The KPMG Review - a slow walk through the review that found no indications of possible interference

SteveJ offered this insight into this preliminary post on this matter.

 

FWA had the BDO audit report. 
They had the schedules the Union had prepared that formed part of it.
They had the records Jackson had given them in 4 boxes.
The Industrial registrar could see it demanded an investigation.
They did nothing about those records for 2 years and 3 months.
Activity commenced once the matter had been raised in Parliament and Lee had been moved.
The excuse offered in the KPMG report is completely untenable.
No one could fail to have recognised the significance of these matters to the investigation.
Yet KPMG records the excuse without comment!
Complete and utter incompetence can never be excluded as a reason for this however common sense dictates that the highly likely explanation is a deliberate policy of delay.
In the context of a report that included an investigation into any interference it demanded a probing that went beyond merely asking those involved whether any interference had occurred and a bland recording of their denials.

 

 

Dr John Lourens FCPA summarised the BDO Kendall report in fewer than 3 days here.

It is the starting point for FWA's investigation and the evidence in it was delivered to the Industrial Registrar in June 2009.

Here are the prelimiminary documents setting out KPMG's scope of works for its "independent" review of the FWA investigation.

I put the word "independent" in inverted commas because all of the negotiations about the terms of reference etc are conducted with Bernadette O'Neill, the General Manager of FWA.   Imagine tthis sort of hue and cry about a police investigation - would the same police negotiate and oversee the "independent" review?   And if they did, would an ethical reviewer permit its work to be characterised as coming close to "independence"?

Work plan

And here is the workplan itself for Project Glass.

On Monday 30 April 2012 Robin Tarr from KPMG writes to Bernadette O'Neill about her plan for herself to refer people who allege political interference in the process to KPMG.

Tarr to oneill intererence

On 5 May, Bernadette O'Neill provided the draft of a letter to be sent to K Jackson and 4 or 5 others regarding "interference".

 

May 5 interference

By 16 May someone might have had a chat in Bernie's ear whispering the word "independent".   She had her own second thoughts.   Maybe the letter shouldn't come from her after all.

May 16 shouldn't come from me

 

On 17 May Tarr of KPMG agreed to send the letters directly from KPMG.

Tarr agrees to do this

 

After a few more meetings and email exchanges, the final letter and the list of people who might be able to shed light on this issue of possible "interference" in the FWA investigation was firmed up.

Independent tarr

Bernadette was happy with the way the review was making its independent way .

Independent tarr reply

Help with the addresses

And that resulted in KPMG putting together this final list referred to in this email.

Independent tarr final

 

So who would be the 5 people invited to write back to KPMG to see if the investigation had any "interference" of a political nature?

5 people re interference_001

5 people re interference_002

 

And here is the letter.   Imagine police did something nasty to one of your family and you wanted an independent review into the police investigation.   Would you it make you feel more or less confident if the independent review said "any information you give us will be passed straight on to the police who are under investigation".

The letter_001

 

Much much more coming!

 

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