How the Big Four Accounting Firms Infiltrated Governments, Earning More Than $10b Over a Decade

The numbers are staggering. In the past decade Australia's state and federal governments have forked out more than $10 billion on the big four accounting firms — money that could have paid for 200 schools, 10 or more prisons, or four major hospitals.

A 7.30 investigation by Adele Ferguson reveals billions of dollars in taxpayer funds have gone to the big four consulting firms and it's often hard to know exactly what that money has bought.

The investigation drew on freedom of information requests, government procurement data, and interviews with former public servants and policy experts who described a systematic hollowing out of government capability — as departments outsourced more and more of their core functions to the big four.

The firms had become deeply embedded in government — not just providing advice, but in some cases effectively running government programs, writing policy, and then advising on the implementation of that same policy. The conflicts of interest were profound, and the oversight was minimal.

The PwC tax scandal — in which the firm was found to have used confidential government information to advise corporate clients on how to avoid new tax laws — was the most dramatic example of what could go wrong when the boundaries between government and consulting became blurred.

Ferguson's investigation contributed to a national reckoning about the role of the big four in Australian public life — and to calls for much stronger controls on government consulting contracts, mandatory disclosure of what the money was spent on, and stronger conflict of interest rules.