Questions are swirling in Canberra about government contracting and the billions paid to international “consulting” companies doing public servants’ jobs, but it’s not clear if answers will follow.
The Treasury referred alleged legal breaches by accounting giant Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for possible criminal charges on Wednesday.
The following morning a senator gave the AFP head Reece Kershaw a dressing down at a public hearing after he made a bombshell admission that raised questions about a perceived conflict of interest hanging over the case.
Mr Fuller joined PwC as a partner after he was cleared of any wrongdoing by an inquiry into two racehorses he owned jointly alongside a wide mix of Sydney media and society figures and two convicted criminals.
Former police commissioner in New South Wales and Scott Morrison’s close friend and neighbour, who was known to help Mr Morrison put out the bins.
Crossed a line
Commissioner Kershaw admitted that he had received a text message from a mate relating directly to the investigation he was now running into the global accounting firm.
The sheer size of PwC as a global company and the $250 million in government contracts it has already won this year makes this investigation far from ordinary.
Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said he held serious concerns about the actions of “a range of PwC personnel” and that the public sector had grown dependent on its outsourcing functions when the department was not hiring new staff.
PwC’s array of business lines lend themselves to conflicts of interest naturally, critics of the firm said. It makes billions advising governments on issues like policy, or filling in for declining departmental headcounts.
But a risk of crossover between its executives advising the Australian government on tax policy and those designing tax minimisation strategies for multinationals soon become a merger.
By profiting from distributing secret changes to law in Australia and its former CEO was accused of betraying our interests.
Parliament has heard 53 current and former partners at the firm received emails revealing confidential tax information about changes to government policy.
At an inquiry on Thursday, one senator said it was not clear if the government would succeed in having these problems reviewed independently because PwC’s interests – and those of its basically indistinguishable competitors – stretched so far they were constantly generating conflicts.
‘It’s the octopus’
“It’s the octopus with tentacles everywhere,” Greens Senator David Shoebridge said.
Commissioner Kershaw was under the gun in Canberra on Thursday, over his connection with Mr Fuller.
Senator Shoebridge quizzed Mr Kershaw about how he could investigate the company given he was an associate of the former NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller.
Mr Kershaw said he had the utmost confidence the AFP was up to the task of ethically managing interests across a team.
“He’s disappointed with what’s occurred, as in the conduct … of the firm,” Mr Kershaw said.
Mr Kershaw said he hadn’t put in a conflict-of-interest declaration, but did not reveal why.
Senator Shoebridge responded: “I firmly suggest you have no further contact with Mick Fuller given you’re undertaking a police investigation.”
The AFP has a $5.9 million contract with PwC for software and support services, but the commissioner was also confident any perceptions of conflict could be managed.
According to analysis this week PwC and other “big four” firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — have brought in about $4 billion in government contracts and paid out over $4 million in party donations over the past decade.
PwC is also the auditor for the federal police, or the accountant that signs off on its finances as being legally compliant.
To rip off a bit from the Roman poet, Juvenal: who will audit the auditors?
