Australia’s Government Relations Market
The size and structure of Australia's federal government relations and lobbying market.
Last updated: 3 October 2026
The market at a glance
Who hires lobbying firms
Clients run from small charities to ASX-listed companies.
151 business clients are listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and 61 are listed on overseas exchanges. The remaining 1,617 businesses are unlisted or private commercial entities.
Among 755 not-for-profits, 478 clients are registered charities. Registered charities outnumber ASX-listed companies on the register roughly three to one: 478 clients to 151.
360 clients, or about one in seven clients on the register, are Australian-resident businesses or Australian registered charities with annual income of $100 million or more. This figure and the registered charity count depend on matching a client to an ABN, which the register does not always record, so each is a floor.
Where the work is
Lobby500 classifies clients across 14 industry sectors. The work is concentrated: the four largest sectors account for more than half of all clients - 1,414 of 2,659 clients, or 53.2% of the register.
Health & Life Sciences is the largest industry sector, with 499 clients (18.8%). Financial & Business Services (370, 13.9%), Manufacturing & Industrial (291, 10.9%) and Technology & Communications (254, 9.6%) follow.
Retail & Consumer is the smallest industry sector, with 58 clients (2.2%).
The Sector Leaders ranking shows the leading firms in each of the 14 sectors.
What the firms look like
The typical firm across the register has 1 lobbyist and 3 clients across 2 sectors.
The typical top-30 firm in the Market Leaders ranking has 6 lobbyists and 32.5 clients across 10 sectors. Those top 30 firms together represent 44% of all clients on the register.
Firms differ by more than size. Some are specialist government relations and lobbying practices. For others, government relations and lobbying sit alongside public affairs, communications or corporate advisory work. Some emphasise particular sectors, policy and regulatory work, political strategy, research or campaigns. But those are leanings, not limits: most firms represent clients across sectors, and a stated specialisation rarely covers everything a firm does.
Team structures vary too: some firms are built around a small group of senior advisers; others are larger national or international practices with senior practitioners as part of broader teams.
The six Lobby500 rankings show which firms lead on client counts, growth and their teams.
The market on the public record
The Australian Government Register of Lobbyists represents the visible part of the larger federal lobbying and government relations industry.
The register covers third-party lobbying only: firms engaged by clients to lobby on their behalf. In-house government relations teams at corporations, industry associations and charities do not appear on it. Evidence to a Senate committee put third-party lobbyists at an estimated 20 per cent of all lobbyists; the rest are in-house.
Lobby500 ranks the federal lobbying market in Australia. Each state and territory operates its own lobbyist register, and many firms appear on several registers. The federal register is the largest in the country, covering more firms than any other.
The industry largely describes its work as government relations. The register calls it lobbying, and defines it more precisely: communicating with government representatives, on a client's behalf, to influence decisions on policy, legislation, contracts or funding.
More background: What is lobbying?
Notes
What these figures count
Client and lobbyist counts on the register are listings, not distinct entities or individuals: a client that engages two firms appears twice, as does a lobbyist working for two firms. For ease of reference, this page refers to client and lobbyist listings simply as clients or lobbyists.
How the rankings differ
Duplicate listings for the same client at the same firm count once. A firm's own entities are not counted. A coalition and its members count as one client. Clients confirmed to have ceased operating are removed. How Lobby500 checks the data is set out in the methodology.
Sources
Australian charity annual income and Australian-resident company annual income figures adapt ACNC Annual Information Statement data (© Commonwealth of Australia, CC BY 4.0) and ATO corporate tax transparency data (© Australian Taxation Office for the Commonwealth of Australia, CC BY 3.0 AU). Neither source is used to calculate the rankings.
See which firms lead the market
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