The PwC saga — in which the mega consultants were found to be handing confidential information about government plans to tax big tech companies to those same big tech companies — is an extremely Australian Financial Review story. So it’s not surprising it’s done a lot of the best reporting on it over the past few months, particularly via Edmund Tadros, who has spat out a flurry of exclusives alongside many other Fin reporters.
So we wonder what that team made of its employer using the bold strategy of “what if everything we spent months helping to expose wasn’t all that big a deal” today? Enter Nick Hossack, “a public policy consultant” and former policy director at the Australian Banking Association.
Hossack — also a former adviser to former PM John Howard and whose previous contributions to the AFR include “BlackRock shows why finance and fossil fuel politics shouldn’t mix“, “Three reasons privileged seats should not vote teal” and “Tech and virtue signalling don’t mix” — reckons “the attacks on PwC are ideological and overblown”.
He begins: “No-one disputes that the PwC partner should not have broken confidentiality, and that PwC should have relied less on legal client privilege to inhibit inquiries.”
Wait for it… “But there is a serious disconnect between what should be a sober assessment of what went wrong and how to improve processes, to that of a seeming bloodlust to destroy careers in some sort of cathartic need for a sacrificial offering.”
According to Hossack, the push is mainly coming from lefties who, let’s face it, are jealous:
My sense is that the passions, particularly those of Green senators, are driven more by ideology than anything else, a disdain for commercial principles and successful, well-remunerated professionals.
More than that, it’s actual bullying the way representatives of the company — taking $3 billion in revenue at the end of the last financial year — are getting told off over the simple mistake of using its access to government to help other behemoth companies dodge tax:
There is a bullying element as well. The senators leading the attack know well that PwC’s reliance on government contracts means the accounting firm will not fight back using the types of arguments needed to compete in a political stoush.
Heartbreaking, we agree.
Plus it’s not even a big deal, you guys. Sure, the merry-go-round of donations and government contracts ultimately resulting in confidential tax information going to habitual tax dodgers might sound bad, but the good news is it’s part of a very common practice, and hey, have you checked out this gmail service?
Attempting to minimise tax obligations by individuals and companies is hardly a new thing.
… Not everyone perceives tax revenue as having the same holy virtue that Green senators perhaps do.
I’d personally prefer that Google paid less tax than more. I get a lot of value from it, including a free email account, inexpensive data storage and lots of integrated applications.
