More taxing times for PwC

WARNING BELLS AT PWC

PwC’s chairman was warned by his colleagues that a partner at the firm was “potentially compromised by an Australian Taxation Office investigation”, but appointed him chief executive anyway, according to The Australian ($). In a story appearing on the newspaper’s Business Review front page this morning, it’s reported that chairman Peter van Dongen was warned by several firm members that allowing Tom Seymour to take the top job “could create a massive headache given his links to [PwC’s] tax practice”. Warnings were reportedly made in early 2020 after a former chief executive at PwC had a meeting with ATO deputy commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn, where the latter, “using the restrained language of the tax office”, said PwC’s board “should fully consider the implications of appointing Mr Seymour as CEO”.

Seymour became chief executive in May 2020, and resigned in May this year. Neither he nor van Dongen responded to questions from The Australian, but a PwC spokesperson said the firm had tried to respond to ATO concerns about the “culture of the tax team”. The Worm is not suggesting any of the individuals mentioned here are accused of wrongdoing.

To recap, the PwC tax scandal broke in January when the Tax Practitioners Board issued a media release revealing PwC’s former tax partner Peter-John Collins had been deregistered as a tax agent for integrity breaches. The board said Collins had made “unauthorised disclosures” relating to proposed tax laws with PwC colleagues. Acting chief executive Kristin Stubbins has since apologised for “betraying the trust” placed in PwC.

Earlier this week, the Senate made public a timeline of the ATO’s response to the PwC scandal, which can be found at The Australian Financial Review ($) and elsewhere.

CONTEMPT AT COURT

Sexual assault complainants going through the justice system frequently face outdated myths about how “real” victims of rape should act in court, according to an official study to be released today. That’s according to The Sydney Morning Herald ($), which got an early look at the peer-reviewed report by NSW’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. The study, which looked at 75 trials in the NSW District Court, found complainants face myths about how they “should act, dress and fight off their attackers”, the front-page story says. Among the myths: “real rape” is committed by a stranger, in public, and involves a weapon. In reality, as the story notes, overwhelming numbers of rapes are perpetrated by men known to their victims, and almost always happen at home. The study also found several cases where women were cross-examined about the way they dressed when the alleged attacks happened.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data from earlier this year found one in five women and one in 16 men had experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. In 2020, the federal government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare labelled sexual assault a “major health and welfare issue” in Australia. The report from the institute said the rate of police-recorded sexual assault was almost seven times as high for females than for males, and that 97% of sexual assault offenders recorded by police were male. A range of support services for victims, including 24-hour telephone helplines, are available at Respect.gov.au.

SAY WHAT?

You know what the press will say? Trump didn’t look well, he was extremely wet.

Donald Trump

The former US president came in hot this week at a New Hampshire campaign stop, where he complained about malfunctioning air-con. A sweaty Trump exclaimed: “Nice job with the air-conditioning … It’s 104 or five degrees [Fahrenheit] in this room,” (about 40 degrees Celsius, if the oft-fibbing man is to be believed). Trump also blasted the prosecutors who have brought charges against him and vowed to continue doing so despite being ordered by a judge to stop, USA Today reported.

CRIKEY RECAP

Cracks in unis’ shiny chrome and steel need serious infill — and serious money

BEN ELTHAM

“Education Minister Jason Clare wants to strike an ‘accord’ with universities. The idea is to inject some fairness back into Australia’s increasingly unfair education system. As Clare told the National Press Club in July: ‘If you’re a young Indigenous bloke today, you’re more likely to go to jail than university. We all pay a price for this. The cost of all these kids missing out.’

“Clare has commissioned engineer Mary O’Kane to lead a big policy review of higher education, similar to the effort by Denise Bradley during the Rudd-Gillard years. The universities accord is also shaping as a name-brand education policy for Clare and an Albanese government which has so far assiduously avoided any kind of progressive schools policy.”

News Corp staff blindsided by company’s use of AI to produce articles for ‘years’

JOHN BUCKLEY and CAM WILSON

“News Corp Australia’s use of artificial intelligence to produce thousands of weekly information articles for ‘a number of years’ has blindsided staff, prompting questions of management over the technology’s adoption across the company.

“In a letter to management last Friday, the national house committee said staff were alarmed by comments made in June by company chair Michael Miller in an address to the World News Media Congress in Taipei, in which he said News Corp’s local publishers were using AI to produce more than 3000 hyperlocal articles a week. The letter, written on behalf of editorial staff and seen by Crikey, called for answers to questions about which other areas of the company use AI and how, as well as further segments of the business management plans to roll out the use of AI in the ‘foreseeable future’. It also asked management to rule out job cuts as a result of the technology’s adoption.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Teals say Japanese brewing giant’s Hard Solo doesn’t pass the pub test (SMH) ($)

Hip-hop turns 50: music genre that started at parties in the Bronx is now everywhere (Associated Press)

Russia’s new schoolbook aims to justify war on Ukraine (BBC News)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was once tilting dangerously. Today it’s a different story (CNN)

Niger coup leaders accuse French forces of destabilising the country (Al Jazeera)

Amazon nations won’t be stopping deforestation by 2030 (Reuters)

Singer and songwriter Sixto Rodriguez, of Searching for Sugar Man documentary fame, dies at 81 (Associated Press)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Do top public servants deserve $900,000 a year? The short answer is yes — Kirstin Ferguson (SMH) ($): “Our anger over the robodebt tragedy, quite rightly, amplified our shock at [Kathryn] Campbell’s salary. (She has since resigned from her defence job.) So too did stories of the most disadvantaged Australians being hounded for what little they had, or didn’t have. After such an unmitigated disaster, we lost trust that those being paid so much actually deserved it.

“But would we care as much about what Campbell earned — her remuneration had long been on the public record — if we hadn’t heard evidence she’d overseen policies that caused ‘consistent and alarming levels of distress’ to those receiving Centrelink payments? In my experience, there are many public and private sector leaders paid high salaries who do deserve them. In the private sector, high pay is linked to a clear expectation of high performance and investors keep a keen eye on whether executive pay builds shareholder value.”

My dates need to realise I’m tired of trying to be chill — Erica Berry (The New York Times) ($): “Talking about the future with a partner or a potential partner might feel scary, but if we aren’t communicating, we’re projecting. Don’t we owe ourselves the intimacy of something more? I see now that it was not only conversations about our planet’s future that I struggled to have with my ex; it was conversations about our own future, too. It can be easy to feel as if the question of whether to have children, like rising sea levels, will be dealt with down the road.

“But the future, as with the sea, does not obey its supposed bounds. If being alive right now sometimes feels like standing on a cliff, I want to be with someone who’s not afraid to peer at the frothing tides. Not because I need to solve anything but because I don’t want a relationship built on looking away.”

Australia’s decision to again use the term ‘occupied Palestinian territories’ brings it into line with international law — Amy Maguire (The Conversation): “Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, has announced Australia will return to use of the term ‘occupied Palestinian territories’. The Australian government will use this phrase to describe the territories in the West Bank and Gaza that Israel occupied in 1967.

“Australian officials have generally avoided the use of ‘occupied’ and ‘occupation’ in relation to Palestine since 2014. This move by Australia is an important means of signalling condemnation of Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. It reorients Australia towards the orthodox position on the occupation under international law.”