Australians are being told they have a right to be deeply suspicious about trusting big accounting firms after a second consultancy scandal.
KPMG Australia executives were grilled by members of a parliamentary committee in Canberra on Friday over allegations the company misused confidential documents from its client Lendlease to develop audit pitches for Westpac and Dexus.
The hearing comes after another major accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia (PwC), was found to have leaked secret Australian government tax plans to corporations to help avoid a law PwC had helped write.
"Two of the big four firms have the dubious honour of having united the Australian parliament across all political divides around the failure to be honest and to act appropriately," Greens senator Barbara Pocock told KPMG Australia's former chief executive Andrew Yates at a hearing on Friday.
