PwC CEO Kevin Burrowes, former CEO Luke Sayers face Senate inquiry into consultants, in wake of tax leak scandal

The Tax Practitioner's Board in January banned former head of international tax Peter-John Collins from practising as a tax agent for two years, alleging Mr Collins shared confidential information on Australia's multinational tax avoidance strategy with staff at the firm, after a Treasury consultation.

Emails tabled in Parliament in May revealed 63 people had received the confidential information, prompting Treasury to refer the matter to the Australian Federal Police to consider the commencement of a criminal investigation.

Former PwC Australia boss Luke Sayers, who led the firm from April 2012 until March 2020,told the Finance and Public Administration committee he "did not know" about the confidentiality breaches until this year.

"As I now read in the PwC report, due to a flawed investigation, PwC Australia didn't believe confidentially agreements had been breached until the [Tax Practitioner's Investigation] began in 2021," Mr Sayers said.

"That was after I'd left the firm," he said.

He said the Australian Taxation Office had not directly and formally advised him that Peter Collins had breached obligations of confidence, and that he would have ensured a "full and thorough investigation" if they had.

Nor did he "recall anyone ever informally suggesting" that he should read any of the thousands of documents and emails that PwC had provided to the tax office over a number of years responding to notices regarding legal professional privilege and tax advice, he said.

This was in response to evidence given by Australian Taxation Office deputy commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn last month that he had told Mr Sayers to review a tranche of internal emails which the tax office was concerned about in 2019.

But Mr Sayers did admit the breach had happened "on my watch", and apologised for this.

The former PwC Australia boss faced strong criticism from the committee, including Greens senator Barbara Pocock, who called his evidence "classic PwC playbook".

"You say you weren't aware, you're very careful in your language, you are very careful," Senator Pocock said.

"Classic PwC playbook. Not aware of the confidentiality issues that have since emerged ...You were certainly not managing, you weren't leading, either that or you're wilfully blind, or you are misleading us. There are no other words for it."

The former PwC boss received a blistering rebuke from Senator Pocock when he told the committee "the bottom line" was that a number of bad actors "made the wrong choices and they shared confidential information".

"The bad actor, bad apple scenario is not what happened in PwC," she said.

"It was a failure of leadership, a failure of culture. It is absolutely dripping off the pages of the Switkowski review and the evidence this committee's heard day after day."

An independent review of the firm, led by former Telstra boss Dr Ziggy Switkowski, last month revealed an accumulation of poor practices which formed the backdrop of "the now infamous breach of confidentiality", including excessive power conferred on the chief executive officer.

On Thursday morning, current PwC Australia chief executive officer Kevin Burrowes admitted to the committee that failures of leadership identified in Dr Switkowksi's report referred to Mr Sayers, and his successor Tom Seymour.

Pressed by Labor senator Deborah O'Neill on whether Mr Sayers and Mr Seymour "failed in their leadership", Mr Burrowes responded: "The firm clearly has found itself in the terrible position through a failure of leadership and therefore the only assertion you can make is they failed in their leadership of PwC Australia during that time, senator."

Mr Burrowes, who became PwC Australia chief executive officer in July, told the committee he would "apologise as many times as I need to to the Australian people" for the firm's actions, and defended the steps it would take to rectify issues identified in Dr Switkowksi's report.

Chair of the Senate's Finance and Public Administration Committee, Liberal senator Richard Colbeck, said Dr Switkowski's report had made for "depressing" reading.

"When I read through the documents presented by [Dr] Switkowski it was almost depressing every time I started a new section of the report because it basically reinforced at each level how crap things were in your business. I mean, it's just terrible."

"The frustration is palpable for all of us," Labor senator Deborah O'Neill later remarked, as she noted the committee had waited months to ask questions of the firm's leadership.

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