Role of lobbyists in climate law change just one example of unhealthy influences in politics
Tuesday, 9 June 2026
Dr Summer Wright is convenor of OraTaiao: Aotearoa New Zealand Climate and Health Council and a public health researcher at the University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau; Dr George Laking is an executive board member of OraTaiao and a cancer specialist based at the university.
OPINION: Climate change is hurting us. Over the last year, a storm hit our communities once every eight days on average, resulting in lost and damaged homes, communities cut off, essential infrastructure broken and the loss of people’s lives.
At the same time, recent reporting revealed two of the country’s biggest climate polluters, Fonterra and Z Energy, had ready access to the Prime Minister’s office to lobby for law changes that would reduce the public’s ability to hold them to account for their harm. The two businesses advocated a law change to effectively ban civil lawsuits against companies for their climate-damaging emissions.
Luxon’s Cabinet approved this change, with language that closely resembles that put forward by the companies.
The Prime Minister then claimed his office had no record and no recollection of receiving the documents that the companies themselves say they printed out and gave to Luxon’s staff. It has since been revealed that the documents were sent to the Gmail account of Luxon’s then-chief policy adviser and given to him as a hard copy when he met with the companies. The meeting was also not formally recorded.
Read more:
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It must be highlighted, again and again, that this is unacceptable.
Transparency, robust record keeping and adherence to the Official Information Act are critical for the health of our democracy and must be defended by all, especially the Prime Minister.
Luxon has subsequently said he is taking the matter seriously, but simply looking into this one staff member’s inbox as is planned is not enough. Vastly more is needed. Because the closeness of this Government to companies which may cause environmental damage or public health harm is not a one-off. It is a pattern that needs more scrutiny.
In 2023, Associate Minister of Health Casey Costello’s office received a briefing on repealing legislation that restricted tobacco, and weakening other efforts to reduce smoking. In other words, scrapping protections for New Zealanders’ health and introducing policies that would benefit the tobacco industry.
The document was passed on to officials and when questioned on how it came to her office, Costello similarly first denied its existence and then said her office had no record of who wrote it or how it arrived. However, the Government went on to follow many of its recommendations and ministers, including Luxon, used the same talking points as the tobacco industry to argue for these changes.
The following year, the Newsroom website revealed Minister for Resources Shane Jones had an undisclosed dinner with a mining company representative during which he encouraged him to write to Minister for Resource Management Reform Chris Bishop for inclusion in the Fast-track Approvals Bill. Jones described the dinner as “very much a last-minute thing, because I was in the middle of nowhere”, and that his advice was the same as he had given others wanting fast-track consideration.
RNZ recently reported $400,000 was donated to National and NZ First in 2025 from people or entities linked to fast-track projects.
Public health researchers found transnational dairy and baby food corporations lobbied this Government successfully to reject updated infant formula standards in what they said was a “rare departure from the joint food standards programme with Australia, administered by Food Standards Australia New Zealand”.
Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee is changing alcohol laws to reduce restrictions on sales in a way that favours the industry. She u-turned on earlier proposals to tighten restrictions on liquor sales and argued that the focus of law changes should be to support economic growth. Andrew Galloway, executive director of Alcohol Healthwatch, believed industry lobbying was at play and said of the changes, “we will continue to miss every meaningful opportunity to reduce or prevent alcohol harm in New Zealand if we continue to allow unbridled access to power for harmful commodity industries'.
No one should accept or normalise ministerial access that is unbridled, never mind unrecorded or undisclosed. It is corrosive for democracy and often harmful to our people. Those who claim this is just how politics works do not understand how harmful this unregulated influence is on democracy and people’s health, or fail to recognise that controls to strengthen democracy and better protect the public are both possible and necessary.
Why does this matter for those of us working at the intersection of climate change and health? Because national-level coordination and policy responses to climate change are essential to the health, well-being, stability and safety of communities. This work is delayed and derailed by the normalisation of murky relationships between government and industries that cause harm.
Luxon and his Government cannot simply continue to bat away questions around this issue. It is at the core of democracy.
It is time for all political parties to show how they will keep commercial interests' influence over government in check. Capping political donations is a good place to start. Rules on “revolving doors”, preventing back-to-back movement of employees between the public and private sector, would be another. This election year, let’s demand to know how parties will strengthen our democracy.