The parliamentary inquiry into events surrounding the recent KPMG Australia scandal reveals that the firm first went to HR when it was made aware of the whistleblower complaint.
During the dedicated parliamentary inquiry into KPMG Australia's ethics and professional accountability on 19 June, former national managing partner of audit assurance, Julian McPherson, admitted that he went straight to HR upon discovering the whistleblower complaint.
At the inquiry, Senator Deborah O’Neill, who initially told the Senate of the whistleblower’s allegations against the firm, said: “I’m a little shocked that the first person you went to was Human Resources, which is often, people know, a way of managing people with a problem … you looked at this and you went, oh, this guy’s a problem.”
Former chief executive of the firm Andrew Yates said: “My recollection is that these issues were presented to me in the context of the employment matters.”
During the Parliamentary inquiry, O’Neill criticised that McPherson did not give priority to the whistleblower’s allegations, suggesting it was treated as a “HR problem”.
Referring to a piece of evidence substantiating some of the whistleblower’s allegations, Yates said: “Up until the date of the document that was discovered on the 21st November, I think … the way that I talk[ed] to the team about this was about the employment elements of the challenge, and I could see that it was escalating.”
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