‘Voracious, greedy, lying scoundrels’: Politicians united on PwC

Politicians from all major parties have accused PwC of a “calculated breach of trust” by covering up and attempting to minimise the seriousness of the tax leak scandal and urged the accounting giant to co-operate fully with all investigations.

In a joint report, Coalition, Labor and Greens senators said PwC engaged in unethical behaviour, first by claiming legal professional privilege over tens of thousands of documents, and then through failing to report a serious breach of confidentiality despite having a legal obligation to do so.

Parliamentarians were unanimous in their scathing assessment of PwC in a Senate report.Credit: Aresna Villanueva

“This document reveals a profoundly unethical nature of behaviour inside the organisation over many, many years, and it is indeed a calculated breach of trust,” the report said.

The PwC scandal came to light earlier this year when it was revealed that a Tax Practitioners Board investigation found PwC’s former Australian head of international tax, Peter Collins, had made unauthorised disclosures of confidential information about government plans to combat multinational tax avoidance.

A few months later, it emerged that more than 50 PwC staff, including in the company’s overseas operations, were either directly involved or had knowledge of the leak.

Greens senator Barbara Pocock said PwC partners signed confidentiality agreements and then aggressively sold the government information they gained to clients, earning millions in fees.

“They were voracious, greedy, lying scoundrels, and they thought they could get away with it – and they probably would have, without alert journalists and an alert Senate,” she said in the Senate on Wednesday evening.

The committee report made two recommendations: That PwC co-operate fully with all investigations into the matter, and that the firm be open and honest with Australians, parliament and the international community by publishing detailed information about the PwC personnel involved.

Committee chair, Liberal senator Richard Colbeck, said the committee wanted to be careful now a criminal investigation was under way, but its report was deliberate.

“This is not just a calculated breach of trust, but it’s an egregious one,” he said.

Colbeck said PwC did not seem to understand that it had a responsibility to provide appropriate information to authorities and the community about the scandal.

“It’s time that they co-operated with the investigations that are being undertaken so that we can understand what went on, and the Australian community deserves to understand what went on,” he said.

“They should be open and honest with the Australian people, the international community, and accurately publish information about who was involved.”

Colbeck acknowledged the work of Pocock and Labor senator Deborah O’Neill in helping to bring the scandal to light.

The fallout escalated in late May when the Federal Police confirmed it had launched a criminal investigation into the leak.

The next day, Finance Department secretary Jenny Wilkinson lashed the firm’s failure to disclose the full extent of the leak and revealed the department had in effect banned PwC from taking on future federal government contracts until the matter was satisfactorily resolved.

PwC’s acting head, Kristin Stubbins, apologised the following week, and admitted the culture within the company had “allowed for profit to be placed over purpose”.

“[It] is clear, in hindsight, that PwC Australia did too little, too late,” she said.

The firm stood down nine partners pending the outcome of its own investigation, and a week after the apology and handed over the names of more than 60 current or former staff and partners who were included on emails related to the scandal after repeated calls from senators.

But those actions have failed to allay the concerns of some existing and potential customers. Earlier this month, AustralianSuper froze all future work with PwC and said it was reviewing its ongoing auditing work with the firm, an action later followed by other major super funds including Aware Super and CareSuper.

Construction giant Lend Lease iced plans to hire PwC as its auditor, while Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe said PwC would have to prove it had changed if it wanted to gain work from the bank in future.

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