The Labor-led parliamentary committee investigating KPMG’s audit leaks has put pressure on the Albanese government to reform laws that could have protected the scandal’s whistleblower.
The committee, which includes five Labor MPs, on 9 July asked Anthony Albanese to urgently fix whistleblower protections. On Thursday, it published a 30 July letter from Albanese’s assistant minister, Patrick Gorman, acknowledging the concerns and saying Treasury was reviewing tax and corporate whistleblower laws.
The committee also shared its submission to Treasury’s review, where it said Australian law failed to protect whistleblower and was “largely ineffective in deterring misconduct”.
The laws had issues that were “long standing, well known, and have been well-ventilated over many years”, demonstrated most recently by the KPMG whistleblower’s difficulties, the submission reads.
The committee said it had made dozens of recommendations in the last decade, unanimously backed by members across the political spectrum and noted “the ongoing importance of all the recommendations made by the committee that have not yet been implemented by the government”.
