Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
Just enter an IP range, click Start, and let the scan do its thing. When the scan finishes up, right-click any detected device to open its Windows shares or connect via FTP.
Angry IP Scanner also shows MAC addresses, which are unique strings of numbers and letters used to identify each device, and gives you several options for managing or exploring your network.
Pentagon Directs All 50 States to Form National Guard Rapid-Response Units to Target ‘Civil Unrest’
The Hill: “The troops are to be trained in how to “form Squad-sized Riot Control Formation,” how to “employ a Riot Baton as a Member of a Riot Control Formation,” and how to “Supervise a Riot/Crowd Control Operation,” as well as de-escalation of force techniques, according to the memo…”
@parnasperspective via ABCGo: “The Pentagon has directed all 50 states to establish National Guard rapid-response units aimed at addressing civil unrest, a move that has raised concerns about the militarization of law enforcement and the potential for abuse of power. Critics argue that this approach blurs the lines between military and civilian law enforcement roles. Overview of National Guard Rapid-Response Units.
Disgruntled staff from the Department of Parliamentary Services will have their concerns put to Secretary Jaala Hinchcliffe at a long-awaited Senate estimates hearing on Friday.
Thank you, my friends. The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said, 'I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.'
America’s Dumbest Billionaires Fail to Stop Zohran Mamdani. “…a bunch of rich guys who have been comically out of touch with normal people for many decades, and more recently have blowtorched their brains into a smoking pile of ash on Twitter…”
Attorneys in many areas of practice need to know how to keep up with the latest EOs, as these orders may impact the funding, operations, staff or rights of the companies, individuals, and organizations they represent.
Those who typically practice outside of federal administrative law may be less familiar with researching EOs, beyond what they learned in law school. Law Librarian, attorney and educator Michelle M. LaLonde’sguide pinpoints key primary and secondary sources to keep pace with this torrent of government documents.
Data Brokers Explained: Steps to protect your data
YouTube – Data brokerage is a billion-dollar industry built on selling your personal information without your knowledge or consent. In this video, we uncover the shady world of data brokers with investigative reporter Yael Grauer (Consumer Reports) to find out how they operate and what you can do about it. Timestamps as follows for specific topics covered
Everyone Is Laying People Off This Week. Researchers Say They’re Going to Regret It
Why every website you used to love is getting worse
Vox: “TikTok and airlines have something in common with your search engine, your grocery app, and (increasingly) your car: They start out great, lock you in, and then quietly get worse while you keep using them.
That very familiar decline now has a catchy name: “enshittification.” Cory Doctorow has been writing about this for decades as a journalist, activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and science-fiction author. His new book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, is a field guide to how platforms decay, why they get away with it, and what it will take to reverse course.
I invited Doctorow onto The Gray Area to map the lifecycle of a platform, explain the policy choices that made today’s tech feudalism possible, and outline the structural fixes that could make the internet (and the economy around it) less extractive and more humane. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday…”
Anyone from a major firm listening to the Senate would have gasped in horror. Plus: Which firm exited 11 over their conduct, and who won audits from EY.
Edmund Tadros
Welcome to Professional Life, our free weekly newsletter covering the latest news, moves, and partner promotions for consulting and accounting experts. Sign up here to get it direct to your inbox every Wednesday before it appears online.
Today, we look at the silent reading of a report that will have big four bosses screaming loudly; it’s seventh time unlucky for the ATO official who led the probe into the PwC tax leaks scandal; and EY exits 11 for misconduct. Finally, KPMG has a new phrase to help it avoid “doing a Deloitte”.
In this week’s issue:
Gasps of silent horror from the Senate; tax scandal investigator sidelined
EY exits 11 over misconduct; R&D tax breaks for pizza and pokies
Professional moves: Murdoch’s confidant cuts ties
AI and the professions: 150 ex-consultants train AI models to do the job
#REF!: “Building trust at scale” is the new buzzword
Big four consulting firms targeted by new Senate inquiry
An inquiry will be held into a bill sponsored by Greens senator Barbara Pocock. Bethany Rae
Just after 11:20am last Thursday, Labor senator Karen Grogan stood up in the Senate to present the “seventh report for 2025 of the Selection of Bills Committee”.
With little fanfare, the report was “read” into Hansard but not read aloud. If it had been, and if anyone from a major firm had been listening, they would have gasped in horror.
The report revealed yet another parliamentary inquiry into the major consulting firms.
This time, the inquiry relates to a bill from Greens senator Barbara Pocock – the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Ban Unethical Contractors) Bill 2025.
A Senate committee will examine the bill, which seeks to ban dodgy contractors from Commonwealth work for up to five years, and report back by March 17 next year. The inquiry will accept written submissions until December 12 on its website.
The committee will have the power, but not the obligation, to call firm leaders to provide evidence as part of its inquiry. Given how these senior figures from PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY have struggled during past inquisitions, I can already hear the CEOs and their teams screaming into the void. These inquiries are costly, time-consuming and are often embarrassing for the firms and their leaders.
Pocock’s bill is directly related to the Department of Finance’s decision to lift its ban on PwC working for the government. It was a move opposed by Pocock, Labor senator Deborah O’Neill and Liberal senator Richard Colbeck (the three key senators who led inquiries into the PwC tax leaks scandal).
Pocock is unapologetic.
“When the government allowed PwC back into the tender process, it betrayed the Australian public who rightly expected they would be held to account for colluding with multinationals to dodge taxes,” she says. “This gutless decision seriously undermined confidence in government procurement.”
Pocock says the “inquiry will examine the current loopholes within government contracting that allow unethical contractors” to continue winning government work.
“It’s unacceptable that the government must rely on the wrongdoer to agree to banning itself from undertaking future government contracts,” she says.
There are no guarantees about the inquiry’s outcome, who will be called to give evidence, or whether the bill will ever become law. However, the topics likely to be canvassed will cover governance and other issues relating to the operations of the four firms.
ATO official who pursued PwC over tax scandal moved to charities regulator
Tax Practitioners Board chief executive Michael O’Neillwill become a “specialist adviser” to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission from November 24, according to an all-staff email sent by Tax Commissioner Rob Heferen last Wednesday.
O’Neill famously led the probe into the leaking of confidential government information by PwC partners, and had, until last week, survived six previous attempts to sideline or sack him while he led the tiny agency’s broader investigation into PwC, despite opposition from the Australian Taxation Office.
The attempts included claims that O’Neill was acting illegally in investigating PwC and three unsubstantiated bullying claims against him.
In a startling piece of timing, the executive move was announced the day after The Australian Financial Review revealed details of new investigations into PwC stemming from its scandal over the leak of confidential government tax information.
The new inquiries will now continue without O’Neill, one of the nation’s most experienced tax investigators. The inquiries include assessing whether PwC’s advisers misused legal professional privilege to stymie probes into their conduct, and allegations that the firm misled the Foreign Investment Review Board over whether company restructures were done to cut tax bills.
An ATO spokesman said executive changes were “a regular part of our strategy to build diverse experience and enhance leadership” at the agency. Tax Practitioners Board chairman Peter de Cure congratulated O’Neill “on his appointment to the important new role at the ACNC and for his significant achievements as CEO and secretary of the TPB”.
In a statement received after deadline last Wednesday, Assistant Treasurer Dr Daniel Mulino said the decision to move O’Neill was made entirely by the ATO.
“Senior staffing decisions for the ATO, Tax Practitioners Board and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission are the responsibility of the independent Commissioner of Taxation,” Mulino said.
“The Tax Practitioners Board has played a critical role in holding PwC to account and the government fully supports its work.
“We note this significant contribution of outgoing CEO Michael O’Neill in this regard and look forward to his ongoing contribution in his new position at the charities regulator – another important part of our regulatory architecture.
“The ATO will continue its longstanding practice of supporting the Tax Practitioners Board through the secondment of senior staff, including the CEO role, which reports directly to the chair of the independent Board.”
EY exits 11 over conduct
EY exited 11 individuals for misconduct after receiving almost 100 complaints in 2024-25, according to the firm’s “Value Realised Scorecard”.
The report, released last week, said “seven complaints resulted in the respondent exiting the organisation, with four of these exits being involuntary”. The complaints included 29 about interpersonal conflict, 22 for bullying and 17 related to sexual harassment.
In 2023, EY published a landmark report into its workplace following the suicide of a staff member, which found staff felt overworked, bullied and harassed and were too scared to report bad behaviour.
The firm has now “embedded 21 of the 27 recommendations from the review”, Jenelle McMaster, EY regional deputy CEO and people and culture leader, said in the new scorecard report.
“Formal workplace complaints decreased to 96 from 126 in the prior year, suggesting a positive shift towards earlier, informal resolution,” she said.
EY did not supply comparable exit data in the scorecard report. The firm had 8986 staff as of 2024-25, down from 9665 in the previous year.
KPMG audit wins, R&D tax breaks
KPMG has replaced EY as corporate auditor for two notable listed companies.
Wesfarmers, a conglomerate whose retail businesses include Priceline, Officeworks and Target, has selected KPMG to replace EY as its corporate auditor from July 2027, subject to shareholder approval. The 2025 Wesfarmers audit was worth about $7.4 million in fees for EY.
In addition, shareholders of Magellan Financial Group have approved moving its audit from EY to KPMG. EY earned $1.3 million for the company’s 2025 audit.
Also, be sure to check out the new explainer about the research and development tax break by deputy newsletter editor (and former big four R&D tax expert) Daniel Arbon.
In other news, The Australian Financial Review won the people’s choice award for “Accounting Industry Media of the Year” at the 2025 Australian Financial Industry Awards on Friday.
On my table at the event, run by the Institute of Financial Professionals Australia, was Above Advisory’s Molly Lim, who won the award for female financial professional of the year, and GDA Group Pty senior financial planner Michael Driessen, who took home three awards, including “Australian Financial Professional of the Year”. Lim has previously spoken to me about her love of accounting.
Finally, last week’s newsletter misspelt the name of Alice Yang, a senior manager at PwC Australia. Apologies.
Having a relationship with a higher-up in the workplace can increase income by 6 per cent, thanks to promotions, pay rises and other perks awarded due to nepotism.
Many a CEO has been ousted by an office romance.
As well as the infamous Coldplay “kiss cam” moment, which exposed the clandestine relationship between Astronomer boss Andy Byron and his head of human resources, Kristin Cabot, there seems to have been an inordinate number of red-faced resignations this year.
The then chief executive of Astronomer Andy Byron and its chief people officer at the time, Kristin Cabot, at the Coldplay concert. Aresna Villanueva
Nestlé chief executive Laurent Freixe lost his job in September after an investigation found he failed to disclose a romantic relationship with an employee. Only a year into the role, he was pushed out for violating the company’s code of business conduct.
According to workplace compliance-training platform Ethena, his departure is the eighth unexpected exit of a CEO in the European consumer sector since last September.
Closer to home, Anthony Heraghty, the boss of Super Retail, which owns Rebel Sport, was fired for lying to the board about an alleged relationship with his company’s former head of human resources, Jane Kelly.
Aside from the broken hearts and families, the fallout from sexual indiscretions, whether they are related to workplace sexual harassment or a relationship with a subordinate, can be pricey for shareholders, too.
A study of 219 examples of management misdeeds from 1978 to 2012 found that when the CEO was implicated, it could cost shareholders up to $US226 million ($348 million).
What happens when you date the boss?
But a new report flips the narrative from focusing on the reputational and financial fallout for a company and its CEO, to look at what happens to the subordinate in a workplace relationship, financially and career-wise.
It finds that dating someone in a superior position in the workplace can increase a subordinate’s earnings by 6 per cent, because of promotions, pay rises, and other perks awarded by the person in the higher role.
The nepotism also extends to skills attainment – the subordinate partner is found to gain extra mentoring and work support that might lead them to advance in the workplace based on merit.
The Impacts of Romantic Relationships with the Boss report, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, is based on a study of cohabiting couples in Finland.
The study mostly focused on women in relationships with male managers, as these were found to account for the vast majority of manager/non-manager relationships, according to the report, but it also included a small sample of men who had entered or ended a relationship with a female manager. Same-sex couples were excluded from the analysis because the data was limited.
The study found that males who dated female managers experienced a larger boost to earnings than the other way around.
The study also looked at the decline in earnings experienced by a subordinate once a break-up occurred and found that this could trigger an abrupt 18 per cent earnings decline for women, which was found to persist for at least four years after the separation.
The estimated decline in earnings was found to be twice as large for men who broke up with a female workplace manager.
The reasons for the sharp decline in salary are that the subordinate worker is more likely to exit the place of employment once the relationship has ceased, and once they leave, they tend to make less advantageous firm-to-firm moves, the report says.
The spillover effect
The study also examines the spillover effect of manager-subordinate workplace relationships on the broader workforce and finds that many employees feel discomfort or resentment upon learning about a relationship at work.
They often attribute pay increases to favouritism rather than merit, which undermines morale and even leads to increased turnover rates.
“Every promotion, assignment, or disagreement can be viewed through the lens of favouritism or conflict of interest,” the authors write. “Higher earnings gains for those in relationships with a workplace manager could lead to resentment among coworkers who might (rightly or wrongly) view this as preferential treatment.”
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, more than two-thirds of HR professionals say the perception of favouritism or unfair treatment is their top concern regarding workplace romances.
“When we talk about the ripple effect, it’s not just people leaving. It affects productivity, team stability, and that’s a big cost to the bottom line,” says recruitment specialist and author Roxanne Calder.
“Even when it is out in the open, [the person in the relationship] might be privy to information that’s not fair, or be exposed to private conversations and confidential matters. They could have the heads-up on something that could be influential to the sharemarket, to pricing, to promotions, redundancies – anything that is sensitive in nature.
“Relationships are going to happen at work, but if people are aware of the risks, they can manage them, instead of it being an after-effect.”
In Australia, a study by employment website Seek found that one in four workers had been in a romantic relationship with a colleague, and office romances were most prevalent in white-collar industries.
In 2018, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced a policy prohibiting ministers from having sexual relationships with their staff, following a scandal involving then deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and his staff member Vikki Campion. The aim of what was soon dubbed a “bonk ban” was to establish a more respectful workplace culture.
Gazelle Kalk, a legal adviser and head of content for employment law specialist Peninsula Australia, says that although organisations cannot prohibit or stop romantic relationships developing between colleagues, they should have a personal relationship policy in place, which workers are familiar with.
“As soon as an employee starts, they should be given an employee handbook, and within that, they should have some sort of office romance or personal relationship policy in place, so they understand what is expected of them,” Kalk says.
That should extend to sexual harassment and bullying as well, she adds.
“Making sure that there’s some sort of disclosure requirement to avoid any sort of conflict of interest that may arise, and in particular, if there is a power imbalance.
“If a manager is dating a subordinate, making sure everyone is treated fairly regarding the application of that policy is key and making sure there’s a culture of disclosure and transparency – and that can only be done through the use of a policy.”
