PwC and Labor to mend bridges at budget fundraiser
Myriam RobinColumnistIf you thought the federal government’s recent disgruntlement with PwC would spell the end of the consultancy’s central role in the fundraising that takes place around the May budget, you’d be entirely wrong.
PwC has for years hosted lavish fundraising shindigs for the government on budget night, until recently in parliament’s Great Hall, giving some 400 senior business figures a chance to mingle with ministers shortly after the year’s most significant political set-piece.
Last year’s budget night dinner (and fundraiser), hosted for the first time at the National Arboretum. Olive + Maeve
An equal opportunity political benefactor, PwC has done the same for the opposition (whoever it happens to be) following its budget reply speech. Recent unpleasantness aside, that isn’t changing.
On Tuesday, May 9, the Federal Labor Business Forum has again invited select guests to the $5000-a-head federal budget dinner, hosted by PwC.
This is the same PwC whose head of international tax Peter Collins leaked to colleagues the confidential documents he’d been receiving as an adviser on the government’s proposed tax legislation. The same PwC that shocked Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan with how quickly it designed structures to get around parliament’s new Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law.
The same PwC whose CEO Tom Seymour now describes the scandal as a mere “perception issue” for the firm. And the same PwC whose actions “absolutely ropeable” Treasurer Jim Chalmers slammed as a “shocking breach of trust” only two months ago.
According to the invitation, he’ll attend the fundraiser after delivering his budget speech. It seems the Labor Party will swallow its outrage if there’s money to be raised. And with $330 million in federal government contracts to defend, PwC isn’t going to hold grudges.
The venue is as yet unannounced. Last year the government (under pressure from teal MPs) banned the use of Parliament House as a venue for party-political fundraising, sending dinner guests to the National Arboretum instead.
This year’s event, the invitation adds, will be “more intimate” than those held in previous years, capacity strictly limited. Just as well given the increasingly fiendish optics.
PwC, for its part, keeps all governments close. It’s been conducting similar fundraisers in NSW, where this weekend’s election may turf out the 12-year-old government now led by Dominic Perrottet.
But not without one last $1500 PwC dinner, conducted with Treasurer (and PwC alumnus) Matt Kean three weeks ago.
Politicians may blow hot and cold on the big four consultancies, but PwC’s support never wavers.
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