Warren Mundine sent an extraordinary series of angry and expletive-riddled text messages to a KPMG partner after the firm cancelled an invitation for him to address staff following his request for a $10,000 fee.
Mundine used the N-word to describe how he felt the big four firm had treated him over many months, before warning the partner he was “going to treat you cunts like you treated me!”
“I’m a proud Aboriginal man,” he said in the text messages. “I have [had] a gutful of KPMG. I’m going to treat you cunts like you treated me!
“And for me to talk like this tells you how angry I am.”
Mundine had been approached to speak to KPMG’s board and executive staff in late 2022, but his speaking fee was considered too high and the offer was formally declined after some negotiation.
On Monday, Mundine told Guardian Australia that when his $10,000 fee was rejected, he asked a partner involved in the negotiation: “Don’t you like paying Aboriginals?”
He said KPMG subsequently negotiated a $5,000 fee, which he accepted, before the firm then cancelled on him.
“It was compensating for some of my time and also the flights,” Mundine said. “I was unhappy with KPMG and I am still unhappy with the way they treated me. I have not had any conversations with them for months.
“If big corporations are going to get Aboriginal people in, whatever the topic is, they should pay. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have done a hell of a lot of stuff for free over the years.”
A KPMG spokesperson said that after Mundine’s invitation was cancelled, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was subsequently engaged to speak to senior staff. The Yes23 campaigner director, Dean Parkin, also spoke to the firm.
Parkin and Price have been contacted for comment.
In late December, Mundine posted on social media that many corporations were supporting the Yes campaign because “they have been advised by one side of the debate”.
“Jacinta and I tried to put another side to them but companies such [as] KPMG refused,” Mundine said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on 29 December. Price did not address the firm until March 2023.
In late January, Mundine complained about KPMG and other corporations supporting the Yes campaign to the Australian newspaper.
“These big corporations, they’ve all gone woke and they’ve been sucking on the Kool-Aid,” Mundine told the paper. “They are running biased education programs.”
In early March, Mundine delivered his grievance in much stronger language to a KPMG partner, whom Guardian Australia has decided not to name after a request from the firm. Screenshots of the messages were sent to many people and shared widely, and have been verified by the firm and Mundine.
Mundine did not outline his specific grievance in the screenshot of the messages but confirmed on Monday that his non-payment was a factor.
“I got a bit tired of large corporations that were spending lots of money on the Yes campaign and not being willing to do that for us,” Mundine said.
Labor senator Deborah O’Neill first raised an issue relating to a fee during a Senate inquiry into consultants in late September, during which she used parliamentary privilege to allege Mundine charged $30,000.
At the time, KPMG’s chief executive, Andrew Yates, said he was not aware of that figure, but confirmed Mundine had been approached and that it was “a really difficult issue” for the firm.
“It’s a great example of what I find to be really complex issues when I’m leading a firm like ours that is full of people with different views on this,” Yates told the inquiry. “It was another element highlighting the complexity of the issue that I’m dealing with.”
KPMG’s support for the voice was clear long before the briefing.
In 2019, it formally declared its support for constitutional change and said “not only is this the right thing to do, our national identity depends on it”. In March 2021, it urged the then Coalition government to act with “renewed urgency and commitment”.
The no campaign ultimately succeeded, with the majority of voters rejecting a voice to parliament.
