Political Lobbying: How to Get a Meeting
You like the idea of approaching your MP to discuss your concerns about climate policy? Here’s how to go about it.
Meeting an MP that CCL hasn’t met before
One obvious reason that CCL might not have met the MP before is that they are newly elected. In this event you can confidently proceed on the assumption that this is a new relationship.
If the MP has been in parliament for a while but hasn’t met the people currently in your local CCL group, it is necessary to check CCL’s records for any meetings that might have taken place with previous CCL members. These records are kept under wraps to maintain the confidentiality of our private meetings with MPs. The best way to find out about this is to post a question on the Slack channel #ccl-help at cclaust.slack.com.
Having established that you are embarking on a new relationship between CCL and the MP, this is what you do:
Ring the MP’s office or send an email, whichever you prefer
Include a very brief summary of CCL
If you or someone in your group is lucky enough to have come across the person in the past, remind them about this
Include a genuine appreciation of something the MP has said or done in their public life
Explain why you would like to meet them and ask for a meeting at their convenience
Agree when you will follow up if you haven’t heard back (you are unlikely to get an immediate agreement even on the phone)
Follow up at the agreed time and at the same time agree on the next follow up if necessary. Repeat as required, remaining polite and patient throughout these exchanges. At some point you might have to drop the idea for a while if you are getting nowhere. With a little luck and gentle persuasion, you might have got your meeting before it comes to this.
While all this is going on, there’s nothing to stop you writing to the MP about climate issues that come up. If you follow our Lobbying Playbook on writing to MPs and include your name and CCL affiliation, you are cultivating a relationship every time you do this. Next time you follow up about a meeting, you can refer to any correspondence.
Meeting an MP that CCL has met before
This is a completely different situation because a relationship already exists, hopefully a good one. You need the CCL field reports on previous meetings before approaching the MP for a meeting. Ask for them at the Slack channel #ccl-help at cclaust.slack.com. These may suggest the way forward at the next meeting if the last meeting was recent enough. If not, decide in your group what issues you would like to raise and go from there.
In your communications with the MP’s office about organising a meeting, remind them about your previous meeting(s). If the relationship has been a difficult one in the past, your powers of persuasion might be tested. Be prepared for this.
Apart from acknowledging the prior relationship, the steps involved in securing a meeting are the same as above with one possible difference; if they have met with CCL on multiple occasions, there’s no need for a summary of CCL.
A valuable resource
The website aph.gov.au is a very useful resource for information about our parliamentarians. It contains:
contact information
biographies
voting history
transcripts of speeches
committee memberships
