Firm of Keneally husband paid $39m for work on visa contract

Boston Consulting Group, which employs Kristina Keneally’s husband, was paid to support the government’s visa reforms.

Kristina Keneally and Ben Keneally. Picture: Nikki Short

Boston Consulting Group, which employs the husband of opposition home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally, has been paid almost $39m to support the government’s visa reform program.

The Australian can reveal 11 firms have been engaged by the Department of Home Affairs in its pursuit of a new visa processing platform.

In November, Home Affairs Department deputy secretary Malisa Golightly told a Senate ­inquiry that more than $80m had been spent on the design and procurement of the visa processing system.

Two private consortiums, the Australian Visa Processing consortium and Australia Post/­Accenture, are vying for the contract, which is estimated to be worth about $1bn.

A spokesman for Senator ­Keneally, who has led Labor’s ­attacks on the government over its visa processing reforms, said Ben Keneally “does not work on any of BCG’s commonwealth public sector projects”.

Mr Keneally, a managing ­director and partner at BCG, started with the consultancy firm in 2017, leading the company’s health practice in Australia.

“Senator Keneally and her family have complied with all of the senator’s register-of-interests requirements,” the spokesman said.

Senator Keneally last year told The Australian there was no conflict of interest over her husband’s work with BCG, and that opposition assistant spokesman for ­immigration and citizenship ­Andrew Giles was leading Labor’s response to the visa processing tender.

The Australian understands Labor will continue targeting the Coalition over its links with Liberal Party donor Scott Briggs — a close friend of Scott Morrison and former colleague of Immigration Minister David Coleman — who is heading the Australian Visa Processing consortium.

Both Mr Morrison and Mr Coleman have previously told The Australian they would recuse themselves from the decision-making process.

In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs said BCG was first engaged as the strategic adviser for the program in September 2015 and was reappointed in 2017. “As at 31 December 2019, $38.958m has been expended for their engagement,” the department said.

The department said KPMG, which was engaged in September 2017 to provide “business analysis and commercial, financial and program management services”, had been paid $7.27m as of ­December 31 last year.

Companies engaged to support the visa design and procurement process include BCG, KPMG, Minter Ellison, Ernst & Young, Pragma Partners, Noetic, McGrathNicol, Maddocks, MXA Consulting and Ngamuru.

The Home Affairs Department last year attacked Labor’s claims up to 2000 Australian jobs would be cut or sent offshore with the rollout of the new visa system.

The department said the government would never privatise or outsource “responsibility for visa decision-making”.