Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

I rise to take note of Senator Gallagher's response to my questions about PricewaterhouseCoopers. I will start by clearly laying out some of the facts of this outrageous case of institutional corruption and cover-up. Every parliamentarian and, indeed, every Australian must be horrified by this chapter. I know that many are because they are contacting our office in outrage.

First, the facts. On 16 November 2022 the Tax Practitioners Board published their findings that former PwC partner Peter Collins breached three confidentiality agreements by leaking government tax policy to staff and partners at PwC to monetise that information by assisting private clients to sidestep the new multinational tax avoidance laws. Peter Collins was deregistered for two years as a tax agent and PwC was required to roll out confidentiality trading. Confidentiality trading—I ask you! It's outrageous. It's so inadequate. At estimates in February the ATO estimated that up to $180 million in annual tax revenue would have been at risk from Mr Collins' breach. The same estimates, Taxation Practitioners Board CEO Secretary Michael O'Neill said that 20-30 PwC staff were implicated in the leak. The PwC CEO at the time, Tom Seymour, contradicted O'Neill's evidence, claiming the board had made 'no findings' to support the statement that 30 staff had access to the information, and that claims about the breach were a perception issue in his view.

Shocked by the revelations unfolding in relation to PwC and the huge increase in spend on consultants in the public sector over the last decade—we're talking billions of dollars—in early March I initiated a Senate inquiry to investigate government use of consultants with a focus on management of unethical behaviour, conflicts of interest and breaches of contract. That committee is working hard. It will go hard, and taxpayers want us to.

Since then more evidence has emerged in relation to PwC. On 2 May, 144 pages of redacted emails were released, involving 53 PwC email addresses related to the leaking of information. They make for an extraordinary read. It's clear that Tom Seymour had significantly downplayed the extent of the breach. This wasn't a perception issue or the case of one bad egg but systemic institutional corruption and very, very poor internal culture and leadership. Days after the emails were published, Tom Seymour admitted he had received emails relating to the leak and stepped down as CEO. Last night, two other senior executives followed him, though it's important to note that all three still remain at PwC. The emails also revealed that PwC collected $2.5 million in fees as it did this extraordinary act. It's an astounding case of corruption in a company that employs 10,000 Australians and whose website front page says, 'Our purpose is to build trust in society'. Unbelievable!

These are the facts. What are the facts of the government's response so far? I encourage you to keep your expectations very, very low. This will be short: I wrote to the finance minister in March asking her to remove PwC from the Management Advisory Services Panel, which gives PwC access to government contracts, because they've clearly failed to meet the panel's requirements. The minister's department confirmed at estimates that the Department of Finance can terminate a consultant's position on the panel. To be clear, it's absolutely in the Minister of Finance's remit to do so. She has not done this. She has not banned them and, instead, has sought assurances that this won't happen again. That is completely inadequate.

There are four things the government needs to do immediately. Firstly: stop cosying up to the large consulting firms, taking their money and political donations, and keeping them safe when they do things that are totally inadequate. Secondly: cease and ban all contracts with PwC. Thirdly: initiate civil proceedings against PwC to recover a huge loss of government revenue and ensure that the Australian Federal Police investigate this matter under the Crimes Act. Finally: will the government work with this parliament? All of us across the political spectrum are appalled, and we support the Greens' call today to refer this matter to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. That's where it belongs. We need to run down this corruption and look more broadly beyond the bad apple to the systemic nature of the consulting industry and what it's getting wrong.

Question agreed to.