Liberal Party kingmaker Michael Photios is expanding his political lobbying business to Canberra in anticipation of cashing in on an Abbott Coalition government.
He has registered the business name ''Capital Hill Advisory'' and is in the final stages of hiring two former Howard government staffers to establish a new incarnation of his Sydney-based firm Premier State in Canberra by June.
But his expansion plans have riled business rivals who complain ''factional warlords'' should be banned from trading on their political connections and his official role at the centre of the party poses a danger for Tony Abbott if he takes power in September.
Mr Photios counts Mr Abbott as a longtime personal friend, as well as Joe Hockey, the likely next treasurer, communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull and immigration spokesman Scott Morrison.
In his decades-long position as leader of the dominant left faction of the NSW Liberals, Mr Photios has exercised power over countless preselections for Liberal MPs at state and federal levels.
He has fended off calls to stand down from the state executive of the Liberal Party even as his Sydney-based firm has traded on access to ministers in the O'Farrell Government - many of who owe their political existence to him.
In two years Mr Photios' Sydney-based firm, Premier State, has gone from a start-up to 30 corporate clients willing to pay up to $20,000 a month for access to the state government.
They include the Australian Hotels Association, Xstrata Coal, the NSW Minerals Council and Echo Entertainment, owner of Sydney's Star casino.
Another Liberal-aligned lobbyist Joe Tannous - also a member of the state executive - has hired Peter Reith to represent his firm, First State, in Canberra.
Justin Di Lollo, who heads up Labor-aligned lobby firm Hawker Britton said Mr Photios' arrival in Canberra should raise questions.
''It's my very firm view that both for the health of the lobbying industry and the confidence in good government and probity that people who hold high elected office in political parties or factional warlords - Michael Photios fits both descriptions - should not act as lobbyists,'' he said.
Mr Photios rejected Mr Di Lollo's view, saying political players acting as lobbyists as a ''well-trodden path'' for federal governments of both stripes.
''There is no western democracy in the world that prevents party officials from engaging in government relations,'' he said. ''We don't have first and second-class citizens in Australia and everyone has the right to participate in the public policy discussion.''
Mr Photios has hired Stephanie Warne, a policy analyst who worked for John Howard government and Claire Dawson, another Howard office staffer.
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