Tansy Harcourt

Well, a little bit like the PwC scandal of a few years earlier, this one was actually exposed by Senator Deb O'Neill, who sits on the Parliamentary Joint Committee.

And this time it was exposed by her airing allegations under parliamentary privilege of a whistleblower who had actually first come forward to KPMG two years earlier.

And what did this whistleblower allege was happening at KPMG?

It has a lot of allegations, but the main ones were about senior auditors actually using confidential data of their own clients and using that data to then try and win work from other clients or potential clients.

It does.

And I think that that's one of the areas that KPMG is probably deeply concerned about because the government, as I'm sure you know, is one of the biggest clients or in fact is the biggest clients of the big four auditing and accounting firms.

So it's a really big deal.

And we have had Katie Gallagher come out this morning and say she's deeply concerned.

I think there is going to be more statements to that effect.

Well, so obviously, yes, Andrew Yates quickly departed last Friday.

And then today, Eileen Hoggart, who is the chief operating officer, was at least temporarily demoted.

So she will remain on as an auditor, but she doesn't have the title of chief operating officer for the time being.

And that's quite significant because...

Even though this is a scandal within Australia, KPMG is part of a cluster in the region.

So it also includes Singapore, very importantly, the Philippines and New Zealand.

And whoever is in charge of Australia and whoever is the chief operating officer and chairman is also in charge of the whole region.

And so particularly in Singapore, there are quite a few partners that are worried about reputational damage expanding to their shores too.

That client certainly does look like it's set to walk.

And I would say that there will be other clients that walk.

I think if you look at Macquarie Group, which is the biggest, that's the whale of auditing in Australia.