Democratic systems are built on the principle that our governments are elected to govern for the benefit of all citizens, especially people in their own electorates. They are expected to consider the views and needs of individuals, groups, institutions and organisations that represent the interests of citizens. They are expected to do their best to enact the wishes of as many of their citizens as possible.

There is a big catch - they can only do this if we tell them what we want!

When we consider whether our representative is doing a good enough job, we also need to ask ourselves, are we doing a good enough job as citizens? Are we doing our job in sharing our thinking, expressing our wishes, asking questions and supporting them to do their job as well as they can?

In a complex society where politics is dominated by parties, powerful lobby groups and the imperatives of our economic system, it may sometimes feel like there is little or nothing we can do as ordinary citizens, or small community groups. It's an understandable feeling, but fortunately it is only a feeling – the reality is that we can have power and influence, particularly when we are focussed, connected and part of a group with a common purpose.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead.

The CCL Organisation

Lobbying on our own can be useful. Lobbying with a group of people with a common purpose is likely to be much more powerful. And lobbying as part of a national or international organisation with a common purpose is likely to be even more powerful.

CCL is organised at the local, regional, State, National and International levels. This gives us a big platform to stand on as we seek to enact our common purpose.

So if we wish to lobby our representative it makes sense to start by reaching out to others in CCL, whether locally or online.

Finding Others Who Share Our Concerns

If CCL is active in your local area, it is a simple matter to join forces and go from there. If CCL isn’t active in your local area, people in your families or networks may be interested in addressing the climate crisis with you.

All we need is 3 or 4 others. We can approach them individually or organise a meet-up in a café, a park or our home; or if we are spread across some distance, online. We can share our thoughts and feelings about climate and environment and find some common ground on which we can work together.

At some point we can share what we have learned about CCL’s relationship-based approach to building political will, putting a price on carbon, returning a ‘climate dividend’ to households and invite them to find out more on our website.

Forming a CCL Group

If there is plenty of interest in lobbying for climate solutions, then forming a CCL group may be a logical step. If not, CCL will help you make contact with others who can join in your local efforts, whether from a neighbouring area or online.

Not everyone will be drawn to CCL’s approach. That’s fine as there are many groups and orgs working in different ways and all of them are needed.

Some will like our relationship-building approach, our values, our focus on solutions and our advocacy for a robust and equitable price on carbon. They are the ones we will need to join or form a CCL group. They are the ones who will be inspired, hopeful and keen to build political will, with their MP and other people of influence.

Once we have 3 or more interested people from our own contacts or from CCL’s membership, connecting with our MP/MPs is a logical next step. Our relationship-building now extends beyond us, towards our elected representatives and their influencers.

Crafting a personal approach

While each team will find its own way to connect with their MP, these are some of the steps that help us get there.

• Share our knowledge about our MP/s and any connections we have with them

• Do plenty of research to get to know who they are, what they value, which community groups they link with, what they said in their first speech, what they are posting on social media, etc

• Find out who their influencers are, people with power and influence in the community

• Record key findings in a bio

• Work out who wants to lobby and who would prefer a background role in research or support roles

Writing to a politician

The standard way to get a meeting with your MP is simply to send an email requesting a meeting,

But first, it’s important to decide who in your group is going to be your liaison, the main point of contact with the MP’s office.

“CCL liaisons build ongoing relationships with their MPs and their staff by maintaining regular personal contact and by coordinating the group’s meetings and communication with that office. This can include updating the office with timely resources related to climate change, planning meeting agendas, or even inviting the staff to a local event.” For more information and training options see Becoming A CCL Liaison on our US website

It is probably best for your email to be brief. It needs to include

• information about CCL

• your wish to discuss climate solutions

• reference to other connections you may already have with your MP

• anything that may help you get a meeting

Follow up with a phone call a few days later to ask how the request is progressing. You may get put through to the ‘diary secretary’ who may be able to give you an appointment there and then.

MP’s diaries are pretty full so it may take weeks to secure a meeting. Be patient, keep in contact and stay friendly.

Every contact with the office is a valuable opportunity to build relationships so be friendly, respectful and appreciative.

Great Phone Calls

Some people prefer making contact by phone. If this is you, the thing to remember is that you are unlikely to be put through to the MP and will find yourself talking to a staffer. No matter! Staffers are integral to the process and this is your chance to establish rapport.

You will need to prepare a short pitch beforehand with a few key points. The most likely result of your first call will be that the staffer will promise to follow up your enquiry and get back to you. Try to suggest instead that you will call back in a little while and then do so anyway if you haven’t heard back within a week. Repeat as required, remaining friendly throughout these exchanges.

Other Ways to Get in Touch

A neat hand-written letter always gets noticed.

Presenting yourself at the MP’s office is also a sure way of getting attention.

Staffers, allies and influencers

Everyone who works in an MP’s office is important to us. So every interaction we have with any member of staff is important. Building relationships is central to everything we do so making friends with our MP’s office needs to be central as well. Getting to know them, learn their names, understanding their roles and interests, making notes so you don’t forget the details, engaging regularly and thoughtfully are all important. Even small valueless gifts and gestures can be appropriate. One volunteer famously gave a bottle of home-made ginger beer to a staffer which exploded but they already had good rapport and the incident became a humorous incident in a valuable relationship with the office.

CCL has built an enormous amount of experience and skill through 14+ years of lobbying across the world.

There are four stages involved to make a meeting go really well

1. Planning and preparation – researching and learning all you can as a team

2. Briefing – final team meeting just before the MP meeting

3. The Meeting itself

4. De-briefing – team meeting straight after the MP meeting to reflect what happened and maximise learning

This article gives a simple outline for a standard MP meeting that is a great starting point for planning and preparing for any lobby meeting.

It enables the team to allocate roles to each member and suggests a format for the first five minutes or so - introductions, appreciation, asking how much time we have, stating our purpose and making our ask. From that point the meeting will follow the interplay between the MP and your group.

Meeting of Minds

Once we have made our ask, we listen – we pay close attention so we can hear their response as clearly as possible. We then respond to what they have said in whatever way makes sense to us at the time and has a chance of moving them towards supporting our request. Our planning and research may give us a good idea of their position on climate and carbon pricing and prepare us to some extent but there is no way of knowing how they will actually respond to our ask. They will range from interested questioning to outright dismissal.

Thorough reading and discussion of our Policy Playbook equips us with sound knowledge that will enable us to respond flexibly and constructively to wherever the conversation takes us. But it is important to remember that knowledge and information may not carry much weight in the highly contested and emotional area of climate and energy policy. It's important to be logical and rational in our thinking but it’s equally important to be aware that there are strong emotional and identity-based components of people’s positions on climate and energy, including our own! This requires significant empathy and understanding of the person we are meeting with, and awareness of our own emotional drivers.

By building and maintaining a genuine connection and open communication we are more likely to achieve breakthroughs than an exchange of differing positions that might lead to defensiveness and a closing of minds.

The power of listening – building connection and empathy

As a rule we aim to

• listen more than talk

• speak no more than three sentences at a time

• ask open questions in a relaxed and interested tone

• listen closely to the answers

• reply thoughtfully in ways that meet their needs, not ours

• keep building a relationship such that we will be welcomed to a future meeting

Be aware of the power of listening. The words we use are only a small component of what is communicated in a meeting. Our posture, tone of voice and facial expressions say a great deal more. Approaching our representatives with respect, appreciation and generosity makes it much more likely that we will be communicating in ways that enable our representative to relax and be open to us. And having empathy for them - the position they are in, the pressures they endure, their life experiences to date, etc, - are important ways to connect. All of these can help disarm the defensiveness that MPs have had to build up to protect themselves in the rough and tumble of politics.

Co-counselling for climate advocates is a useful training exercise which CCL offers.

A specific approach for moving from shared values into productive discussion of carbon pricing and climate dividends is motivational interviewing. There are useful resources on this approach on the US CCL website.

Another useful resource is Political Lobbying: Listening and Empathising.

Following up afterwards

Follow up is very important. Here are the main steps

• Send or hand deliver a hand-written card, signed by all or by one on behalf of the team, thanking them for the meeting

• Write an email and/or a letter

• outlining what you think were the main achievements/outcomes of the meeting

• answering any questions you were unable to answer during the meeting

• providing information that you said you would send – or that you subsequently decided would be useful

• giving thanks for the meeting and for their time and attention

• Keep an eye out for articles, papers, letters to the editor that relate to your discussion in some way and share them with the MP and/or key staff members

• Try to have regular contact of some kind, always respectful, thoughtful and generous

Showing gratitude

Your MP and their staff are busy people and are dealing with large numbers of people, requests and communications every day. So regular friendly communications and expressions of gratitude from us help to keep us in their consciousness so that whenever climate related issues come up they may remember us and what we have to offer.

Our gratitude may also lead to them returning our favours by sharing information and inviting us to events and meetings that may be useful to us as well.

And importantly, it may lead to them seeing us as a reliable valuable source of policy advice.

Meeting and building a relationship with our MP is only one way to lobby. There are other activities that can complement our direct contacts with our MP

• Meetings with prominent people, State MPs, and Shire Councils who may have influence on your MP

• Letters to the editor, articles or op-eds showing how carbon pricing can address local issues. (Resist the temptation to dwell on issues other than carbon pricing – be creative by using energy, climate and environment issues as an opportunity to write about carbon pricing

• Articles in local newspapers about your group and its activities – and pricing carbon

• Activities at community events, markets and fairs that inspire and give hope about climate and solutions

• Tabling and clip-boarding at events or in shopping areas to inspire and give hope

Engaging friends and colleagues

Friends, family and colleagues are all potential allies who for all sorts of reasons may not have been able to think about climate and its solutions yet. A relaxed conversation with you could be a useful start – planting a seed that could overcome any resistance they might have about getting to understand what is happening.

Our solution focus, being optimistic, ‘for rather than against’ can create some safety for them to take a peek at a scary subject that has become confused and conflicted due to misinformation and partisan politics. They may want to know more and may choose to join you, even in a small way.