It's a real challenge, because I think you could do a real unfairness by preventing a public office holder from effectively being able to have a livelihood. But it's a hugely sensitive area of concern, both temporally—wanting, in other words, to make sure that there is that cooling-off period—and also in an ongoing sense of wanting to make sure you're not trading on access to public information or decision-making in order to gain a private benefit.
The part I'd like to see, and it's not set out as clearly as I think it could be, is an ongoing monitoring, advising, and reporting function, whether for the commissioner or under the lobbying statute in a different way, so that we can actually get much more situational, contextual guidance on the inevitable grey areas as we try to work this through.
I think this is a case in which we're looking for bright lines. The legislation tends to favour bright lines, but bright lines have a way of being unfair to people who end up on either side. Either we're letting things through that in fact are going to jeopardize public confidence or we're stopping people from doing things when in effect there is no threat to public confidence. You've heard this as a bit of a refrain from me, but I much prefer the principled discretion, with an ongoing office holder, commissioner, or other person able to have that jurisdiction, to a series of bright lines that are set out in the act and about which there's no further commentary or guidance.