PwC scandal raises questions about use of private contractors in government | 7.30
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 มิ.ย. 2023
- The PwC tax avoidance scandal was under scrutiny again in Parliament today. The scandal has raised questions about the use of private contractors in government and the erosion of the public service. Chief political correspondent Laura Tingle shares her analysis and Sarah Ferguson speaks to Greens Senator Barbara Pocock, who is sitting on a Senate committee examining the use of consultants within the public service. Subscribe: ab.co/3yqPOZ5
ABC News In-depth takes you deeper on the big stories, with long-form journalism from Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent, Australian Story, Planet America and more, and explainers from ABC News Video Lab.
Watch more ABC News content ad-free on ABC iview: ab.co/2OB7Mk1
For more from ABC News, click here: ab.co/2kxYCZY
Get breaking news and livestreams from our ABC News channel: / newsonabc
Like ABC News on Facebook: / abcnews.au
Follow ABC News on Instagram: / abcnews_au
Follow ABC News on Twitter: / abcnews
Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated.
#ABCNewsIndepth #ABCNewsAustralia
![[TH] 2024 PMSL SEA GF D1 | Summer | แข่งที่ไทย ต้องใส่ให้สุด](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Jkuf7nCS7jI/mqdefault.jpg)
When I joined the public service I started on a policy project that was considered "too complex" for us to do without external support. We went to tender, got quotes in excess of $3m. Strict timelines ultimately meant there wasn't enough time for consultants, so our team had to take on the policy work ourselves. We did it in 3 months.
It's amazing what the public sector can actually do when it has competent people. I wish more people realised this and stopped falling for the idea that private consultants are always necessary. They have their place, don't get me wrong, but they are way overstated in todays market.
@@onarandomnote25 furthermore as an ex consultant, i knew from experience we were paid by the hours, so what stopping us to be slower? And if we got contracts which were not paid by the hour but in an upfront amount of money, we did it in a flash.
My team did a 90k USD project in 2 weeks, the other job which paid the same but measured by the hour spent takes months.
Everybody can be effective when you make effective contracts and rules, most of the time those legal bindings agreements give the loophole to be exploited.
This is exactly how engaging consultants ends up. I can't count the number of times my team has had to rework shoddy work done by overpaid consultants.
@@nyalih929 why does it keep happening then? Is it APS policy to seek private consultants for policy work or is it a cultural/norm kind of deal?
This racket has been going on for decades. How could no one see that? All these "consulting firms" would collapse overnight if it wasn't for government contracts.
Still surprised at the under- reaction of Australian media to one of the largest trusted advisor firms, PWC, selling the secrets of one client to other clients.
As Senator O'Neill said in the Senate hearings, "civil penalties are so constricted, that something of the scale of basic treason is not sufficient for somebody to be charged with a civil penalty". Even the legal system is so constricted that PwC is likely not even going to cop a fine for what they did and even if they do it'll be pittance compared to the potential damage done to the nation in terms of lost tax revenue to foreign multi nationals. Where the burden has been put back onto the low to middle income earners, yet again, to cover the costs and pay the debt that has to be made to keep basic services operational. Could explain why the Australian media isn't too worried, they're all high income earners and have their own tax loopholes that they wouldn't want to shine a light on... that or they're scared of defamation laws, which seems to be the usual case when Media Watch tries to defend journalists not engaging in public interest journalism.
Why are people still surprised by this?...have people not been watching what has been happening for the past 20 years?
@@zappy7393 Of course, they haven't, they were too busy watching important stuff such as the footy.
a private business acting in it's own best interest at the expense of the public? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, absolutely gobsmacked, totally mindblown, how could annnnnnnybody have predicted this?
😪😪😪😪😪
This is why I firmly stand on fishing reel justice
Agreed. Lol
Time for the Government to realise that the interests of private contractors will never meet the requirements of the Australian People. The argument that private enterprise providing value for the tax payers dollar is a joke and every government will ignore problems and state in parliament exactly. Time to invest in rebuilding the public sector talent pool.
The LNP aren't in government atm and they are the ones who pushed privatisation...
Before the government can act, the media and the public have to stop cheering for public servant firings or the opposition can simply promise they'll undo any rebuilding of our nation and get elected on that platform.
Well said.
The talent pool is there, it is the people on contracts. Just make them permanent and save a fortune!
Since the 80s, the neo liberal concepts of small government, privatisation, and market systems have been in play. But it is possible to take things too far. And we missed the stop sign a long time ago. Time to rebalance the ledger.
Thank God Morrison has gone!
The current one will also be gone soon, and then the next one, and the next, on to infinity and beyond.
Michael West has been talking about this for years!
Talking negatively about consultants and privatisation until now was looked upon as borderline conspiracy nut casing
As an ex consultant myself in the big 4, i can totally agree that those conspiracies did happen.
why? what makes them above reproach?
@TJ Marx who thinks you're nuts for calling privatisation as wasteful?
@@tjmarx thx for correcting my translation, the differance wasn't clear to me.
@TJ Marx no need to rude. I'm just asking a question. The OP said, "Talkling negatively about consultants and privatisation until now was looking upon as borderline conspiracy nut casing".
You replied "and it still is".
Can I ask why it's considered a conspiracy to say privatisation wasteful?
I'm astounded how this topic isn't on the front page of every paper for a whole month.
Information on this on TH-cam and google are all repetitive. We need more information and reporting
Don't you want to hear how we're ramping up reporting on crime or see a cat
You're astounded that rich media owners want to keep their crimes and their friends crimes out of the press
Mainstream media are very close to these firms. Why would they want to damage their reputations?
most the papers in Australia are owned by large private corporations who use
PWC to avoid tax.
Don't give PWC any government contracts for at least ten years
Ever
You should Not get advice from American firms
Having worked in the public service, a lot of the time they get external reports done is because the internal culture is such that no one trusts each other, no one works together, and leaders in-fight so much that you can't get any project off the ground without external validation. It's a cultural issue...
When I worked for the government I ran a small department and we all worked well together. In fact, our senior principal said that he liked to come into our department to get away from all of the infighting etc that happened elsewhere in his area of responsibility.
It’s called who we can blame to ensure we look squeaky clean.
The organisational fetishisation of the word of external consultants, especially those from the "Big 4" is not new.
25 years I worked for a large Australian financial services organisation who outsourced all of it's technology management to one of the Big 4 consultancies.
While there were a handful of extremely capable consultants from the company assigned to the contract, most of the "consultants" were mediocre at best and "advice" they gave was more often than not advice that was more about increasing revenue for the consultancy rather than improving the IT system of the organisation.
At one point I asked my manager if I could get a business card printed that made me look like I was from an external consultancy to increase the likelihood that the business people I was working with take seriously the advice I was providing them.
Was it only PWC and are the other 3 under investigation?
Cos they got caught mate
@@infernalstan886 So are the other big 3 under investigation,? was my question
@@stephenwade8093 not currently. They have yet to be found to have done anything wrong
Why is the ABCNEWS the only one channel covering the PWC scandal ? And I think we need a Royal Commission on this scandal
urgh...another royal commission, and a spend of our tax money on a debate that will net suggestions that will never be implemented.
The other so-called news channels need the advertising revenue, and so they won't touch the story.
If they did this in Australia, I wonder what else they've done WORLDWIDE????
probably, would depend on the country and its laws. Treason maybe illegal in other countries.
Enron :)
They have done whatever benefits themselves.
Australian Sovereignty is now compromised. Government at all 3 levels, that is, Local, State & Federal is paying private firms to govern Australia and this will cause much concern for Australian democracy. Once trust in elected government is damaged and lost caused by politicians who deliberately fudge truth, deflect veracity, then the government is gone.
Another key issue not discussed very widely on the topic here is that the employee value proposition(I.e culture, pay and benefits) is often severely lacking due to chronic under funding of the public service and drives employees to seek better opportunities elsewhere with very transferable skills - often in private industry. This is not necessarily a significant issue when members working with government have access to significant resources to help clients who themselves work within siloed government departments. Food for thought 😋
Speaking from experience particularly in Defence
Has anyone estimated loss of tax incurred by leaking the policy internationally ?
I truly don't understand how they could have expected a different outcome when public responsibilities are alligators to private interests
I don't understand why anyone is pretending they didn't. Who believed for one second that Chief Burger Eater Hockey was actually intending to reduce tax evasion by the rich?
pwc say they are going to ringfence their operations but that was what we expected of them previously. It is like saying I know we broke your trust but now we know what you trusted us to do then we'll not break your trust again
For the love of money.
Trust is worthless when it comes to government and contracts. We need strong clear laws, oversight with significant criminal consequences.
The problem is that small and medium enterprises cannot get the government work. The decision makers are comfortable of getting Big 4 on the task, but a small guy has no chance.
How about a one strike rule for all private contracts.
Narcissism response
Still blows my mind that somebody in government decided it was a good idea to let the people who find tax loopholes for their clients to write the new rule book on tax laws was ever going to be a good thing. Might as well be asking the Taliban to design our anti mine/IED armour on our military vehicles while still operating in Afghanistan. It was never going to work, so either whoever was in power at the time that made the decision to contract the private contractors for what should be public works was likely complicit in curating of these conditions or completely useless at having any kind of foresight as to what is in Australia's best interest. Either way, not the kind of traits we should ever want to see in any legislator or public service member that holds any position of power.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
These days you no longer need consultants. Just enter a few appropriate prompts into CHATgpt and it will produce a 200 page report in about 30 seconds which is better written than any self-appointed consultant could produce. Then just check and adjust the details as required and you are done. The cost is about $20 per month, or possibly a little more for a Government Department.
Terminate all pwc government contracts. It total BS that contract cannot be terminated. APS incompetent Executives should equally be held accountable for not doing their job and giving government contracts to their mates!!
Private "Consultants" from these MC are all BS. I work for one of Australias largest corporations and we relied so much on consultants to come up with generic and surface level BS that most internal employees could do only to spend millions of dollars on nothing.
As Dilbert once said "what does a consultant do? they con you and then insult you"
Those partners should be jailed at tax payers expense for loooooong period of time. Past and present partners.
During a golf outing
Consulting Partner: I need to make my sales quota this year. How about I do a report on X
High level Government Worker: Sure, and you'll make sure I get regular paid speaking engagements or contracts when I retire, right?
Consulting Partner: Sure thing. But I may not actually produce a report
High level Government Worker: No problem. I won't ask for it.
It's called corruption and appears to be a growing feature of this once-great country. The reason is that nobody cares, just so long as they are getting their cut.
Absolutely disgusting. If labor does not take serious action, not merely lip service, then they are absolutely complicit in this.
The best action the Labor government could take is to ask the governor general to order a double dissolution, and also arrange for all political parties to be banned.
The Coalition Government were responsible not the Labor Government
Ideology of privatisation? Can we talk about private schools and colleges in relation to this? That is another public service that has been outsourced and rorted for a worse outcome (segregation of kids and wasteful spend plus higher costs overall).
@TJ Marx huh? Public money goes to private organisations. It is same deal. To the extent now that the majority of federal funding goes to overfunding private schools instead of public schools (that have the majority of students!).
It absolutely is the same as other outsourcing/privatisation - hell, we even give them grants to build assets up and pay the majority of costs in many cases..
All of my 3 kids went to state schools as I and my wife did, and they have done well in life. It is what is in the kid and in the home that matters, not how expensive the school is.
@@tjmarx Thank you for your constructive comment. But because I am being hacked text details sometimes get changed without my knowledge.
This is old news that just resurfacing, does not mean to undermine it or understate the impact but people need to know that this is more common than they aware of.
That's the point. To actually address the issue and hold people to account.
You will never hire a consultant who won't tell you you need more consultants
Seems every public Australian department uses these outsourcing companies.
Waste of tax payers money
The so called Liberal governments have done nothing but try and get out of the business of being a government for decades and has left us with this debacle.
"... they will find it hard to get any of those big lucrative government contracts" SOrry the first seconds of this made me burst out laughing. Have these people not worked in this sector... Ive worked in PwC(albeit in London... Im still Australian tho) and know what a nonsensical statement that is.
The use of contractors to build and repair the NBN network is also a disgrace, all done to avoid the true cost.
Lets see how many get criminal charges.
There's nothing wrong with consulting. But what pwc has done is criminal. Funnily enough government won't pay their public servants rates conparable with private industry. But they'll spend billions on contractors who are paid private rates? It's nuts and out dated. Until they are competitive and forward thinking private will attract most of the talent.
There can be a lot wrong with consulting.... if it's used at the expense of creating own expertise. It can often means paying a lot for incompetent work.
I have 51/2 months until I retire and today I have to shut down because I cant afford tax. Thanks 🤨
Now do US private equity running Australian prisons
It's not a question to be raised, but a concept to be abandoned.
Number One question might be just how much dosh the 4 people trousered before resigning from PwC?
This is what you get when you have the vampires mind the blood bank.
Ah nothing like free corruption.
How is selling state secrets to foreign interests not tantamount to treason?
PWC commits Treason with no consequences; what a country we live in!
And what of past AAT Decisions now that place is debunked.
What of the impact of their past consultants regarding called-out, past, CentreLink malfeasance.. is it just left to continue into the future, indefinitely?
Like anticipating and then suffering retaliatory treatment for daring to question a ridiculously large debt.
Like that being laughed at and then answered by another and then another false debt.
Million-dollar, Human Services Persons are an oxymoron.
How to tell if you live in democracy is that you look at the comments there is only 1 when you open the comments theres plenty, when you try to like the video not letting you and now that's what democracy mean
Govt agencies are hollowed out and full of lazy process monkeys vs commercial, pragmatic, efficient people... reliance on big 4 to support them getting stuff done is a function of this... increase public sector pay to attract talent and performance manage / fire bludgers will help improve things vs current outsourcing talent
I agree with the "process monkeys", though I'd generalise more to "frustrated dumbed down" rather than lazy. If they're not permitted to diverge from the menu on the screen in front of them, is it their fault.
Love the guy repping the mullet at the department of finance. You know you’re going to get a dinky di report from that bloke 4:46
If the government paid for a report they didn’t, who’s fault is that?
Defence needs contractors there short 20k people a year right now
I wonder if that is because their department consciously does not hire staff.... unfilled positions is a known strategy.
11:26 - should we trust them? Are you kidding me??!! This is as bad as it gets! Would we give a convicted child sex offenders 2nd go at teaching?
And they do the huge defence consultancy ! Please stop this as it is a crime
1:32 HEY HEY its mole rat.
Does anyone truly believe these traitor s will be either ,held to account or lose any further Govt contracts , they still work for AFP and the treasury
Why do you have comments turned off alot of your video. Owell sign of the times
PWC just shot themselves in the foot and just tanked themselves
A moment of silence for the death star contractors.
It's all good, cause they aren't spending their money. Their spending our money
These misappropriated agricultural sounding buzz words have my spider sense tingling: DAIRY, RING FENCE, SILO. They are marketing jargon terms not actual policy.
Time for a National Independent Commission Into Corruption *NOW*
Call Scott Morrison back from his lucrative lobbyist job at the Center for a New American Security in Washington to answer where this all went wrong.
Its called being lazy. Easier to palm off work to outside and go play golf.
Hahaha 😳 Very controversial showing the Eagle. Is it a Roman thing? 😁
Yeah surprising. Weirdly surprising and we have Victoria's Head. 😇
The Chinese Private/Public Funding totally independent, totally didn't interfere with it. But Please come back, I don't know how it functions. Like the silicone bank or softbank, today here, tomorrow is gone and taken new form. It's like freeform.
game of mates. none of you know how the country works. smh
It's a culture thing
Tryed to like but the macine does not agree..
When The Government Asks For An Independent Consultation by Utopia on youtube tells you in under 2 minutes everything you need to know about why government agencies engage consultants for "independent assessments".
Cool and normal. Nothing to see here.
gone to pieces?
I dealt a bit with various levels of government bureaucracy over the years. Very few people I dealt with were on top of their professional game and even fewer were ready to make decisions unless it is to stop, to refuse or to limit. If the consultants are removed from the government departments, it will be even worse. The skills and the existing culture of the public service I afraid is not there to deliver without external help.
Pay them more then to attract the right talent?
Maybe you had trouble getting approval for projects which did not deserve to be approved. That's when you call for privatisation.
@@TheAllboutwin they are being paid the same or more than in private industry with more benefits and the job security.
@@slim7647 no, it’s when you can’t get a guy to answer you for 3 months because someone misplaced your file 😊
@@mh017509 and you never made a mistake at work? This wasn't a mistake by PWC, it was deliberate deception and fraud affecting you and me.
Or maybe stop diversity hires with little to no skill and hire those with the qualifications the PS needs to give proper advise. We have expanded the PS and yet have little to no confidence in their ability so we contract out... this is a HR problem as much as a spending problem... here is an idea take off all the DEI questions from the application process and blind hire those with the best qualifications and you will see marked improvement in the PS....
Also... set KPIs and make the PS meet actual goals and budget constraints. That will blow the chaf out the door quick smart.
Oh I am the guy from Bible
Because even warren Buffett don't understand, generally no one does because all those people are CGI, like Charlie Munger, I remember his features from one of the Disney character. We really need to ask Americans cause they are the creative ones.
Ai can do their job for 1/100 of the cost bye bye
spys the lot of them
And my name is not Christ but YONG YEW KUAN. The Y2K Bug, and the last one left from the City State of China.
15th June 2023. We have a reincarnation for Christ cause many people can't see me.
The best part of this video was when she said HOW DID IT HAPPEN. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA Join labor that's one mistake you dont want to make. Labor is useless at everything.
What? Is t it Labor who is cracking down on this though? Isn’t this current Labor initiated investigation a good thing?
@@whitneyanders5945 Yes labour is cracking down hard on us. In my opinion so hard that we are going to be a 3rd world country by the end of labor's first term.
@@westernslav6453 "...we are going to be a 3rd world country by the end of labor's first term."
What willfully ignorant hyper-partisan drivel. Do you even know what a "3rd world country" is like?
@@westernslav6453 Try taking the blinkers off. You lose perspective as a one-eyed supporter.
@@dickiesdocos Hahahahgha we talking labor here. how did Dumbo Albo make your life better by raising the cost of living? I believe both of your eyes are totally shut
Report immediately to jail everyone responsible