Shane McLeod – Deborah O'Neill

The Albanese Labor Government will strengthen the enforcement of the Franchising Code of Conduct and extend protections from Unfair Contract Terms and Unfair Trading Practices to all franchisees including automotive dealerships.

This $7.1 million investment will strengthen the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s enforcement of the Franchising Code of Conduct, and deliver stability and security for the franchising sector, which employs more than 500,000 people and contributes $135 million to the Australian economy each year.

These changes demonstrate the Albanese Labor Government’s commitment to supporting franchises and small business, and deliver security and increased protections for a sector that was disregarded during 10 years of Liberal-National coalition government.

In 2019, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (PJCCFS), which I now chair, delivered a report into the operation and effectiveness of the Franchising Code of Conduct. Instead of engaging in good faith with the recommendations of the report, and undertaking the considered, structural response necessary to protect car dealers and franchisees, the Liberal-National Coalition hung car dealers out to dry.

The Albanese Government has listened to stakeholders, and taken careful, considered policy action that supports the needs of Australian people and businesses.

The Australian Automotive Dealers Association’s submission to the PJCCFS inquiry highlighted the power dynamics inherent in dealership franchisor-franchisee relationships, stating “New car Dealers range in size and complexity from small, rural, family businesses, to publicly listed companies operating dozens of sites across multiple brands. The one thing they have in common is that they are all franchisees, in contracted relationships with franchisors that are very large, overseas-based manufacturers.”

The Albanese Government’s announcement creates crucial protections for car dealers, reflecting their status as important Australian businesses. Unfair Contract Terms and Unfair Trading Practice reforms will help address the power imbalance that franchisees may face and improve the fairness of financial relationships.

In 2018, the Motor Trades Association of Australia’s evidence to the PJCCFS inquiry stated “We are already seeing in rural and regional Australia the pain and suffering that is coming not just from the closure of businesses, but considering the input into that community that these businesses make.”

This announcement will make a difference to franchisees across the country, including in rural and regional areas, where car dealerships play a crucial role supporting families and businesses in their communities.

It has been clear for some time that current policy and regulatory settings have been insufficient to protect franchisees, including car dealers. Justice Jonathan Beach, in finding against Mercedes-Benz dealers, identified that “it may be that further consideration needs to be given to the terms of the franchising code and possible modification”, highlighting that franchisee and community expectation surrounding the franchising code was misaligned with its current state and legal confines. Today’s announcement directly responds to that reality.

The PJCCFS 2019 Inquiry and Report can be found here.

The Hon. Julie Collins MP, Minister for Small Business’ media release on this announcement can be found here.

Quotes Attributable to Senator Deborah O’Neill, Senator for New South Wales:

“The Albanese Labor Government has listened to the needs of Australian businesses, and delivered historic reforms for the franchising sector to ensure crucial support for the more than 500,000 people employed by the sector.”

“The Liberals and Nationals failed to deliver much-needed reforms to support franchisees, and to secure the $135 billion the sector contributes to the Australian economy each year. If they had responded adequately to the PJCCFS’s 2019 report, Australian businesses and consumers would have been better off.”

“The Liberals and Nationals abandoned Australian businesses, and spent their 10 years in government protecting the interests of multinationals at the expense of Australian franchisees and the communities they serve.”

“Franchises cover the entire scope of Australian business, from corner-shop cafes and bakeries to large car dealerships, and serve Australians across the country each and every day. All franchisees, big and small, will benefit from today’s announcement, as will their customers and communities.”

“Car dealers are signature businesses and play a crucial role in the economic life of rural and regional communities. Across Australia, car dealers employ more than 68,000 people and support almost 8,000 apprenticeships”

“This announcement will deliver increased protections from Unfair Contract Terms and Unfair Contract Practices, enabling dealerships to keep serving their communities, employing Aussie workers and training a new generation of apprentices.”

18 March 2025

7 November 2024

Today the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services has tabled the final report of its inquiry ‘Ethics and Professional Accountability: Structural Challenges in the Audit, Assurance and Consulting Sectors.’

The final report, adopted without dissent, is the product of over 12 months of diligent work by the committee. The inquiry held 12 public hearings, received 83 submissions and published 196 responses to questions on notice, and the report contains 40 recommendations which directly respond to regulatory, cultural and legislative issues raised throughout the course of the inquiry.

Among key recommendations, the report recommends that partnerships for accountants be changed to a maximum of 400 partners, to align with those of legal partnerships. This change will improve accountability and transparency in large firms and addresses one of the key issues that was raised throughout the inquiry.

The report also recommends the operational separation of large multidisciplinary firms, aligned with actions already being undertaken in the United Kingdom. Multidisciplinary firms will no longer be permitted to supply both audit and non-audit/consultancy services to the same client. This is a crucial recommendation which will ensure that firms aren’t perpetually caught in conflicts of interest and compromised in the provision of audit services by a desire to retain clients in more profitable other sections of their firm.

The report also recommends that the government consult with industry with a view to creating a consultancy code and associated compliance body within government that will register individual consultants. The report also recommends that Government entities, including Corporate Commonwealth Entities, should be required to only engage consultancies who are members of this body.

The final report can be found here: Ethics and Professional Accountability: Structural Challenges in the Audit, Assurance and Consultancy Industry – Parliament of Australia

Quotes Attributable to Senator O’Neill, Committee Chair:

“This report is the legacy of the PwC tax leaks scandal, and the sector-wide misconduct that was uncovered in the aftermath.”

“This report charts a path forward for the sector, towards a more accountable, transparent and just financial sector.”

“What we heard, and what was revealed about this sector, was the stuff of corporate nightmares. These firms – so integral to our financial sector – were engaged in base profit seeking and exploitation of their privileged place. The tax leaks scandal revealed how they were prepared to use confidential government information for their own benefit.”

“The report recommends an increased regulatory framework across the audit, accounting and consulting sectors, which is balanced by the crucial requirement of ensuring that small and medium enterprises remain viable into the future.”

“This report recommends the operational separation of multidisciplinary firms, which would ensure that audit services aren’t compromised by the desire to retain clients in more profitable sections of the firm.”

“The proper function of the audit sector matters to every Australian. We all have superannuation, and we all rely on audit firms to ensure the security of our financial markets.”

“Right now, the consulting sector benefits from deliberate ambiguity. Many consultants across government and the private sector are operating without any safeguards, as unlike lawyers, accountants, electricians, nurses and countless other professions, they do not have any formal qualification requirements or regulatory body.”

“As admitted lawyers or accountants, some consultants are already members of professional bodies, and our recommendation won’t apply to them. The recommendation simply creates a safety net, ensuring that nobody will be operating in government consulting without even a basic registration, and an accompanying professional commitment to ethics and ethical accountability.”

“Consultants also play a crucial role in the private sector. Their advice can move markets, and have serious negative impacts not just for Australian businesses, but for our whole economy. We hope that the private sector will embrace the increasing professionalisation of consulting, and engage with a voluntary code requiring their exclusive use of registered consultants.”

“We also learned last week that in the aftermath of the PwC tax leaks scandal, the international arm of PwC took over the Australian entity, demanding approval for all submissions to legal and regulatory bodies, and to our own parliamentary committee. We’ve added a recommendation to make sure that if international bodies take over Australian firms doing government work, we will know about it. This will ensure the protection of Australian Government information, and interests.”

“I think our recommendations are a reasoned and practical response to what the committee has found. It is clear that the sector needs change, and the proposals we have laid out here should not be a shock to those who have been following our work.”

“This report marks the end of impunity for a sector which has, for far too long, thrived in darkness.”

“No one is beyond accountability. The recommendations of this report deliver transparency and accountability to a malign sector, and deliver justice for all Australians who have seen these firms seek to profit at our collective expense from unethical and unsustainable corporate practices.”

ENDS

(12:15): I rise today to speak in strong support of the motion relating to the Hamas attack on Israel that was moved by Minister Wong. I had intended to give this speech last night when the motion was being formally debated, but I was absent from parliament and privileged instead to be in Sydney, as a representative of the government, welcoming those Australians home who had been in Israel at the time of the Hamas attack. I want to thank Senator Polley for giving me the opportunity to make this timely contribution today.

Let me tell you, my fellow Senators, that the sights of families being reunited after one of the most horrifying periods imaginable will remain imprinted on my consciousness forever. I want to commend Premier Minns and the public servants who made those 222 returning Australians so welcome. I also want to commend the efforts of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who have already enabled so many Australians to return home. I acknowledge their ongoing efforts, in particular to repatriate the Australians who remain trapped in Gaza and who are at such immediate risk.

Distance is not an adequate measure of the closeness of this conflict to our nation. Many Australians have been directly affected because they were, or continue to be, within the region directly experiencing the fear and violence which define this conflict, because they are friends and family of those overseas who have tragically lost their lives, been taken hostage or remain in the region living in fear. And, having spoken to some who are the relatives of hostages, I want to convey some words which were spoken to me in the last 24 hours: ‘We grew up educated for peace. We are still donating to our friends in Gaza. We have nothing against Palestine, but we have a great deal against Hamas.’

I speak to Australians because we’re frightened of the grotesque displays of anti-Semitism that we’ve witnessed here in Australia and the Islamophobia and violence against Palestinians we’ve witnessed in other Western nations. I speak simply because we are human, and the witnessing of another human’s suffering, their pain and their loss, touches our hearts.

I strongly commend Minister Wong; the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Defence; and the Prime Minister for their unwavering leadership throughout the past days. Our leaders’ swift condemnation of Hamas’s horrific attacks on Israel, their unwavering support of the Israeli state and its right to defend itself, and the empathy and humanity they have demonstrated in charting our nation’s course through this time have made me deeply proud to be a member of this government. And I note the multipartisan joint statement on Israel-Hamas now carried in both the Senate and the House.

In a conflict which continues to be played by gross misinformation and the intentional objective of stoking confusion, hatred and false divisions, there are few things which can be stated with absolute certainty: Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself. All people deserve to live safe from fear and violence. The loss of every innocent life is a tragedy.

Hamas is a terrorist organisation, responsible for horrific, illegal and unjust violence against Israeli civilians. It’s an oppressor of the Palestinian people. Hamas’s attack on Israel involved the brutal murder of over a thousand Israelis—men, women and children—who were taken by surprise and had their lives viciously and ruthlessly cut short. I am personally sickened by attempts to justify that violence and the intentional act of seeking out and slaughtering civilians. In our attempts to navigate this conflict, some people have sought to abstract the violence that real people are experiencing. There are people who seek to politicise this issue to a point beyond recognition, to a point where the death, fear and psychological pain experienced by real people are forgotten.

Abstracted discussions of terror, war and politics do not account for the horror of these experiences on an individual level and the way that they are experienced by real human beings—the shock and fear of hearing gunshots or bombs dropping just outside the door; the thoughts in a person’s mind as they run through a field, watching their friends fall around them; the pain a person feels watching their loved ones die violently in front of their very eyes, knowing only that they cannot stop it and that they may very well be next. The experience of individuals, their fear, the way they grieve, the real tears which have been shed and the blood which has been spilled—these are not political concepts. They are tangible realities. It’s easier for us to ignore them and to speak in abstraction and obfuscation. That is the exact reason we must acknowledge the realities—because it is difficult.

This moment also demands acknowledgement that Hamas is distinct from the Palestinian people. More than half the population of Gaza are people under the age of 18. They are children. I support with all my being the efforts currently underway to establish humanitarian access and aid to those who are in need, and I pray for the protection of all innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives. I certainly pray for the protection of those who are now hostages under the watch of Hamas. I condemn it, and I call for the release of the hostages, along with every other decent person walking the planet. Palestinians deserve access to food, water, medication and safety. I echo Minister Wong’s determined and consistent call for the establishment of humanitarian access and safe passage for civilians. We must continue despite what has gone on already and what will come in the days ahead. We must continue to emphasise the protection of civilian lives and the observance of humanitarian law.

The viewing of people in categories is diminishing to all. In times such as this, the challenge is always to remind oneself of the uniqueness of each soul and to elevate our fundamental understanding of suffering and loss. In this darkness, we are in search of the light in our hearts. If we fail to recognise the experience of individual people and no longer emphasise the base humanity inherent in their experiences, we risk the loss of our own humanity. Viktor Frankl, a Jewish Austrian psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz, categorically documented his experience through the lens of psychiatry. He explained clinically how such immeasurable suffering and despair are reflected in the daily mind of a prisoner. Frankl tells of a mechanised evil that transported him to Auschwitz from Vienna. Upon leaving the cattle car, he was separated from the vast majority—some 90 per cent—of those he was with, who were immediately murdered. Viktor was forced into a room with others. They were given a strict two minutes to strip down to only their shoes and belts. In their nakedness they were lined up, whipped by SS guards and marched into a shower, their only relief coming from noticing real water coming out of the faucet.

The Holocaust demonstrated to the world how evil humanity can be given the right conditions. Day after day mass murders were executed with an efficiency and absence of unease made possible only by the dehumanisation of a whole category of human beings. On reflecting on his survival of one of the worst atrocities humanity has ever inflicted on itself, Viktor Frankl said:

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

Viktor was right. At best, humanity is capable of love, compassion and charity; at worst, humanity is cruel, sadistic and brutal. When we force people into faceless categories, when we cease to recognise our common humanity, we risk the worst that we are capable of. When we cannot feel empathy for any Palestinian or Israeli mother putting her child to bed at night, surrounded by explosions, unsure of whether they will make it through the night, we have lost our humanity.

It is reasonably well-known that I have a set of rosary beads and a copy of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The Holocaust was born of the greatest horrors known to man. Let us not forget the lessons.

SENATOR DEBORAH O’NEILL
LABOR SENATOR FOR NEW SOUTH WALES

Senator Deborah O’Neill, in her capacity as Chair of the Trade Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, will today table the committee’s interim report into the international education sector in the Senate. The report was tabled in the House of Representatives earlier today.

This new parliamentary report into international education recommends a ‘Team Australia’ approach to how the sector is marketed abroad, and argues for greater investment in alumni networks to foster longstanding connections with graduates after their complete their studies in Australia.

The Trade Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JSCFADT) has tabled its report into Australia’s tourism and international education sectors in parliament today.

The report recommends a range of measures to ensure the sector’s sustainable growth.

The report can be found here: Inquiry into Australia’s tourism and international education sectors – Parliament of Australia (aph.gov.au)

Full details of the inquiry can be found here: Inquiry into Australia’s tourism and international education sectors – Parliament of Australia (aph.gov.au)

The committee media release can be found here: Trade Subcommittee tables interim report on international education – Parliament of Australia (aph.gov.au)

Quotes Attributable to Senator O’Neill;

“International education makes a substantial contribution to Australia in many ways. It is essential to ensure the integrity of the sector and that the quality of education provided to international students is the highest possible.

“It really is an opportunity to rebuild and reset, for all the players in this complex and important sector.

The recommendations complement the reforms recently announced by the Government, with the aim of strengthening and enhancing the competitiveness of Australia’s international education sector.

“This interim report is the first stage of the committee’s work to understand the links between international education and international tourism and makes recommendations which will strengthen their contributions to Australia’s economy.”

PwC’s gross misuse of confidential government information, and the now-public 144 pages of internal emails that detail their misconduct, sparked an unparalleled wave of criticism of the sector.

As we stare down the barrel of another two days of hearings into the management and integrity of consulting services, and as the sector feels the fatigue of sustained senate scrutiny, the necessity of this work for the safeguarding of our market security, and the security of individual Australians, must remain front of mind.

The big four accounting firms of PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG are responsible for the audit and assurance work of some of Australia’s, and the world’s, largest companies. They also play a role in the oversight of almost all of Australia’s superannuation funds, a responsibility that heightens the need for parliamentary oversight of their conduct and reinforces the importance of this issue for all Australians.

The major consulting firms of Accenture, McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group, while not containing audit arms, formulate mergers and acquisition strategy, undertake due diligence, and play significant roles in major market transactions.

All of these firms, with the now exception of PwC, also undertake work for the Australian government, consulting on programs crucial to our defence capabilities, social service delivery, and core government functions.

They are crucial players in Australia’s economy, and deeply enmeshed with our public service. The quality of their work, and the market trust in their capacity, lays the bedrock for our economic security on individual and collective levels.

Over the course of this year, revelations of misconduct across the sector have left none of them unscathed.

Exorbitant fees

Former Deloitte partner David Milo has been exposed for using government documents obtained at Deloitte to help tender bids for his new firm, Synergy360.

EY faced furore over work completed for the Climate Change Authority which made favourable findings for US-based company Verra, which was simultaneously its own client.

BCG faced scrutiny for exorbitant fees charged for seemingly minimal work completed for the former NSW Coalition government.

Accenture has admitted to the ranking and targeting of government and departmental officials to win contracts.

KPMG has had the minutiae of its internal cheating scandal, largely not responded to by Australian regulators, bought to the forefront once more.

McKinsey has faced questions over its consultation on the Morrison government’s net zero strategy, while also representing major fossil fuel companies.

And that is all without touching on the serious allegations of bullying, sexual harassment, poor working conditions, and the “churn and burn” mentality that appear endemic to these firms.

Despite the continually emerging evidence of misconduct, and the thorough airing of these matters through parliamentary committees, it seems the sector is still grappling with exactly what this new era of scrutiny means.

The situation is simple: organisations that derive such large portions of their revenue from government work, and that on so many instances have failed to demonstrate appropriate ethical and professional standards, should expect themselves to be answerable to the Australian people and the parliament.

The Senate in particular is a powerful investigative body. While some stakeholders within the sector have engaged openly and eagerly, it bears remembering that consulting firms do not appear before the Senate simply out of their own benevolence. The Senate has the power, if necessary, to compel witnesses and information.

The Senate also has the purview to decide which information it does and does not receive on a confidential basis. No company, and particularly not those that benefit from opacity, is empowered to dictate the terms on which information is received and utilised by the parliament.

Continuing barrage

The public interest, commercial confidentiality, potential harm to individuals and formal advice on confidentiality are each weighed in the multi-partisan committees that scrutinise these decisions.

The continuing barrage of negative media, and the ongoing and unfamiliar scrutiny of established (but highly questionable) industry practices, are causing discomfort and fatigue within the sector only to an extent that is warranted.

Companies that profit so substantially from Australian government work, and which play such a crucial role in the security of our markets, the economic stability of our country, and the financial wellbeing of individual Australians, should not be surprised by the expectation of reasonable transparency and accountability. It is not a burden imposed by an overzealous Senate – it is the bare minimum.

As we cast our gaze beyond this week’s hearings and to the fundamental purpose of the inquiry, emphasis should be placed on the growth of a financial sector with genuine ethical standards, and on the expectation for companies to understand that they are answerable to regulators, to the public, and indeed to the parliament, for their conduct.

Article originally published in the Australian Financial Review

SENATOR DEBORAH O’NEILL LABOR SENATOR FOR NEW SOUTH WALES

Exorbitant fees

Continuing barrage

SENATOR DEBORAH O’NEILL
LABOR SENATOR FOR NEW SOUTH WALES