PwC charged health department to provide ‘risk management’ workshop in weeks before scandal

The public sector union says the ‘risk management workshop’ tender awarded to PwC was ‘frankly absurd’. The Department of Health and Aged Care was later forced to suspend another contract with the firm. Photograph: Mauritz Antin/EPA

PwC Australia billed taxpayers to deliver a “risk management workshop” to a department that was subsequently forced to suspend the firm’s $2.3m contract in the aged care sector, pending an investigation into potential conflicts of interest.

The $36,000 engagement has been described as “frankly absurd” by the public sector union and criticised by legal academics given a Senate committee report released in June 2023 that confirmed the consultancy firm had been engaging in a “calculated” breach of trust.