Labor and Coalition members of Australia's parliament are facilitating permanent access to Parliament House for the country's biggest resources companies and for the lobby group representing online gambling giants, according to new data reported by The Guardian.
The Guardian's report, written by political editor Tom McIlroy, says the members are sponsoring the resource companies and the lobby group. Its headline describes the lobbyists as "powerful political lobbyists" and says MPs are granting them unfettered access to Australia's parliament.
The Guardian's summary states that the access is permanent and extends to Parliament House. It names both Labor and Coalition members as involved, so the arrangement is described as spanning both sides of Australian politics.
The summary also refers to updated rules governing this access, but the text available breaks off mid-sentence before describing them. No date for those updates is given in the summary, and the contents of the rules therefore cannot be confirmed from the material reviewed for this report.
The summary does not name individual companies, members or lobby groups, and it does not provide figures. It also does not include comment from the parties, the companies or the lobby group, so their positions are not reported here.
The Guardian describes the new data as revealing these arrangements. Readers seeking the full findings and their context are directed to The Guardian's complete report.