About

Open Politics was established in 2022 by Sean Johnson to increase public scrutiny of the private interests of our federal politicians - their investment properties, family trusts, share portfolios, and debts, as well as the gifts, trips, and entertainment many receive from those seeking to influence the political system.

MPs' interests are declared to the Register of Members' Interests and those of senators to the Register of Senators' Interests. Statements must be provided within 28 days of an MP or senator being sworn into parliament, and any alterations during the parliamentary term need to be declared within 28 days for MPs and 35 days for senators.

While the registers aid transparency, they have major flaws which impede the public’s ability to fully examine statements for conflicts of interest.

One is that MPs' statements are published as separate pdf documents, which inhibits browsing and detailed scrutiny of the registers. Adding to these difficulties are the practices of some MPs who submit scanned and handwritten statements.

So in 2021 Open Politics began digitising the interests of all 227 MPs and senators in the parliament, including ongoing updates to reflect statement alterations, to enable the public to easily see how many interests each politician has disclosed and where those interests are concentrated.

The database also allows us to analyse the registers as a whole and produce stories like these.

Unfortunately, due to other flaws with the registers we cannot provide a complete picture of all MPs’ and senators’ interests. Perhaps the biggest hole in the system is that senators, unlike MPs, are not required to publicly disclose the interests of their spouses/partners and dependent children. These interests are kept confidential by the Committee of Senators’ Interests and may only be disclosed if the committee determines there is a conflict of interest.

Another shortcoming is the lack of enforcement. On paper, if someone knowingly provides false or misleading information to the registers, or knowingly fails to declare their interests and changes in a timely manner, they can be found guilty of serious contempt of parliament and dealt with accordingly.

But in practice the registers operate more on an honours system that leaves it to MPs and senators to decide whether to disclose an interest and in what detail, as we saw with the decision to clear Christian Porter of breaking the rules for not disclosing who helped fund his legal fees in a defamation case.

Nonetheless, there was some accountability, with Porter forced to resign from Cabinet in the wake of media and political pressure and the Prime Minister’s subsequent decision to hold an investigation into whether the non-disclosure breached ministerial standards.

Indeed, this is usually how things work in politics. MPs and senators are held less to account by official processes than by external forces like the media, whistleblowers, and, of course, their political opponents.

Open Politics' objective is to contribute to this system of external accountability in a non-partisan way. And we want to help drive reform of the disclosure regime through more complete and timely disclosure, the creation of an independent body to enforce the rules, and restrictions on MPs and senators receiving gifts and sponsored travel or hospitality.