these are technical criticisms of the bill’s execution, not its conception, which is equally poor.

In its rambling general policy statement, the bill claims that lobbying is a shadowy pursuit in buying influence away from the public gaze. Bereft of any identifiable problem with the current unregulated regime, the preamble instead relies on the politics of innuendo – that there might be something suspicious going on!

In theory, parliament tries not to make laws on the basis of baseless suspicions. But the broader point is that this bill does not define a problem – it only raises a perception of unfair access. Dealing with the perception of an unidentified problem is a weak basis for enacting laws.

Second, the bill does not espouse any principles or develop an intellectual framework for legislation to deal with lobbyists.

Indeed, maybe the Green Party should talk to more lobbyists and interest groups. Compelling research by University of Michigan economists, Richard Hall and Alan Deardorff, suggests we should view lobbying not as an exercise in persuasion, or exchange, but as a legislative subsidy. This is particularly true in a country like New Zealand with its low levels of corruption and where party whips make it difficult to shift voting preferences.

Instead, lobbyists working for or on behalf of companies and interests groups (whether paid or voluntary) play an essential role in subsidising the activities of parliamentarians. Hall and Deardorff say lobbying is ‘a matching grant of costly policy information, political intelligence, and labor to the enterprises of strategically selected legislators’.

In other words, lobbyists are expert contractors who know vastly more about a policy area than any given politician. Therefore they can contribute to the formulation of good quality legislation.

Viewed this way, New Zealand is fortunate to have an unregulated system of lobbying. Add to this the fact that virtually anyone in a small country such as New Zealand can lobby a politician, and draconian regulation of lobbying activity looks rather unnecessary and a bit foolish.

Perhaps the Green Party should talk to a few lobbyists who can help them draft some decent legislation.