In the three most developed definitions, Australia, Canada and the USA, the important definitional activity was communication.
The definitional construction for all cases at this point, allowing for minor variations in emphasis, is: a lobbyist is any [compensated] a that performs activity b. Activity b is in each case communication. The key variations are communication ‘with who’, ‘about what, and for ‘what purpose’?
‘With who’ can be solved with reference to the particular institutional arrangements of a particular country.
In Australia this was ‘a Government representative’ in Canada ‘a public office holder’; and in the USA ‘a covered executive branch official or a covered legislative branch official’.As New Zealand has an executive drawn from Parliament, similar to Australia and Canada, a simple formulation that refers to both ‘elected and appointed government representatives’ is sufficient.
Communication ‘about what’ is the most difficult definitional aspect. Our concern is with the relationship between public and non-public interests and the exercise of public authority for private benefit. ‘About what’ is concerned therefore with the ways that public authority is operationalised.
In Australia this covers government legislating, policy development, the awarding of contracts and the allocation of funding. The USA has a similar list of functions though also covers communications about the ‘position of the United States Government’. New Zealand should adopt a formulation similar to that of the United States, which is the most clear and succinct and also refers to Government positions.
This would be: ‘communication about the formulation, modification or adoption of any legislation, rule, regulation, executive order or position of the Government’.
‘For what purpose’ is an unnecessary definitional element and may limit the effectiveness of the definition if included, as seen in Canada. In the absence of a purpose however, almost any communication with government representatives would be caught by this definition.
This would include people enquiring about benefit payments, or student loan information. The definitions examined avoid this problem by requiring lobbyists be remunerated in some way. Requiring remuneration however may miss voluntary, community groups or parallel groups constructed to avoid apparent payments.
An alternative method is to exempt those communicating on their own behalf or to alter the remuneration condition to a mandate condition.
Exemptions are a useful way of preventing unwanted regulation and are in the Australian case for example, used to exempt statements made in a public forum or to a committee of the Parliament. Exempting individuals communicating on their own behalf would avoid catching individual representations to government departments but not individuals making promotional claims or justifications for private interests.
Defining interest groups as mandated in some way adds further complexity, but allows for any representative, paid or unpaid to be included in coverage. A mandate condition might also catch family representatives and add additional complexity to government communications.
Mandate could be simply defined to mean appointed, employed or elected, and avoid familial representations.
