PwC to ban giving donations to political parties

Embattled consultancy firm PwC will no longer make political party donations as it attempts to rebuild its reputation and business following the tax scandal that has ruined its relationship with government.

“PwC Australia will no longer make political donations, with none to be made in FY24. This includes payments to attend fundraising events, in-kind donations for event hosting/catering and other direct donations,” PwC acting chief executive Kristin Stubbins told the firm’s partners on Monday.

Acting PwC chief executive Kristin Stubbins has announced the firm will no longer make donations to political parties.Credit: Edwina Pickles

“Although we have always taken the utmost care to ensure our political donations do not create any real or perceived conflicts of interest, we recognise that doing away with political donations is the best way of ensuring the highest standards of governance.”

PwC was the largest political donor of the big four consulting firms and the move could put pressure on its rivals to follow and reduce any perceived conflict of interest.

A recent study of the consulting giants concludes that PwC is now the biggest donor of the group, having given $2.1 million to federal political parties from July 2012 to June 2022. When KPMG ($1.1 million), EY ($565,000) and Deloitte ($572,000) are added, the firms’ combined donations reached $4.3 million over a decade.

“Anyone doing business with the government should not be allowed to make political donations,” Greens senator Barbara Pocock said following the PwC announcement.

“Today we’ve seen an important step forward in cleaning up the murky world of consulting, with PwC announcing that they will cease donations to political parties, and we now call on the other big-four consulting firms to follow suit.

“The Greens have been campaigning long and hard to get dirty donations out of politics, and while PwC are now the first to break this obvious link between money and power, there is more work to do in this space.”

PwC has been embroiled in a crisis after it emerged that a number of senior partners used confidential government advice to drum up work from multinational companies and help the company pay less tax.

PwC has been forced to offload its entire government business to a private equity group Allegro for $1, after its plans to ringfence the business – as part of a plan to avoid conflicts with its private sector business – proved inadequate.

Stubbins said the announcement would be her last as acting CEO before handing over to Kevin Burrowes next Monday.

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