Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Pocock for the question and for the work that she's been doing, along with my colleague Senator Deb O'Neill, on inquiring into the breaches of confidentiality by PwC. As I have said in estimates and in other places, we are deeply disappointed and angry at the actions of PwC in relation to this matter and we have taken a number of steps to deal with it in the short term. The PwC issue has been referred to the AFP, and the Tax Practitioners Board investigation is continuing. There are recommendations from the 2019 review of the Tax Practitioners Board that weren't progressed. We are progressing those. We've also provided additional funding to the Tax Practitioners Board to give them the investment they need to do compliance investigations.

In relation to procurement—and I would again repeat that the issue that has been brought to light by PwC's behaviour was a breach of a confidentiality agreement—we have acted in the area of procurement. We've directed PwC to stand down from government contracts any personnel who were involved in or had knowledge of tax matters from government contracts. We've added new clauses into standard government procurement contracts to further strengthen the ability of the government to cancel these contracts in response to behaviour in the future. We've reminded all departmental secretaries that ethical behaviour must be taken into account as part of the value-for-money exercise under the procurement framework, and we've started work on a supplier code of conduct that will outline behavioural standards expected from suppliers during procurement processes. We will consider further actions as required. (Time expired)