‘Dubious honour’: consultancy giants cop trust barb
In the wake of a second consulting scandal, Australians are being told they have a right to be deeply skeptical about trusting big accounting firms.
KPMG Australia directors were grilled by members of a parliamentary committee in Canberra on Friday over allegations the firm misused confidential documents from client Lendlease to develop audit sites for Westpac and Dexus.
The hearing comes after it was revealed that another major accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia (PwC), had leaked the Australian government’s secret tax plans to companies to avoid a law PwC helped write.
Greens senator Barbara Pocock told former KPMG Australia managing director Andrew Yates at Friday’s hearing: “Two of the big four firms have the dubious honor of uniting the Australian parliament across all political divisions around dishonesty and failure to act appropriately.”
He asked Mr Yates what he would say to the Australian public, who now feel a deep distrust of the big four firms – KPMG, PwC, EY and Deloitte.
Senator Pocock stated that KPMG Australia earned $653 million from 297 contracts for the federal government in 2025, which constitutes a significant portion of its total revenue of $2.3 billion.
Mr Yates said he left the profession thinking the Big Four accounting firms were incredibly important, powerful and good institutions.
“They are all focused on providing good customer service,” he said.
“They’re all focused on serving the public good, but they’re big and they make mistakes.”
Senator Pocock said he was “stunned” by the response.
He said KPMG partners were paid $710,000 in 2025, nearly 10 times more than the average wage.
Senator Pocock said he was deeply concerned by the narrative presented by Mr Yates that KPMG had done something wrong and taken the blame.
Asking Mr Yates who else should resign, he said: “This is a partnership of shared responsibility.”
He said he had left the company and had no idea about the matter.
Committee chairwoman Deborah O’Neill asked Mr Yates why he had not resigned earlier when the allegations concerned Australian-based companies such as Westpac, Dexus and Macquarie.
“This became an issue when you found out about Singapore-based Optus-Singtel,” the Labor senator said.
“It took a long time to sink the boat. Singapore had to step in before we could say ‘Hey, I better get out of here’.”
Mr. Yates said he resigned from the firm, where he had worked since 1989, to take responsibility for oversight failures.
“I didn’t want to leave KPMG this way,” he said.
KPMG, which does not yet face a major fine, is under a three-month moratorium on work for its new finance department and has been referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission by Senator Pocock.
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