Easy to see through ‘transparent’ PwC; Lobbyist’s cozy relationship with Virgin’s owner and Qatar

PwC Australia chief executive Kevin Burrowes during a staff meet and greet.

“Transparency” is a word repeated a nauseating number of times in a PwC document titled Commitments to Change, strategically released on Wednesday alongside the findings of Dr Ziggy Switkowski’s independent report into the firm’s culture and misdeeds.

You can bet there was much cogitating within PwC as to how Switkowski’s report should be released, and when, and how best to maximise the soothing messages of CEO Kevin Burrowes, who wants everyone to know how committed he is to lifting the “rigour and transparency of decision making”.

Did that start with the publication of Switkowski’s report and management’s response? Of course not. It was released to journalists on a day when virtually every business writer in the country had their eyeballs glued to Qantas chair Richard Goyder and CEO Vanessa Hudson while they presented for a ritualised bollocking to a Senate committee hearing.

PwC issued the two documents around 10am under embargo for 12:40pm – this while holding back a third, far more searing “statement of facts” that takes a blowtorch to Australian partners and goes further than Switkowski’s procedural, high-level diagnoses of gaps and risks at the company.

Report author Ziggy Switkowski. Picture: Paul Jeffers

Of course, PwC, so committed as it is now to transparency, could have released all three documents together. Except by putting out Switkowski’s report first alongside management’s antidote for all the poison, it ­assured the firm of a palatable narrative – the problem diagnosed; the solution laid bare – faithfully gobbled up by the national media in the first wave of headlines. That’s not the journalists’ fault, of course – how were they supposed to know that PwC was playing a stupid game of hide and seek with another document still to come?

Margin Call did try to warn of this likelihood over the weekend. Alas, our presentiments were cast aside like so many Kristin Stubbinses. Another three hours passed before the firm’s damning internal report went live on the website, foisting blame and suspicion on the usual cast of former partners: Tom Seymour, Peter Collins, Michael Bersten, Luke Sayers, Neil Fuller.

Former CEO of PwC Australia Tom Seymour. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Plenty was said about them, but not a word mentioned about the role of international management, or the direct or indirect culpability of PwC Global overseeing Australian operations. This after the firm itself conceded on Wednesday that “six individuals” should have raised questions as to whether the information they were privy to was bound by confidentiality agreements.

Almost laughably, the words “Project North America” – the code name given to PwC’s misuse of that same secretive tax information – was not mentioned at all, nor were the American clients who restructured their tax affairs on advice from the firm on the basis of this data.

So many signs point across the Pacific, yet PwC Global would have you think this boils down to a rogue mob in Australia, the entire mess a uniquely Australian problem.

Joining Qatar dots

The always canny Eamonn Fitzpatrick has certainly kept his hands full while lobbying for Qatar Airways and its stymied attempts to increase flights to Australia. By now everyone knows that the Albanese government blocked that bid, citing a new reason for doing so almost every week.

Fitzpatrick’s role came up already in parliament when Transport Minister Catherine King conceded she’d been approached in her office about the Qatar matter – the issue being that Qatar’s misfortune conferred a benefit to Qantas by completely screwing over passengers on ticket prices.

Virgin, of course, has had plenty to say about this, too – its boss Jayne Hrdlicka spoke on Wednesday of how the Albanese government had played directly into the hands of the airline’s former chief executive, Alan Joyce. As King told parliament earlier this month: “I do meet routinely with the CEOs of all of the airlines, airports, and peak bodies, and from my recollection, the main people lobbying me about Qatar came from Virgin and a third party into my office on behalf of Qatar,” she said. Fitzpatrick wasn’t named, but the dots were there to join up.

But it’s not just Qatar on the books at Fitzpatrick’s lobby shop. He’s also acting for Bain Capital, whose portfolio company – Virgin – is happy to keep sledging Qantas over this untidiness involving Qatar Airways.

Lobbyist Eamonn Fitzpatrick.

Complicating matters also is that Fitzpatrick is listed as the lobbyist for Sydney Airport – whose sought-after landing slots are being chased by Qatar. We’ve heard of double-hatting, but triple-hatting?

Then again, Margin Call hears that Fitzpatrick dropped Sydney Airport as a client some months ago, and his work for Bain is non-aviation in nature. Hard to nail down as the man himself – or the “agent of infection”, as he was once dubbed by conservative politicians – declined to comment.

Regardless, these arrangements still came into question on Wednesday at the Senate committee, with Senator Linda White asking Bain’s Ray Hass about Fitzpatrick’s arrangements – again, without naming him. “Bain Capital and Qatar Airways share a lobbyist – how closely intertwined is that relationship?” White asked.

A reasonable question to pose, although Hass said he knew nothing about it, and took the question on notice.