This blog is now closed.Check out our Midwinter’s Ball gallery hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAlbanese says charges against EY employees who accessed PM’s bank account details ‘appropriate’It’s not just KPMG in (boiling) hot water right now; EY is also in the spotlight, after two of its graduate employees on secondment at the Commonwealth Bank allegedly used the bank’s systems to access the personal details of Anthony Albanese. The two employees have been sacked.It’s before the courts and I’m not about to go into the detail of that.

It’s appropriate that charges have been laid …accessing anyone’s privacy, any Australian’s privacy, is alarming, let alone someone from a contractor who’s not an employee of Commonwealth Bank being able to access that information.We’ve cracked down on that and we’ll continue to examine these issues. Quite clearly, the behaviour of some of these big accounting firms has been completely unacceptable.

In some cases, it has involved breaches of the law. And they need to be held to account.Since I’ve come into this role, I’ve really tried to prioritise drawing together a lot of strands of work that were already in play.

And especially now that we’ve seen what’s happened with KPMG, we’re now accelerating a lot of the government’s work. Continue reading...