This blog takes an interest in issues associated with Freedom of Information (FOI) and privacy legislation in Australia. Information contained on this site is general in nature and does not constitute legal advice. Follow Peter Timmins on Twitter: @foiguru Follow the open government cause through the Australian Open Government Partnership Network. www.opengovernment.org.au and @opengovau
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Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Victorian lobbyists up in lights, NSW could do better
As reported in The Age the Victorian Government's Register of Lobbyists is up and running, with an initial batch of 21 lobbyists, and details searchable, in line with most other states that have taken the plunge. The name of an individual lobbyist employed by a registered firm, or an organisation represented by a lobbyist can easily be ascertained. As mentioned here previously NSW seems to be on its own in making search of the Register difficult- each registration is in a separate pdf file, and there is no search engine that enables a search across all registered firms. For example it should be easy to find if Macquarie Bank has someone roaming the corridors of power, or if former Premier Bob Carr is employed by any registered firm. But you will only find both once you click on RJ Carr Pty Ltd. If you didn't know, you have about 150 separate entries to wade through to find this and other gems.
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Peter - inspired by this blog post I've just spent the last hour and a bit writing some code to automatically extract all the information from these lobbyist PDFs.
ReplyDeleteThe code is available here: http://github.com/mlandauer/nsw_lobbyist_register
Don't worry you don't have to use this!
I'll send you via email a copy of all the resulting data.
Matthew, Terrific- glad you had time for another public service. Look forward to seeing your results. Keep up the great work.
ReplyDeletenot to be left out..
ReplyDeletehttp://github.com/archoo/qld_lobbyists