How to meet with an MP or minister

A meeting with an MP or minister is short, often cut shorter, and one of many in their week. Whether it leads anywhere is mostly decided before you arrive and after you leave: knowing what you want and who can give it, showing what the issue means for their community or portfolio, and following up so that something happens.

This guide is for government relations, public affairs and policy teams meeting members of Australia’s federal, state and territory parliaments.

The short version

• Have one clear request. Something the person can do: write to a minister, ask a question in parliament, visit your site. Even an introductory meeting should end with something agreed.
• Meet the person who can act. Start from the decision you want, then work out who can affect it.
• Ask in writing. Say what it’s about, who’s coming, how long you need and when you’re free.
• Do your research. Their first speech, their committees, what they’ve said lately, and what your organisation means to their electorate.
• Lead with the request. Plan for 30 minutes and make the first five count, in case you get fewer.
• Leave one page behind. The request, the local facts and a contact.
• Follow up within a day or two, and record what was said and agreed.
• Stay in touch before you need them. The meeting you get in a crisis depends on the ones you had before it.

Decide who you need to meet

Start with the decision you want to influence, then work out who can affect it. A local MP can’t approve a grant, but can take your case to the minister who can. A minister can decide, but may send you to an adviser or the department first. The most useful meeting isn’t always with the most senior person.

Take the adviser. If a minister’s office offers a meeting with an adviser instead, accept it. Advisers have more time, know the detail and advise the minister on what to do. A good meeting with an adviser can do more than a rushed one with the minister.

Don’t skip your local member. Your local MP represents your sites and staff, whatever their party. If a minister is hard to reach, your local member can write to them or raise your case for you.

Plan for more than one meeting. For a bill or a contested decision, you may need the minister’s office, the shadow minister and the crossbench. Our guide to building a government relations strategy covers how to decide where to start.

Ask for the meeting

Ask in writing, even if you call first. Many offices will ask for an email anyway, and it gives whoever manages the diary something to pass on. Keep the letter to one page and put the request in the first paragraph; Writing to MPs: the essential checklist covers the letter itself. For a meeting, make sure it also says:

• What it’s about, in one line, and the request you’ll bring.
• Why this person: the connection to their electorate, portfolio or committee.
• Who’s coming, with their roles. If constituents or local staff are coming, say so.
• How long: ask for 30 minutes, and say you can work with less.
• Where: their electorate office, Parliament House, your site or a video call.
• When: two or three windows of dates, a few weeks out for a local member and longer for a minister.
• Who to contact to confirm, with a direct phone number.

Send it to the electorate office for a local member, and to the ministerial office for a minister. Each parliament lists its members’ offices; for federal members and senators, see the Parliament of Australia.

Say which role you’re asking them to meet in. Most ministers are also local members (a minister in the Senate isn’t), and many hold more than one portfolio. Say which one your request is for: it decides who in the office handles it.

Follow up once. If you haven’t heard back after a week or two, call the office and ask, politely, whether the request reached the right person.

Choose the time and place

Check the sitting calendar. In sitting weeks, federal MPs and senators are in Canberra and their days are full. Outside them, most are in their electorates or travelling. A local member is often easier to see at home in a non-sitting week; a minister or senator may be easier to catch in Canberra. The federal sitting calendar is on the Parliament’s website, and each state parliament publishes its own.

Plan around Question Time. In both federal chambers, Question Time starts at 2 pm on sitting days, and ministers’ late mornings go to preparing for it. A meeting later in the afternoon is usually less rushed.

Expect the bells. In federal parliament, when a vote is called, the division bells ring for four minutes and members leave for the chamber. If the bells ring, stop, let them go, and pick up where you left off when they come back.

Avoid the crowded weeks. Ministers, shadow ministers and senators have little time in budget week and during Senate estimates, and a request that lands then may wait.

Choose the place with care. Meeting a local member at your own site works well: they see the people and the work, and they remember it. At Parliament House in Canberra, every visitor passes through airport-style security screening, so allow at least 15 minutes. To reach a member’s office, someone who works in the building must sign you in at the Pass Desk in the Marble Foyer and escort you, and you’ll need photo ID (conditions of entry).

Do your research

Never walk into a meeting knowing nothing about the person across the table. Before you go, find out:

• Their record. Read their first speech, and refer to it if it fits the conversation. Look up what they’ve said about your issue in parliament, the questions they’ve asked and what they post. Check their recent mentions in the news.
• Their role. Their portfolio or shadow portfolio, the committees they sit on, and their positions in their party.
• Their electorate. The main industries and occupations (the ABS publishes Census QuickStats by federal electorate), the margin, and the local issues of the moment.
• What you mean to it. How many of your customers, staff, members or sites are in their electorate? If you keep a list of stakeholders by electorate, or have any figure you can break down by electorate, include it in what you send the MP. It shows how your issue affects their community. If you have addresses or postcodes, GovConnex can map them to electorates.
• Your history with them. Who in your organisation has met them, what was discussed, and anything promised on either side.
• What others are telling them. Submissions to a relevant inquiry, statements from groups who disagree with you, and what the opposition and crossbench are saying.

If you use GovConnex, Relationships will draft a brief on anyone you’re meeting when you ask: what they’ve said about your issue, their roles and committees, and your team’s history with them, each point linked to its source.

Prepare your case

Decide the request. Make it something this person can do: write to a minister, ask a question or speak in parliament, raise it in their party room, support an amendment, visit your site, or have their adviser meet your policy lead. One main request is enough.

Tailor your message to their priorities. Don’t just hand over your annual report. Make the case in terms of what the MP cares about: the jobs your organisation creates, if they champion local employment, or your customers’ positive impact on the environment, if that is their focus. For a minister, connect it to the portfolio and the decision in front of them; for a shadow minister, to the policy they’re developing.

Lead with what’s local. One credible figure from their electorate counts for more than a national statistic.

Have a 30-second version. The problem, what you propose and why it matters to them, ready for the moment the meeting starts or is about to end.

Prepare for the hard questions. What it would cost, who opposes it, what the department will say, and why it hasn’t been fixed already. Have straight answers.

Agree roles, and keep the group small. Two or three people is enough. Decide who opens, who makes the request, who explains the detail and who takes notes. If you can, bring someone who lives or works in the electorate.

A model meeting brief

Write a one-page brief for everyone attending from your side. It’s for your team, not the MP. Our guide to writing a briefing note covers the form. Here is one for a fictional food manufacturer meeting its local member about delays in export certification:

• Meeting: the local member, at their electorate office, Friday at 10 am, for 30 minutes. With us: our head of government relations, the plant manager, and a shift supervisor who lives in the electorate.
• Request: that the member write to the agriculture minister about certification delays.
• About them: second-term member who sits on the parliament’s agriculture committee. Spoke about regional jobs in their first speech, and twice since February.
• Our history: met our chief executive last year. We promised local hiring figures and didn’t send them, so bring them.
• Key messages: the plant employs 240 people in the electorate; certification delays held up 14 export shipments this year; a published service standard for certification would fix most of it.
• Likely questions: have you raised it with the department? (Yes, twice since March, without change.) What would it cost? (Nothing new: a standard for an existing process.)
• What we can offer: a tour of the plant, and our hiring figures for the electorate.
• Roles: the head of government relations opens and makes the request; the plant manager explains the delays; the supervisor describes the lost shifts.
• Success looks like: the member agrees to write to the minister by the end of the month.

A model agenda for 30 minutes

Send a short agenda with your request, or a few days before the meeting. For a minister, it tells the office which adviser to bring.

The leave-behind

Bring one page to leave with them, and email it to the office afterwards. Staff will file it and the MP may read it later, so it has to stand on its own.

• The request, at the top.
• The issue, in two or three sentences.
• What it means locally: your people, sites, customers or members in the electorate, with one or two figures.
• What you propose, and what it would cost government, if anything.
• A contact: a name, a phone number and an email address.

In the room

Arrive early and stay flexible. Meetings start late, get shortened and move at short notice. Take it in good humour.

Make the request early. Put it on the table in the first few minutes, so it’s there even if the meeting is cut short.

Listen. Ask what they’re hearing about the issue, what would help them act, and who else you should talk to. You’ll learn where they stand and what they need.

Be straight. If you don’t know an answer, say so and offer to follow up. Don’t overstate your support or your numbers.

Keep it non-partisan. Don’t criticise other members or parties. You’ll need them too.

Treat every seat as marginal. MPs in safe seats don’t like to be reminded of it. Many have worked hard to win their community’s confidence and, with it, their margin. Never suggest to an MP or candidate that their seat is “in the bag”.

Treat staff as you would the MP. The adviser or electorate officer in the room will often handle what happens next.

Ask before taking photos. If the MP agrees to one, send it to their office afterwards, and don’t post it without their agreement.

Close on the next step. Before you leave, confirm what’s been agreed, who will follow up and by when.

Meeting a minister

A meeting with a minister works the same way, with a few differences.

Bring your most senior person. A minister’s office expects your chief executive or chair; a request led by a policy adviser alone is easier to decline.

Speak to the decision. Say what you’re asking the minister to decide, by when, and why it’s good for the government and the portfolio, not only for you. If you’ve already been to the department, say so, and what happened.

Assume the department will see it. The minister may ask the department for advice on your request, and the adviser who covers your issue will usually handle the follow-up.

Give a new minister more context. After an election or a reshuffle, keep the case short, explain the background and don’t assume they know your history.

Your meeting may be published. In New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, ministers publish regular summaries of their meetings with outside organisations, including who they met and why; Tasmania and the ACT publish ministers’ diaries too. Describe the purpose in your request as you’d be happy to see it in print.

If you lobby for clients, register first. Under the federal Lobbying Code of Conduct, anyone lobbying federal ministers, their staff or public servants on behalf of a client must be on the Australian Government Register of Lobbyists, with that client, before making contact. At first contact, they must say they are a registered lobbyist, name the client and explain the matter. Ministers, their staff and public servants must not knowingly deal with an unregistered third-party lobbyist.

In-house teams don’t register federally. The Code doesn’t apply to employees lobbying for their own organisation, or to charities, non-profits and member-based associations such as peak bodies (the Attorney-General’s Department’s guidance). Meeting a minister in their role as your local member, or giving evidence to a parliamentary committee, isn’t lobbying under the Code. Nor does it cover shadow ministers and their advisers. State and territory governments have their own rules: if you lobby one for clients, check its register.

During an election

Know the caretaker period. Federally, the caretaker period runs from the dissolution of the House of Representatives until the result is clear or a new government is appointed. Until then the government avoids major policy decisions, significant appointments and major contracts (the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s guidance), so don’t expect ministers to make major changes until it’s over. The states and territories follow similar conventions, each in its own guidelines (Victoria’s, for example).

Candidates are accessible. Many candidates list their mobile number on their website, and you can call them directly. Major-party candidates with little chance in a safe seat are still worth talking to: they often go on to become chiefs of staff, or MPs themselves.

Offer a place to visit. During elections, leaders, ministers and shadow ministers look for places to visit. Offering a site visit, or introductions to your employees or clients, can mean a lot to an MP or candidate and their campaign team. Make the same offer to each major candidate, so a visit isn’t read as an endorsement. You could say, in a letter or on the phone:

“We would be glad to host a tour of our [site] in the [electorate] electorate for you or a visiting minister, and can arrange it at short notice.”

After the meeting

Debrief the same day. Agree as a team what you learned, what changes in your plan, and who owns each next step.

Follow up in writing within a day or two. Thank the MP and their office, restate what was agreed and send anything you promised.

Record who attended and what was said, so a colleague can pick up the thread. Keep it somewhere the whole team can see, not in one person’s inbox, and give each follow-up an owner and a due date. GovConnex logs a meeting when you BCC your logging address on the follow-up email. Our government relations CRM guide covers what to record, and what not to.

Do what you said you would, on time. If you promised figures by Friday, send them by Friday.

Watch for what happens next. If the MP agreed to write to a minister or raise your issue in parliament, look for it, and thank them when it happens.

A model follow-up email, from the meeting above:

Subject: Thank you for meeting us: export certification delays

Dear [Mr or Ms Surname],

Thank you for meeting us on Friday, and please pass on our thanks to [staff member’s name] for arranging it. We appreciated the chance to explain how certification delays are affecting the plant and the 240 people who work there.

As promised, I’ve attached our hiring figures for the electorate and the one-page summary we left with you. Thank you also for offering to write to the agriculture minister about a service standard for certification. We’d be glad to provide anything that would help.

If your office needs anything further, I’m on [phone number].

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Role, organisation]

Keep in touch before you need them

If an MP’s staff have seen letters from you, or you have met the MP before, you are far more likely to get a meeting when a regulatory change makes it urgent. Engagement with MPs and their staff over years, not weeks, is what gets results.

• Send them something useful: figures for their electorate, an invitation to see a new site, or notice of an announcement that will affect their community.
• Know their staff: the electorate officer and adviser who handle what you raise.
• Keep them up to date: if something you discussed changes, tell their office before they hear it elsewhere.
• Don’t only call with a problem. A relationship built only on requests wears thin.

Our roadmap for government relations success covers building those relationships over time.

Common questions

How do you address an MP or minister in person? Address a minister as “Minister”; a senator as “Senator” or “Senator Smith”; a member of the House as “Mr Smith” or “Ms Smith”; and the Prime Minister as “Prime Minister”. Use a first name only once they invite you to. The Parliament of Australia sets out the forms of address for letters and in person.

How do I find out who my MP is? For your federal electorate, search your address on the Australian Electoral Commission’s electorate finder; for your state electorate, use your state’s electoral commission. Senators represent a whole state or territory, so every senator for your state is one of your senators.

How long does a meeting with an MP last? Usually 15 to 30 minutes, and sometimes less if the diary changes or the bells ring. Ask for 30 minutes and plan to make your case in 15.

How far in advance should I ask for a meeting? A few weeks for a local member, and longer for a minister. Check the sitting calendar first: a local member is often easier to see in a non-sitting week.

Do I need to register as a lobbyist to meet an MP? Only if you lobby federal ministers, their staff or public servants on behalf of a client, in which case you must be on the Australian Government Register of Lobbyists first. Employees lobbying for their own organisation, charities, non-profits and peak bodies don’t need to register federally. States and territories have their own rules.

Can I invite an MP or minister to an event or site visit? Yes. Send a written invitation to their office as early as you can, with the date, time and place, what you’d like them to do (tour, speak or open something), who else is attending and whether media will be there. Ministers’ diaries fill weeks ahead, so a short-notice invitation is often declined.

What should I bring to a meeting with an MP? A one-page leave-behind with your request, the local facts and a contact; any figures you promised; and business cards. Leave the annual report and the gifts at home.