The Greens are calling for London-based PwC International Limited to answer questions before a powerful committee on how it runs PwC Australia by remote.
Senator Barbara Pocock told The Mandarin the latest revelations in The Australian Financial Review about the global firm’s process of intervening in the Australian practice raises questions about how it is being run.
A report in the AFR said the global firm used clauses in its network agreement to take over governance of the firm when the tax policy confidentiality breach was revealed in January 2023.
That meant that the firm’s interim chief executive officer, former audit partner Kristin Stubbins, had to give way to the global firm’s captain’s pick, Kevin Burrowes, even though she remained keen to oversee the repair of the firm’s reputation.
Burrowes was parachuted by the global firm into Australia from the Singapore practice to try to stem the reputational bleeding from the tax leaks saga.
PwC Australia board of partners chair Justin Carroll said it was entirely appropriate for the local firm to work with its global network to rebuild trust.
“As a firm, we are working hard on the necessary steps we need to take to improve our governance, culture and accountabilities to restore trust in our firm on behalf of our people and our partners,” Carroll said.
Pocock said that representatives from the global firm should front the corporations and financial services joint committee to explain itself.
“PwC Global is trying to quarantine this international tax evasion scandal to Australia. They are desperately trying to avoid any official inquiries into the Peter John Collins affair taking off in other jurisdictions including the US and UK,” Pocock said.
“We know that there are more PwC personnel involved globally than the six people alluded to in the short summary of the Linklaters investigation released so far.
“The fact that those six have not been named and that PwC International have declared that no wrongdoing took place outside of Australia without presenting any evidence shows how desperate they are to control the narrative in their own favour.”
Pocock said the firm had “serious questions to answer” and that the parliament needed to know who was running the firm and in whose interests the firm was making decisions.
“It would appear that Australian taxpayers are very low on that list,” Pocock said.
Chair of the other major inquiry looking into consulting firms, senator Richard Colbeck, said the firm’s persistence in hiding the Linklaters report continues to hamper its efforts to rebuild its reputation.
Colbeck has repeatedly warned PwC during public hearings and through media that it needs to come clean with how information on tax policy developments was used by its global network.
His committee issued a report last year called ‘PwC: a calculated breach of trust’ that recommended the local division of the accounting behemoth cooperate with all inquiries including that of the Australian Federal Police and the Tax Practitioners Board.
The firm has yet to fully comply with that recommendation, as it has failed to provide the Linklaters report to Colbeck’s committee.
“As I have indicated to Mr Burrowes on a couple of occasions now, the actions of PwC international in hiding the Linklaters report is exacerbating the problems of PwC Australia and hindering any repair of reputation that they might be attempting,” Colbeck said.
Senator Deborah O’Neill further amplified the concerns of her senate colleagues about PwC Australia’s governance.
“Former PwC Australia interim CEO Kristin Stubbins’ evidence to the senate revealed that she was actively displaced against her will by PwC Global insider Kevin Burrowes, and was not able to continue her work of reforming the Australian firm,” O’Neill said.
“Given Mr Burrowes’ explicit installation in PwC Australia as part of a strategy to protect the firm’s global brand, it appears that his evidence about not being able to access the Linklaters report on the tax scandal is nothing more than a convenient piece of legalistic positioning.
“To appear before the senate and to withhold relevant details surrounding his own insertion into PwC Australia is not merely an oversight, it is a direct obfuscation.”
O’Neill said PwC has a trust deficit with Australians and that the firm’s behaviour has an impact on the accounting profession more broadly.
“True reform of PwC requires full accountability and public transparency with respect to all aspects of Mr Collins’ misuse of confidential government information, including international involvement,” O’Neill said.
“This necessary transparency is in direct conflict with what we now know is Mr Burrowes’ explicit prerogative — to protect the firm’s global brand. But let us not forget what PwC does necessarily impacts the standing of the sector more broadly.”
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