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Australia’s prime minister has arranged for his son to complete a two-week internship at PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2021, the latest sign of close ties between the country’s government and the consulting industry.
Labor veteran Anthony Albanese, who will be prime minister in 2022, met with former PwC strategy, risk and reputation chief Sean Gregory in early June 2021, according to two people familiar with the matter. ) discussed his son’s internship. . Albanese was leader of the opposition at the time.
The politician’s son completed a two-week unpaid internship in PwC’s economics and policy division in June of that year, people familiar with the matter said. The internship was first reported by The Australian Financial Review.
The internship came two years after it was revealed that a senior partner in PwC’s tax practice had leaked confidential government information to colleagues in Australia and overseas about crackdowns on tax avoidance schemes by multinational corporations.
The scandal has roiled PwC and led to the sale of its lucrative public sector advisory business to Allegro Funds for A$1 ($0.64) earlier this year. Many of PwC’s top partners, including Gregory, have since left the adviser. Although Gregory was not directly involved in the tax practice, he was head of the risk and reputation group and, according to PwC, failed to adequately discharge his leadership or governance responsibilities.
Albanese declined to comment on the AFR report on Monday. “My son is not a public figure,” he told a news conference in Melbourne.
Albanese has called PwC’s behavior “completely unacceptable” in recent months, and his government has said it wants to bring expertise outsourced to the consulting industry back to the public sector.
Ahead of the prime minister’s involvement in the internship, another source said he had applied to Qantas to offer his son membership in its exclusive “chairman’s lounge”. Neither move was announced on the parliamentary register of interests. Albanese said on Monday he had complied with the register’s request.
Mark Kenny, a professor of political science at the Australian National University, said the latest revelations “resonated in particular because of the focus on the big consultancies, particularly their close relationship with the government and the mechanisms by which it is facilitated. It’s not open to everyone.” About the internship.
PwC declined to comment. The FT could not reach Gregory.
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