The Labor Government continues to spend big on consulting firms, despite the myriad of scandals that have plagued the Big 4 firms, according to newly compiled data from the Parliamentary Library.
The total value of contracts awarded to KPMG nearly doubled from $32 million in 2024-25 to $59 million in 2025-26, this despite numerous scandals that rocked the disgraced firm. More than 30 contracts worth over $20 million were executed with KPMG after their scandals became public on 24 March 2026.
In 2025-26, Labor spent over $860 million on outsourcing government work to consulting firms, which is more than the last year of the Morrison government ($788 million in 2021-22).
Majority of government contracts went to consulting firms that are not one of the Big 7 (Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, EY, McKinsey, KPMG and PwC).
Meanwhile the Government’s own recently published audit, which looked into the government’s reliance on outsourcing core work to external consultants, found the Australian Government spends about $20 billion on an external workforce each year.
The Greens say Labor’s addiction to excessive outsourcing of public sector work to the private sector at three times the cost isn’t just wasting taxpayers’ money, it’s eroding Australia’s public service. And it’s time to end Labor’s obsession with unethical KPMG.
As stated by Greens finance and public service spokesperson Senator Barbara Pocock:
“The government’s response to the KPMG scandal has been to give more money to KPMG, not less. What a joke.
“The volume of contracts awarded to KPMG shows just how aggressive KPMG’s push into government has been and how addicted Labor remains to the Big 4 consultancy firms.
“The government has been watching a repeat of scandals and still hasn’t delivered meaningful reform. The Government’s temporary month-to-month freeze on KPMG is nothing but a pathetic, tokenistic punishment.
“Every KPMG contract should be reviewed before another dollar is handed over to the unethical firm. The Government must ban KPMG from any future contracts until they’ve been properly investigated.
“It’s no wonder Australians are fed up. Labor said they’d reduce spending on outsourcing work to consultants but they spent more last year on consulting contracts than the final year of the consultant-addicted Morrison government. Meanwhile consultants continue to play by their own rules.
“The ANAO’s audit reveals loopholes in the government’s framework to curb outsourcing core work. Even when targets were in place and apparently ‘met’, government spending still increased. Without any controls to ensure targets to reduce outsourcing are met, it’s just tokenism, there is no genuine attempt to cut government reliance on outsourcing.
“That is why the Greens have called for a 15% reduction in spending on consultants every year over five years. We’ve been calling for this since the PwC scandal in 2023. Three years later, the Government still refuses to listen.
“The Big Four have lost their social licence. It’s time to end the gravy train. Labor must break up and regulate the Big Four, and increase penalties for dishonest behaviour and ethical failures.”
Key data:
- The total value of contracts awarded to KPMG nearly doubled from $32 million in 2024-25 to nearly $59 million in 2025-26.
- More than 30 government contracts worth over $20 million were sealed with KPMG after the scandals became public on 24 March this year – with ASIC, Finance, BoM and Defence among them.
- In 2025-26 the Big 4 firms received 250 contracts worth $109.5m, the largest share of which (more than 50%) went to KPMG ($58.7 million), followed by EY ($27.8 million), Deloitte ($23 million) and PwC ($0).
- In 2025-26 Labor spent over $860 million on outsourcing work to consulting firms, which is more than the last year of the Morrison government ($788 million in 2021-22).
- The majority of spending and contracts are going to consulting firms that are not one of the Big 7 (Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, EY, McKinsey and PwC).
Parliamentary Library data sourced from Austender is based on contract and/or contract amendment values that were current at the time the data was extracted (23 July 2026).
- Australian Government entities (that employ staff under the Public Service Act 1999) spend about $20 billion on an external workforce each year. This includes labour hire, contractors, consultants and outsourced service providers.
- The ANAO’s analysis of a sample of 22 Australian Government entities found that reported expenses for both suppliers and APS employees increased in 2024-25. More than half of the sampled entities – 12 of 22 – increased spending on external labour, comprising labour hire, contractors and consultants.
- The Framework has been partly effective. The APSC was largely effective in supporting entities to implement the Framework and reported that the APS-wide 2024-25 reduction target was exceeded. However, the design of the Framework limited the scope to a narrow part of external workforce spending, and entities could meet targets while overall spending on the external workforce increased.
- An unintended consequence of the target design was that entities could report they had ‘met’ the targets to reduce supplier expenditure for core work, even if their overall expenditure on the external workforce had increased.
- Two entities were responsible for achieving 74 per cent of the total 2024-25 targets.
- Weaknesses in the target design, and the absence of controls to ensure target achievement reflected genuine reductions in expenditure on outsourced core work, limited the APSC’s ability to assess whether reported results represented actual reductions in overall expenditure on the external workforce, or whether reported reductions were offset by increases in other spending on the external workforce.
