A top-tier consultancy firm whose Australian boss resigned over the treatment of a whistleblower was hosting whistleblower support services for some of the nation’s biggest corporations.
The revelation came to light during a federal parliamentary joint committee hearing into the activities of the corporate regulator chaired by Labor senator Deborah O’Neill.
Senator O’Neill told the hearing in Canberra on Friday that she had come across the National Australia Bank’s Whistleblower Protection Policy of April this year.
The policy refers potential whistleblowers to KPMG’s Fair Call Service, which is described as an “independently monitored external hotline and reporting services”.
The evidence came as KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms, on Friday revealed its Australian head Andrew Yates had resigned along with audit head Julian McPherson.
They took the fall over the treatment of and the mishandling of allegations by a whistleblower, after an internal investigation into the claims of misconduct was found to have fallen short of the firm’s expectations.
“I have been committed to a speak-up culture in our firm, it is clear that in this case we have let ourselves down and I take accountability,” Mr Yates said in a statement.
The ongoing internal probe also revealed a separate incident in which documents containing client information were inappropriately shared internally.
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