“Although we have always taken the utmost care to ensure our political donations do not create any real or perceived conflicts of interest,we recognise that doing away with political donations is the best way of ensuring the highest standards of governance.”
PwC was the largest political donor of the big four consulting firms and the move could put pressure on its rivals to follow and reduce any perceivedconflict of interest.
A recent study of the consulting giants concludes that PwC is now the biggest donor of the group,having given $2.1 million to federal political parties from July 2012 to June 2022. When KPMG ($1.1 million),EY ($565,000) and Deloitte ($572,000) are added,the firms’ combined donations reached $4.3 million over a decade.
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“Anyone doing business with the government should not be allowed to make political donations,”Greens senator Barbara Pocock said following the PwC announcement.
“Today we’ve seen an important step forward in cleaning up the murky world of consulting,with PwC announcing that they will cease donations to political parties,and we now call on the other big-four consulting firms to follow suit.
“The Greens have been campaigning long and hard to get dirty donations out of politics,and while PwC are now the first to break this obvious link between money and power,there is more work to do in this space.”