<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/04/corrosive-impact-calls-to-ban-political-donations-from-australias-big-four-consultancies-after-pwc-scandal>
"Australian political parties should stop accepting donations from the
embattled consultancy PwC and similar firms to avoid potential conflicts of
interest and restore public confidence, transparency advocates have urged.
Analysis by the Centre for Public Integrity found the big four consultancy
firms – PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG – have donated $4.3m to Labor and the
Coalition over the past decade. During that time, the value of their government
contracts increased by 400%.
The Greens senator Barbara Pocock, who has led scrutiny of PwC’s misuse of
confidential government information along with the Labor senator Deborah
O’Neil, said large consultancy firms should be banned from making political
donations.
“Accepting money from someone and then awarding them a contract meets the
definition of conflict of interest,” Pocock said.
Geoffrey Watson, a board member at the Centre for Public Integrity, said the
federal government’s “persistent over-reliance” on the firms had “a corrosive
impact on the role of the Australian public service”.
“The big four’s largely party-indiscriminate donations appear designed to curry
favour with whoever may be in power and remind us yet again that the absence of
donations caps allows well-resourced players to have an undue influence on the
exercise of public power,” Watson said.
“Integrity must be strengthened through appropriate lobbying regulation and
closing the revolving door. Former partners of firms should be prohibited from
holding public sector roles while they are receiving annuities.”
Last financial year PwC donated nearly $250,000 to the major political parties.
James Guthrie, an emeritus accounting professor at Macquarie University, said
the scandal at the firm should force a rethink on whether that money is
accepted.
“The major political parties should not accept donations from the big four,
especially when they have previously received significant annual money for
consulting activities,” Guthrie said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
