Doctors, health researchers and crossbench MPs have criticised the federal government for paying consultancy giant KPMG to help shape its national health and climate strategy, raising concerns about the firm’s work with the fossil fuel industry.
The new strategy, which will be delivered by the end of the year, will outline ways to ensure the health system is prepared for the impacts of climate change and suggest measures to reduce emissions.
KPMG is separately offering services to the fossil fuel industry. Its website states Australian gas and oil reserves “are under-explored by global standards [and] there’s still major potential for organic growth as these sectors remain critical to the Australian economy”.
KPMG did not address questions from Guardian Australia about the nature of its work, citing confidentiality, or address criticisms about potential conflicts of interest, but the department did give a broad overview.
“KPMG’s services were procured to provide additional support [for] the department’s national health, sustainability and climate unit to deliver the national health and climate strategy by the end of 2023,” a department spokesperson said.
“This includes working in conjunction with departmental staff to provide project management support for the strategy’s development, logistics and facilitation of in-person workshops as part of national consultation to inform development of the strategy, collation of stakeholder input and graphic design of strategy.”
The spokesperson said KPMG was required to disclose conflicts of interest and that department officials were present at all in-person workshops.
Doctors for the Environment Australia, a group of medical professionals who lobby the government on climate change, welcomed the new strategy but said the department should have selected a firm without links to the fossil fuel industry.
“It is highly concerning that KPMG, a consultancy firm that works with the gas and oil industry, was chosen as the consultancy firm for the strategies consultation,” said the group’s executive director, Dr Kate Wylie.
“While we recognise that there has been a long decline in the public service, diminishing their capacity to undertake the consultancy themselves, the optics of using a group that supports the fossil fuel industry is blurry at best.”
Prof Fran Baum, a research fellow at the Stretton Institute at the University of Adelaide, said the work could have been conducted by public servants or academics.
“There is a clear conflict of interest between advising the government on issues to do with the health impacts of climate change and the public interest, while concurrently advising the fossil fuel industry with vested private interests and a profit motive,” Baum said.
Barbara Pocock, a Greens senator who is part of a parliamentary committee examining the conduct of consultants, said KPMG’s work on the climate strategy was a “worrying example” of the government’s reliance on the so-called big four firms.
“This is core public service work that should be conducted by a robust public sector where there is no risk of a conflict of interest between a consultant with a fossil fuel client list and the public interest,” Pocock said.
Sophie Scamps, an independent MP who worked as a GP before entering parliament, raised probity concerns despite KPMG and the department’s assurance that all conflict of interests were appropriately declared. Meanwhile, Monique Ryan, an independent MP and a former director of neurology at the Royal Children’s hospital, criticised the KPMG contract and urged the federal government to take a more ambitious approach to emission reduction.
“Instead of approving new coal mines, subsidising fossil fuel companies and seeking advice from firms whose clients include fossil fuel industry giants, the federal government needs to recognise we are in a climate emergency and act accordingly,” Ryan said.
