Robodebt and Robododger: PwC’s consulting operation revealed

The double standard is glaring, further illuminated by the findings of the Robodebt Royal Commission. While the AFP dithered for years investigating the blue-chippers from PwC for selling state secrets to foreign corporations, it was as quick as a rat up a drainpipe when it came to sending out letters to Centrelink clients threatening them with prison sentences unless they paid their Robodebts.

This strike on Australia’s most vulnerable – the Robodebt scheme targeted 381,000 people to unlawfully recover more than $750m – was badged “Taskforce Integrity”.

So we are conducting a “Taskforce Integrity” of our own today, perusing PwC’s only significant public financial disclosure and finding an inevitable morass of related party transactions – a global maze of partnerships, trusts and tax haven entities designed to skive out of paying tax on a billion dollars in revenue.

A good deal of this is revenue from the Australian government we can surmise. As the Senate Inquiry into the Big 4 consulting players has ably revealed, the obscure partnership structures of PwC and the other Big 4 enable them to hide a lot of things (including even how and where they make all this money).

In fact, as partnerships, their single duty of disclosure is the Orwellian-named “Transparency Report” issued once a year in which they are compelled merely to reveal one actual number, their top-line revenue. You will find this actual number interred within the glossy revelations of outstanding ESG initiatives, the smiling faces, the net zero talk and the marketing gumph about the firms’ amazing contributions to society.

And for the past few years, as the Australian Public Service has been gutted in favour of high-priced consultants. EY, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC have been coolly notching up double digit rises in revenue growth – not profit, but yes, revenue.

Who else does this routinely in a 1pc interest rate environment while the broader economy is growing at 3%? Only the maestros of preying on insipid governments.

The rise of the paper-shufflers

Unlike its Big 4 confrères however, the PwC partnership controls an actual company of size. It is called PricewaterhouseCoopers ASEANZ Consulting Pty Limited and is required to publish with ASIC its annual financial report.

In this document we find that consulting revenues last year rose again, up from from $944m to $1.15bn. Bear in mind that this probably includes income from New Zealand and other countries in South East Asia, also that it comprises non-government consulting work too.

They don’t have to disclose it. But what we do know is that PwC Australia, the partnership which controls this large consulting operation, recorded a glitzy 17% rise in revenue to $3b last year. We also know that Australia has one of the most over-consulted governments in the world and that Federal government consulting revenue alone was probably north of $300m.

https://michaelwest.com.au/robodebt-and-robododger-pwcs-consulting-operation-revealed/