Treasury officials are set to be questioned on their knowledge of the PwC tax advice leak, as the consultancy firm stood down multiple partners involved in the scandal.
Department secretary Steven Kennedy will appear before Senate estimates on Tuesday, where he will be grilled.
PwC has been under fire after it was discovered one of its former heads of tax shared confidential Treasury information about tax changes with other partners and the information was used to help win new clients.
Last week, Treasury referred the allegations to the Australian Federal Police to investigate the leak.
It comes as PwC on Monday announced it was standing down nine partners, including members of its executive and governance boards.
Acting chief executive Kristin Stubbins said members of the company who shared Treasury’s plans had betrayed “the trust placed in us”.
“We understand that we betrayed the trust of our stakeholders and we apologise unreservedly,” she said.
“We know that action is critical to restore confidence in our firm and rebuild trust with our stakeholders and I am committed to taking all necessary steps to make this happen.”
The Greens sought to release the names of PwC employees during a Senate estimates hearing last week, but the committee agreed to seek advice whether revealing the list could disrupt criminal investigations.
Greens senator Barbara Pocock, who tried to table the list of names, said the steps taken by PwC were “too little, too late”.
“We know this is a company with tentacles across business and certainly into government, so we need to know much more about the wider group of people who’ve been engaged in this terrible chapter,” she told the ABC.
“PwC continues to conceal and fail to really come clean.
“We need transparency and honesty and a proper clean up.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the list of employees allegedly involved in the tax advice scandal should be made public.
“All of this should become public at the appropriate time, of course,” he said.
“Quite clearly, what went on there is completely unacceptable.”
An independent report into the scandal, headed by former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski, will be released in September.
– AAP
