Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Pressure groups and social movements
Agreement in sectional organisations can be difficult on contentious issues.
Smaller, possibly more autonomous groups in a sector may be more courageous,
and arguably more accurate when representing their particular constituency. This
is because they can refuse to compromise on an issue for the appearance of unity. 91
In fact, some sectional groups may often promote causes not directly related to the
interests of their members. 92 Yetthereareadvantageswhenpressuregroupsina
sector work together.
Peak bodies
Peak bodies are usually strong sectional pressure groups, with several democratic
functions: involvement in the policy process of those most affected, developing
the capacity of its member organisations to enter into the policy process, but also
representing resource-poor sections of the community. Peak bodies represent, coordinate,
inform, research, and develop policy on behalf of member organisations
for their sector. Importantly, peak bodies are not service providers, though there
are a number of ways in which they provide services to their members (e.g. in
co-ordinating submissions, participating in consultation processes, and perhaps
providing information). 93
Peak bodies bring together a number of organisations in partnership to generate
one voice speaking for the collective. For example, community organisations lobby
individually, but ACOSS also acts as an ‘umbrella’ group for all of the welfare
organisations. Even so, ‘representation’ must be considered by member organisationsofthepeakbodyinappointingsomeonetospeakforthemastheyconfer
authority upon their peak body to speak on their behalf. In turn, peak bodies convey
astrongmessageandprovideclarityforpolicymakersonwhomtoapproachto
speakgenerallyontheissuesaffectingaparticularsector.Moreover,governments
prefer to deal with pressure groups that are able to speak authoritatively. 94
Promotional groups and advocacy groups
Unlike sectional interest groups, promotional pressure groups are more peripheral
to government policy making. For this reason, they may use more electoral
tactics. 95 Despite promotional groups appearing to succeed at the ballot box
through either election of candidates, or significant portions of the voting public
supporting candidates, they exert limited policy influence. This is because they are
not integrated into government processes and relationships, and can be divisive
for parties. That said, particular promotional groups obtained greater access to the
91 Warhurst 1984, 23.
92 Matthews 1980, 448.
93 Sawer 2002, 40–1.
94 Althaus, Bridgman and Davis 2007, 97–8, 111.
95 Matthews 1980, 460.
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