Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Trust, truth, integrity and accountability were what voters in Goldstein voted for, and without those things confidence in our democracy suffers and disenchantment with leadership increases. The PwC scandal is an opportunity to restore public confidence, but only if accountability is clear. In the last two years alone, even as people within the Public Service, including the Taxation Office, were aware of what PwC had done, the company secured contracts with federal government departments worth more than half a billion dollars. Further, Parliamentary Library research reveals that, in the months since the scandal broke back in January, PwC has secured further contracts worth a total of nearly $6 million with the defence department alone: $4.6 million for management advisory services, another $25,000 for management advisory services, another $874,000 for management advisory services, $10,000 for education and training services, another $36,000 for education and training services, another $142,000 for education and training services and another $140,000 for management and advisory services. In Senate estimates this morning, the education department acknowledged it entered two contracts with PwC after 23 January, when the scandal first surfaced publicly, one of them as recently as 20 April.

The growth in private consulting to government is linked to cuts to the Public Service, with the Australian National Audit Office finding the previous government spent $20.8 billion on contractors and consultants in its final year, the equivalent of 54,000 full-time staff, or 37 per cent of the Public Service. This is something the current government has described as a shadow workforce, and the government has committed to rebuilding government agencies. The government, though, now has a bigger motivator than just cost, with the revelations about PwC opening up much bigger questions about integrity and, indeed, allegations of potential corruption now referred to the AFP.

It's also a matter of serious public interest, with hundreds of millions of dollars going to each of the big four consulting companies—PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte—across hundreds or thousands of contracts, which, as I've said earlier, are still being signed up to apace. Governments have previously been repeatedly warned that advice may be framed to elicit repeat business—in other words, to make money—rather than to deliver the best outcomes for Australian taxpayers. The PwC saga goes further, with the accusation that confidential government information was used to deliver tax benefits to other clients in a form of insider trading.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull acknowledged on RN this morning that he regretted the growth in the use of consultants during his time at the top, but he did little or nothing to stop it. And what was the Public Service to make of the message from the member for Cook shortly after he became Prime Minister in 2018, when he instructed them, 'The Public Service is meant to be an enabler of government policy, not an obstacle'? I beg to differ. The job is to give frank and fearless advice.

The current Prime Minister condemns what has happened at PwC as an 'absolute scandal', but he dodged the issue when I asked him yesterday to suspend all current contracts with PwC and establish an integrity review of Commonwealth relationships with all large private consultancy companies. Yet that's just what the New South Wales parliament is doing right now. Pressure is also mounting on the Victorian government to pull back from its reliance on the big consulting firms, and I would argue that we need to open this up once and for all at a federal level.

The Centre for Public Integrity argues that the big four should be considered as lobbyists. Certainly, it's another reminder that the rules surrounding lobbyists in this place are far too porous and that at the very least we need real-time disclosure of ministers' diaries as a matter of law. Truth, integrity and accountability were what voters in Goldstein and elsewhere around the country voted for last year—government done differently and trusted leadership. As I've said, the PwC scandal could be an opportunity to restore public confidence, but only if accountability is clear. If the Prime Minister won't trigger an integrity review, perhaps the National Anti-Corruption Commission will when it's stood up later this year.