What’s the scam with PwC’s ‘independent’ experts?
More bread and circuses today as the probe into PwC continues. The need for a legislative response is now more important than ever.
Do we really think polite requests will make nefarious consultancies change their ways?
There's a star-studded line up invited for today's parliamentary inquiry into the ethics and behaviour of consultants.
While we're not expecting a global superstar to zoom in from London (although one has been invited) there will be plenty of colourful players doing high kicks in the chorus line to provide thrills for the audience.
The head honcho of PwC International has been asked to attend along with Australian CEOs past and present who are expected to perform the dance of the three wise monkeys, and the controversial former chief legal counsel will conduct her world-renowned disappearing act while juggling 15,000 legal professional privilege claims.
To a certain extent inquiries like these and indeed parliament itself is high theatre designed to attract attention and tell a story in broad brush strokes.
It's an opportunity to engage Australians in debate about the way forward, to design a better way of doing things and to reassess the values and operations of the institutions that are meant to serve us.
Theatre can do all of this, but it cannot deliver the critical outcome that we are all looking for - change.
When we started this inquiry, we were hoping for direct, immediate action to turn the tide of a decades-long erosion of our public service that has sadly seen the slow demise of our capacity to manage the business of government.
Senior Labor ministers, on taking office in 2022 said they were astounded to inherit departments that were almost fully populated with contract managers overseeing a full slate of government work that had been outsourced to consultants.
In some cases, the departments had even outsourced the management of the contracts because there was no one left in the building with the appropriate level of knowledge to do so.
We've all seen the political sitcoms that make fun of this reality (Utopia for the millennials, Yes Ministerfor the generation before that), yet the reality is that this is no laughing matter.
We need serious legislative change if we are going to turn around what is a travesty of parliamentary democracy.
The case of big four consultant EY Oceania sidelining the CSIRO to advise the government on emissions reduction policies whilst lobbying for Australia's biggest fossil fuel producers was a gobsmacking example.
This is truly dangerous for our democracy.
And on the other side of the street, we have KPMG going for gold in the conflict-of-interest Olympics with a champion effort in the aged care arena. The KPMG team were able to simultaneously advise aged care providers on quality and safety assessment while carrying out quality and safety assessments on aged care providers.
These are frightening examples, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. If Australians can't claw back control of government processes such as these, then the perverse spectacle of the private sector controlling government policy to further their own interests will continue.
For most of the past year or so since I called for the Senate inquiry into consultants, we on the finance and public administration committee have shared a rare unanimity of purpose, condemning the actions of PwC in the tax leaks scandal and calling for greater transparency and accountability measures to curtail widespread unethical behaviour in the consulting sector.
However, at the very moment that we had the chance to bring about real change in this industry, to introduce a tough new regulatory regime that would ensure consultants are required to act in the public interest and can no longer hide behind the opaque structures of partnerships, both the major parties took their bat and ball and went home.
The recommendations in the final report of the Senate inquiry are hopelessly inadequate.
Finance and Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher. Picture by Keegan Carroll
Nothing proposed by the chair in the main report will prevent what happened in the PwC scandal from happening again. Nothing proposed in that report will put an end to conflicts of interest and nothing there will stop the flow of political donations from businesses seeking to gain contracts with the incumbent government.
I believe our job in the parliament is to fight for effective reform. While the employment of theatre craft can be an effective tool, especially when hearts and minds are at play, there comes a time after the final curtain when we must decide on a clear course of action.
In my additional comments to the report, I made almost twice as many recommendations as the main report, all of which called for either a legislative response or regulatory action.
I wasn't completely surprised to see that when the umpire blew the whistle, Labor and the LNP had vacated the field. All the tough talk and unwavering resolve to do right by Australian taxpayers dissolved into a finely curated wish list of hopeful exhortations.
These giant multinational entities make billions globally from their nefarious conduct and they are as likely to respond to a polite request from the finance minister to do the right thing as they are to publish details of the family trusts their partners use to syphon off large parts of their personal income to help minimise their tax.
So, if you are watching the proceedings at the consultants inquiry today, remember that while theatre can be exciting and fun, real change is most effective and long lasting when it is a change in the law.
- Barbara Pocock is a Greens senator for South Australia.