According to a recent report from consulting giant KPMG, superannuation should be added to paid parental leave (PPL) and the Commonwealth carer payment — all part of “a series of reports on policies to achieve greater gender equality”. It would cost around $1 billion a year.
Fair enough. The report has received some coverage, mainly in the super trade press, although The Australian linked it to a push within Labor by Emily’s List members to add super to PPL.
What’s interesting is that KPMG feels entitled to opine about how governments should increase spending, given its very long track record of working assiduously to undermine government revenue.
In 2005, KPMG admitted to criminal wrongdoing and paid more than US$450 million in fines for engaging “in a fraud that generated at least $11 billion in phony tax losses”, resulting in “the largest criminal tax case ever filed” in the United States. Six former partners and its former deputy chair faced criminal prosecution.
A Senate investigation concluded: “KPMG devoted substantial resources and maintained an extensive infrastructure to produce a continuing supply of generic tax products to sell to clients, using a process which pressured its tax professionals to generate new ideas, move them quickly through the development process, and approve, at times, illegal or potentially abusive tax shelters.”
In 2016, after the leak of the Panama Papers, the firm admitted it was putting high-wealth Canadians into tax shelters based in the Isle of Man. KPMG actively promoted the shelters to Canadian multimillionaires. In 2020, long-time KPMG Australia partner Chris Allenby was deregistered as a tax agent by the Tax Practitioners Board for his role in illegal tax schemes by his clients.
KPMG’s tax advice and audit functions have furnished entire academic papers examining its use of regulatory arbitrage. (KPMG’s consulting arm is also at the centre of allegations it overcharged defence — where KPMG appears to have a lock on huge numbers of consulting contracts.)
In short, KPMG comes to any debate about how governments spend money with zero credibility given its decades-long record of enabling tax avoidance.
Issuing reports on achieving greater gender equality is a distraction for a firm devoted to enabling and increasing inequality on a global scale — a bid for social licence where none should exist given the primary role of the firm in enabling corporate and high-wealth individual tax dodging.
The media plays a role in this. Every report of a KPMG study, or one by PwC or EY or Deloitte, that treats it as credible ignores the real business of the big four audit firms. Such reporting normalises these firms as legitimate participants in public debate, when they are malignant actors undermining civil society.
No coverage of anything issuing from the big four is complete without recounting their role in undermining the ability of governments to deliver for their communities.
We’ve been consulting the foxes on henhouse design since, like, forever.
> Such reporting normalises these firms as legitimate participants in public debate, when they are malignant actors undermining civil society.
I’ve suspected as much, as an ignorant pleb, since these goons started rating a mention. Somehow though, my intuition must’ve been an outlier.
Although, maybe it was just a case of everyone assuming the majority disagreed with them… This vid explores the phenomenon: https://youtu.be/BD_Euf_CBbs
Yes, and other governments, such as the UK’s, are the same; our governments exist to serve the wealthy tax-dodgers and their agents and disregard anyone else’s interests.
Answer to your rhetorical question, because the previous Federal Government has gutted the Federal Public Service of quality and specialised knowledge workers who could easily do the job of these private consultants for much less and probably, no, undoubtedly, better.
I worked at kpmg. They are corrupted from the ceo down. They should be barred from audit, government and in fact all work. The other three no doubt just as bad.
This has been known for over thirty years, but never was ever said about it in the MSM. For many years the Big Four marketed their “independence” from all pressure groups, including government, even though they have always been spongers on government.
Their common expression was “tax efficiency”, an euphemism for tax avoidance. Yet they have essentially got away with it. No jail sentences yet.
And like many rentier businesses many personal links i.e. ‘connected’ or ‘mates’ via schools, corporate sports, Liberal Party etc. in a cultural cohort being hollowed out by change in Oz; becoming a minority a la 1% then demanding more power and influence, as we or the 99% ‘replace’ them?
The exposure of consultancy firms recently has been a positive, along with conservative media and lobby groups neoberalism has been able to thrive here.
The fact checking and due diligence ability of politicians and media has shrunk to a minuscule part of governance and endeavour to speak the truth.
Modern communication has exponentially grown along with the ability to miss represent and create misinformation.
Neoliberalism thrives on breaking down transparency and disclosure. A healthy government would be placing public service fact checking very high on its agenda and to gain or keep a media license the same standard would be legislated.