(Image: Supplied)

The Finance Department has awarded a $20 million quarantine contract to consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the company behind the government’s botched vaccine rollout. 

PwC will provide the Morrison government with “strategic planning consultation services” and “commercial and financial advice” to support the delivery of centres for national resilience, a contract published on AusTender shows. 

The centres are purpose-built quarantine facilities in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth and will provide extra capacity to manage future potential health and natural disaster crises. The contract runs from August 2021 to June 2022, and the firm will collect about $1.8 million a month (roughly $60,000 a day). 

Few details

PwC was the Health Department’s lead delivery partner for its vaccine rollout which was besieged by delays and inefficiency, with millions of doses behind schedule.

Details of the $11 million Health contract were kept secret for eight months; department officials claimed the contract was “incorrectly registered” in its financial management system.

So why is the government turning to PwC again? 

The Finance Department says engaging PwC will support and supplement its capability to deliver the projects and meet the expectations of the Commonwealth, Victorian, Western Australian and Queensland governments.

“Consultants can deliver value for money when the need for specialist skills or additional support is temporary or project specific, or is highly specialised in nature,” it said.

But as Crikey has reported throughout the pandemic, this is critical work that is being outsourced at great expense, and we are unlikely to ever see the results. 

When asked for comment, PwC said: “We don’t comment on client matters.”

Boom time

Big international consulting firms are making more money from the Morrison government than ever before because of the billions that are being spent on recovery efforts.

But there is little transparency about the advice they provide, often due to deals being labelled commercial-in-confidence, despite grappling with key parts of the pandemic response.

More than $1 billion in contracts have flowed to the major seven consulting firms during COVID, raising calls about the need for greater transparency. This boiled over during the bungled vaccine rollout, during which millions flowed to consultants with little to show. One of those consulting firms, McKinsey & Company, had been accused of causing delays to the French government’s vaccine rollout. 

PwC in particular has done spectacularly well financially during the pandemic. But the riches haven’t flowed to everyone. Despite sacking 250 staff and reducing pay and hours of about 65% of its staff by 4%, its partners have taken home an 18% increase in profits.