QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (15:24): I move: That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice asked by me today relating to KPMG Australia. I rise to take note of Minister Gallagher's answers to my questions about the big four partnerships, particularly about KPMG. It's not my natural state to shout in this place.

I don't like shouting. I haven't shouted much as a grandparent, as a parent or as an educator through most of my life. But I am really, really angry about the fact that this Senate and this parliament have spent years calling out the extraordinary corrupt behaviour in big four partnerships, and here we are again doing it in relation to KPMG.

And the action from this government, which has a huge majority, is yet to be witnessed. I asked Senator Gallagher why it is that the government has a $1.3 million contract with KPMG to teach ethics to the 300 most senior public servants. That contract is three years old.

It's available to be renewed for another three years. And it is in the shadow of KPMG's repetitive lying to the parliament, repetitive cheating on exams, misuse on multiple occasions of confidential information and farming of audits across our corporate sector. Our most important foundational question of clear, reliable, trusted information and relationships with auditors is put at risk by KPMG, who hold the audit for many very significant and the largest of Australian corporations.

I kid you not: this organisation, which gave a 10-hour masterclass to a parliamentary committee on 19 June in this parliament on how not to behave—how not to be ethical—has a contract for $1.3 million to teach Australian public servants leadership and how to behave in an ethical way. And the minister accuses me of seeking media opportunities—of running a stunt.

This is not a stunt. It's simply unbelievable. It does not pass any sort of pub test out there.

And there are people in this place wondering why, in my state, 25 per cent of South Australian voters voted for One Nation—why so many people are turning their backs on the major parties. They don't have to look very far to see where voters' cynicism comes from. They see a headline like that.

They see someone who lies to the parliament, misleads the parliament, cheats on exams and uses confidential information—three years after PwC did exactly the same thing, tutored by PwC for three years—and yet goes down that same corrupt pathway. And people out there look at this institution and think: 'How can I trust it? How can I trust that it's on my side, when it doesn't take the real remedies we need against such appalling behaviour?' The median wage in Australia is $75,000.

There are retail workers, nurses, teachers and childcare workers looking at this parliament on their $70,000 on average and wondering: why do we have partnerships with KPMG where the average pay for 680 partners is 10 times the median wage? They are each on over $700,000 a year. We heard in our parliamentary hearing that the CEO of KPMG, who left having been in charge of a very significant loss of credibility in KPMG in recent times—a complete betrayal of the trust of this parliament—walked away with multimillions of dollars in payment.

Ordinary people look to this institution and say, 'Why are you not taking action against this misbehaviour?' We know from our parliamentary reports representing years of work across this chamber. I look at the work of Senator Deb O'Neill, who has been an exemplary leader in pushing against corruption in the big four. I listened to Paul Scarr, outraged in that hearing last Friday week.

People are outraged about what we hear, and ordinary citizens are saying, 'And what are you Labor going to do about it?' Well, so far, it hasn't been much—a code of conduct. People want more—break up the big four, hold them to account, insist on transparency, make sure they meet the same whistleblower and tax obligations as ordinary large corporations. The big four pay no corporate tax, they pay no payroll tax, and they arrange their affairs in ways which minimise their tax as partners.

Well, it's time to hold them to account. It's time to stop them bullying whistleblowers who bring the facts to this parliament and try to hold corporations and partnerships to account. It's time this parliament acted, and it's time the Labor government used its majority and the work of its senators to go forward and make the change.