As the man who built Bunnings into an Australian icon, John Gillam knows his way around a tool shop. At Parliament House, he took the sledgehammer to KPMG’s smouldering reputation by asking one simple question: how can we trust this firm again?Gillam is now chairman of Lendlease, the property giant at the heart of this KPMG mess. It was confidential documents from inside Lendlease that KPMG partners used to develop their pitches for other audit contracts, including at Westpac and Dexus, in a breach of client trust that has sparked the biggest crisis in KPMG Australia’s history.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles
‘How can we trust them?’: The question that could break KPMG
Australia’s $4.5 trillion super system rises and falls on the trust in capital markets that starts with the work of auditors. That’s why KPMG’s scandal matters, and why it could break the firm.
TL;DRAI
KPMG Australia partners misused Lendlease's confidential documents for pitches to Westpac and Dexus—the firm's biggest crisis and a fundamental breach of audit trust. The scandal exposes a critical governance gap: boards have limited visibility into which confidential materials advisors access or how that data is contained.
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