Lobbyists hoping to sway federal politicians will feature on a public register for the first time and won't be able to freely visit Parliament House out-of-hours or on weekends.
Long-awaited reforms of passholders access to Canberra's Parliament House were issued on Thursday, following campaigning by independent MPs.
Under current rules, those hoping to freely visit and walk parliament's halls can do so if an elected representative sponsors their pass, granting them access unafforded to the general public.
Until this week's reforms, which take effect on July 1, it was unclear who or how many people were the beneficiary of that golden ticket: the orange lobbyist pass.
The changes include a new public quarterly register showing each lobbyist, their parliamentary sponsors, as well as asking them to pay an as-yet unspecified fee.
A new pass - coloured light blue - will be created for both representatives of advocacy or community groups, who will be made exempt from that fee, and in-house lobbyists, who will pay it.
Any would-be passholders will also need two parliamentarians, rather than one, to sponsor their access.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Milton Dick and Senate President Sue Lines signed off on the new policy after a request from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to review policies in March.
"The revised policy strengthens the transparency and oversight of access passes issued to individuals who have privileged access to Parliament House," they wrote in a letter to senators and MPs, seen by AAP, on Thursday.
David Pocock, Helen Haines and Monique Ryan are among the MPs pushing for reform, with Senator Pocock even setting up a website for lobbyists to self-disclose.
The former Wallabies captain said the changes were a partial victory.
"Publishing more information about who has privileged access to Parliament House and who gave it to them is a huge win for community and crossbench advocacy on lobbying reform," he said.
"But the job isn’t done yet, we need broader change to ensure alignment between the rules for in-house lobbyists and third party or external lobbyists, including appropriate cooling off periods for senior staff.
"We still need a system of publishing ministerial diaries or disclosing lobbyist meetings and reform to close the revolving door between government and industry."
Transparency campaigners Australian Democracy Network also called the changes as "practical and welcome".
ADN published research this week showing 64 per cent of Australians wanted mandatory disclosure of the meetings lobbyists were taking with ministers and MPs.
