Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to the return to order of documents concerning PricewaterhouseCoopers, I move:

That the Senate take note of the documents.

I want to first of all acknowledge the leadership that Senator Gallagher has shown with regard to the immediate threat to the integrity of the systems for purchasing services through consultancies in Australia. I am very pleased that she has put this response forward today. This order for the production of documents was moved by Senator Barbara Pocock, and the minister provided a response on behalf of the Treasurer. I understand the frustration that Senator Pocock has with the obfuscation that we've seen from these enormous companies and the differentiation in the sorts of answers we've had from people dodging and weaving with respect to our ongoing investigations into audit accounting in the consulting sector.

I have been investigating audit and assurance for years and years in the PJC, so I understand the frustration. For far too long, I would say, unethical behaviour has been allowed to flourish within this sector. We've seen our government departments and our departmental staff treated with a level of disrespect and contempt that is just untenable. In the wake of 10 years of a Liberal-National government and the systematic dismantling of the Public Service, consulting firms have indisputably grown to represent a significant risk to the Public Service.

The concerns of this matter are replete across the entire chamber. I've not met a senator who said, 'You should stop this inquiry, you should cease this inquiry.' People here really want us to continue the drive to uncover the fullness of transgressions that have occurred within the sector. But I urge continued unanimity on this matter. We have to be mindful that the matter of PwC and their grotesque misuse of government information is now a matter for criminal investigation by the Australian Federal Police. They need to get to the bottom of the matters referred. We must do our work with integrity, with rigour and with vigour here the Senate, but we must do that without compromising the inquiry. I urge all senators to stick to that path. We have done that so far—very well, in my view—through the F&PA committee, through estimates and, hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, through the inquiries of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. It's been determined that the production of documents Senator Barbara Pocock is seeking in this motion would potentially prejudice or jeopardise the criminal investigation. That is why some documents can be advanced and others can't. At this point in time we would be very wise to accept that and allow the AFP to do what they need to do.

In regard to the details of this particular saga, the story goes that the Australian people were actually robbed by PwC twice—once through direct theft, with Mr Peter-John Collins taking confidential information from the Treasury, and a second time through misuse of that confidential information by PwC through the attempt to create a product designed to inhibit the collection of tax fairly owed to Australia by multinational companies that do business here. The taxes that we all pay need to be supplemented by the fair, reasonable payment of taxes by these multinational companies that do business in Australia. Taxes pay for our roads, the bridges and infrastructure that we need, proper internet access, hospitals, schools and all the services Australia needs. Schemes of tax avoidance are a grave wrong that's an ethical and moral dilemma for the business sector to interrogate and manage. Profit-seeking is a good thing if you are investing capital; everybody deserves to be rewarded for the effort they put in. But what we've seen is gross, rampant profit-seeking at the cost of the Australian people, and it cannot continue.

The way our nation, and, indeed, politicians across the spectrum, has come together to condemn the actions of PwC and to scrutinise other entities such as EY, KPMG and Deloitte really is a hallmark, I believe, of the seriousness of the misconduct in which Mr Peter-John Collins, PwC Australia and PwC global engaged. The schemes they produced are simply untenable. We've seen in just the last 48 hours the release from the Australian Taxation Office of the detailed outline of their interactions. Dozens and dozens of Australian taxation officers have had to be put on the job to interrogate the work of PwC. That's a cost to us that we shouldn't have to bear, in trying to clean up after people who were trying to rip us all off.

There are few issues upon which media, industry and politics are so united in their condemnation. I urge caution by Senator Barbara Pocock, who I know is absolutely committed to seeing this through, alongside me and my other colleagues who have been working on these committees. I want to acknowledge Senator Colbeck and also my colleagues in the Economics Committee under the leadership of Senator Jess Walsh. There's been unity in the condemnation of PwC.

Let's make sure Australians get access to the justice that they need to see. The capacity of the AFP to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute this matter in a court of law cannot be hindered by frustrated action here in the Senate. We want to make sure that the proper prosecution of those who have been found to do wrong at law is able to be undertaken. It would be another grave wrong perpetrated against Australian people if we were not to undertake our responsibilities very carefully in this place.

I see that the chair of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, Senator Colbeck, has come in to join us. I want to acknowledge him for his leadership of that committee. I also want to commend to people who are interested in the detail, the PwC:a calculated breach of trustreport, which is a short but, I think, powerful factual record of what has occurred and what the Senate has found. In the course of delivering that information to the parliament, we took extreme care to make sure that none of the evidence that might be needed by the AFP was compromised in any way. For the sake of unanimity and for the sake of getting the right outcome for the Australian people I really want to make sure that we don't create division where none truly exists.

The Albanese government, I can say, is deeply committed to investigating and responding to the misconduct of PWC and the consulting and audit industry more broadly. I want to go to evidence to indicate the seriousness with which the government is taking this, and also the capacity for urgent action indicated by the action that has been taken by the government in response to what's been unveiled. On the weekend, the Albanese government noted and revealed to the Australian people the biggest crackdown on tax adviser misconduct in Australian history. Three key areas were announced on the weekend. They were: strengthening the integrity of the system, increasing the powers of our regulators and strengthening regulatory arrangements to ensure that they're fit for purpose.

Since coming into government, the Labor Party has already brought in legislation to strengthen the Tax Practitioner Board, which was introduced into parliament earlier this year. We also gave a $30 million funding boost to the Tax Practitioner Board to increase compliance activities. That happened in our first budget, the October 2022-23 budget. I want to give a shout out to the Tax Practitioner Board, which is a little-known entity but is the entity that provided the Senate, in accordance with the expectation what we have for truth telling from public servants, with the 144 emails that revealed the absolute shame and disgrace of what was going on for all those years inside PwC.

In addition to those actions, we will be increasing the powers of our regulators, removing limitations on tax secrecy laws that are a barrier to regulators, enabling the ATO and Tax Practitioner Board to refer ethical misconduct by advisers to professional associations, protecting whistleblowers when they provide the Tax Practitioner Board with evidence, giving the practitioner board more time—up to 24 months—to complete their investigations and improving the Tax Practitioner Board's public register of practitioners. (Time expired)