The people, not profit, should govern. But some big businesses have used their power to influence decisions. From wining and dining [1] to bullying, we have seen how some big businesses have tried to stop or delay taxes [2] [3], better wages for workers [4] and cheaper medication [5].

We, the undersigned, call on you to agree to the following demands:

– Publicly commit to transparency by disclosing all meetings, events, correspondence, submissions and other engagements with big businesses and their associates. All documents and information must be easily accessible to the public.

– Publicly commit to protecting decision-making processes from big businesses and their associates. It is a conflict of interest for those motivated by profit to participate in or influence decision-making in the public interest.

– Work to better enforce and implement the codes of conduct for public servants and political officials to ensure decisions serve the public and the constitution, not private interests.

– The public must be able to easily access declarations of interests for all senior public servants to help monitor conflicts of interest.

Your decisions cannot be a compromise between private and public interests. Your responsibility is to serve the public and the constitution, which means keeping private interests in check and ensuring big businesses don’t profit at the expense of the people.

Finally, we call on big business and their associates to stop using their enormous resources to delay, dilute and delegitimise decisions that are in the public interest. Prove that you are not bullies and stop holding the country hostage with threats of job losses and divesting. With your huge profits, the least you could do is respect our democracy, governance and people’s dignity.