Stay up to date about what’s happening in your industry. That’s the advice Kerry Chikarovski has for other business owners after 10 years as a professional government relations advisor.
Chikarovski started as a solicitor before deciding to enter Parliament in 1991, and 13 months after that, she was appointed Minister of Consumer Affairs. While in politics, she oversaw the introduction of flexible working conditions for the public sector, and was the leader of the Liberal Party in New South Wales from 1999-2002.
In 2003 she left politics and fell into the business of government relations.
“My government relations business evolved almost by accident,” she says. “I had left Parliament and people started asking for my help to navigate the New South Wales bureaucracy.”
After helping a few friends navigate government bureaucracy, she started to be referred to more and more people, and Chikarovski & Associates was born. Now her business advises clients on policy issues at the state and federal levels, as well as regulatory issues, major projects and procurement.
Slipping in to government relations was easy after working with bureaucracy for 12 years, she says, but the paperwork does tend to pile up. “The difficult part was making clients understand how the bureaucracy works.”
In the name of transparency, all meeting requests are in writing and all clients must be recorded on the state or federal lobbyist register, which is publicly available. But that means that over the past 10 years there’s been a marked increase in the amount of paperwork needed to deal with government.
That accountability is a good thing, she says, but it means that businesses should be sure to work with people who understand them and will make sure they comply with all the rules.
“The bureaucracy and government are like any industry in that there are certain standards and procedures, and understanding those can be quite tricky if you’re not used to dealing with it,” Chikarovski says.
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