Jonathan Barrett

Online florist accused of misleading customers

The competition regulator has taken Meg’s Flowers to court over allegations it misled customers by claiming to be a local florist when it is actually a national online business.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said in a statement that Meg’s Flowers represented on 156 location-based websites and in advertisements that it was a local business in suburbs and towns across the country.

Meg’s Flowers is a national online business which distributes flowers through its corporate warehouses and subcontractors, the ACCC said.

The regulator is seeking penalties and compliance orders in the federal court. Meg’s Flowers has been contacted for comment.

ACCC commissioner Liza Carver said:

Many consumers prefer to seek out local businesses to support, and many also wish to source the freshest flowers in a suburb close to the recipient’s address.

We are taking this court action because we allege Meg’s Flowers misled consumers into thinking they were ordering flowers from a local florist, when they were actually dealing with a national business and the orders were often fulfilled from a corporate warehouse outside of that suburb.

Anthony Albanese has penned a tribute to John Olsen, saying the greatest gift he gave us was “persuading us to see Australia with fresh eyes”.

To behold this landscape – in all its familiarity and extraordinary antiquity – and see it in a new light.

Today we mourn an extraordinary Australian, a poet of the brush.

But more than anything, we celebrate him, and we hold on to the gift he gave us.

May John Olsen rest in peace.

Daniel Hurst

Marles: ‘Ukraine has provided us with a menu of options’ for additional support

Pressed on whether Australia would provide requested additional support – including Hawkei vehicles – Marles told Sky News:

I’m not going to go into the specifics of what we will provide, that’ll be a conversation that we have and are having with Ukraine itself. And we’re speaking with the ambassador as well. But as I said, I spoke with my counterpart in the last few weeks, and Ukraine has provided us with a menu of options if you like … We’re working through with the government of Ukraine about how we can best do that in an ongoing way. But they absolutely understand that we are committed to their cause and that we’re going to stand with them shoulder to shoulder for as long as it takes so that they can resolve this conflict on their terms and they’re very grateful for that.

Marles suggested that “details are to come”:

So the government of Ukraine is really aware of all that we are looking at doing. And we’re working with them. And I might say with other countries who are providing support about how we can best lend assistance and coordinate in with that broader effort. And that’s what we’ve been doing up until now. And that’s what we’ll do going forward.

Daniel Hurst

Marles rejects suggestion of ‘scaling down’ in Australia’s assistance to Ukraine

Circling back to the defence minister’s interview before the big PwC news broke, Sky News pressed Richard Marles on Australia’s contribution to Ukraine’s defence.

Sky News asked the defence minister why there had been a “scaling down” of Australia’s assistance this year. Marles said he wouldn’t agree with that characterisation:

I mean, we’ve continued to deliver the assistance that we’ve already announced on the schedule that we announced it. And that [the delivery schedule] is obviously not public, for a whole lot of important national security reasons, but we are standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine.

We’re providing training assistance to Ukraine, and I was there earlier in the year in England where that training is taking place. And again, that’s been ramped up really from the beginning of this year. And we’re working very closely with the Ukrainian government. I spoke with my counterpart in the last few weeks about ways in which we can continue that support.

Josh Butler

PwC says ‘vast majority’ of email recipients not involved in ‘any confidentiality breach’

Additionally, PwC says it will release the independent report from Ziggy Switkowski in full – but not until September.

But the company has continued to resist calls for it to release the names of all individuals who received emails regarding the confidential information. Despite attempts from Greens senator Barbara Pocock to table the names in a Senate hearing last week, and PM Anthony Albanese saying this morning that “all of this should become public at the appropriate time”, PwC says it does not believe all those who received the emails were involved in wrongdoing.

The company said in its statement today:

There has been an assumption by some that all those whose names have been redacted must necessarily be involved in wrongdoing. That is incorrect.

Based on our ongoing investigation, we believe that the vast majority of the recipients of these emails are neither responsible for, nor were knowingly involved in any confidentiality breach. We have and will continue to take appropriate action against anyone who is found to have breached confidentiality or failed in their leadership duties.

Josh Butler

PwC admits ‘failure of leadership and governance’

Accounting firm PwC has told nine partners to go on leave immediately and other senior employees have resigned, as the scandal around the leak of confidential government information grows. The firm’s acting CEO, Kristin Stubbins, has admitted in an open letter mea culpa “we failed”.

PwC said in a statement this morning that it would set out new processes to “ringfence” its work in government and oversight. The company admitted to “a failure of leadership and governance” in the episode, where it misused information about government tax changes.

Stubbins said “we recognise that our stakeholders want more transparency in order to restore confidence in our firm”.

PwC said it had directed nine partners to go on leave immediately, pending the outcome of its internal investigation, which included those in leadership or governance roles.

In addition, the chairs of the governance board and its designated risk committee have decided to step down from their respective roles.

PwC admitted it had failed to conduct appropriate investigations after learning of the breach, which it called “a failure of leadership and governance”.

In addition, the company will work to “ringfence the provision of services to federal government departments and agencies to enhance our controls to prevent conflicts of interest.” PwC will establish separate governance and oversight arrangements, which it says will occur by September, which would separate the provision of government services from other businesses inside the company – including processes the company said would enhance confidentiality and conflicts controls.

In an open letter, Stubbins said the company had betrayed the trust placed in it.

She said the company had failed in several ways, including a lack of respect for confidentiality, inadequate processes, and “a culture at the time in our tax business that both allowed inappropriate behaviour and has not, until now, always properly held our leaders and those involved to account.”

More to come.

PwC Australia’s acting chief executive, Kristin Stubbins, has apologised on behalf of the company for sharing confidential government tax policy information and “betraying the trust placed in us”.

In an open letter, Stubbins also announced the firm is standing down nine partners:

PwC Australia has directed 9 partners to go on leave, effective immediately, pending the outcome of our ongoing investigation. This includes members of the firm’s Executive Board and Governance Board.

My colleague Josh Butler will bring you more in a moment.

Daniel Hurst

Richard Marles says there is ‘huge strategic alignment’ between Australia and South Korea

The defence minister has travelled to Seoul to attend an inaugural summit between South Korea and members of the Pacific Islands Forum today. His schedule also includes meetings with the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, and defence minister, Lee Jong-sup.

In an interview with Sky News this morning, Marles said he and Lee would meet “a number of times over the next few months”. Marles added:

We really hope to be able to take the relationship to a new level in terms of the tempo of exercises, access to each other’s facilities, looking at ways in which we can do more exchanges between our two defence forces, looking at how we can increase what is already a very significant defence science exchange that happens now, and of course defence industry.

So across the board, there’s opportunity here, and this is really one of the key relationships in the region that we want to take forward.

Marles said Australia wanted to work with like-minded countries to provide for “the collective security of the Indo-Pacific region and the maintenance of the global rules-based order within our region – and we’re very invested in that; South Korea is very invested in that”.

The list of PwC employees allegedly involved in the tax advice scandal should be made public, the prime minister Anthony Albanese says.

Speaking to 2SM radio, Albanese described the scandal as a “terrible indictment” and said action was required.

Asked whether the names of all the partners at PwC who had access to confidential tax information should be publicly released, Albanese said:

I think all of this should become public at the appropriate time. Of course there are investigations under way and I don’t want to say anything to interfere with those processes.

Quite clearly, what went on there is completely unacceptable.

Albanese said although it occurred under the former government, “quite clearly, no one in the former government, I’m sure knew about it, and people in the treasury didn’t know about it either.”

This is the fault of PwC. As soon as it has come to light, there are now appropriate investigations taking place.

Federal police are investigating, following a referral by the Treasury department.

The Greens during Senate estimates sought to release the list of names of employees who had leaked confidential Treasury information.

But finance department officials said naming the partners involved in the tax advice scandal could disrupt the criminal investigation.

PwC had agreed to stand down staff who knew about the Treasury leaks from working on government contracts.

– with AAP

Benita Kolovos

Update on Victorian fire brigade commander’s sexual harassment claim

I have an update on a story my colleague Adeshola Ore wrote some months ago about the Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) commander, Donna Wheatley, who went public with allegations of harassment and gender discrimination over her 20-year career.

Wheatley lodged an application with the Victorian civil and administrative tribunal (Vcat) alleging sustained sexual harassment at work after she left FRV in mid-2021.

In 2022, FRV had sought to strike out large parts of her complaint on the basis of the time she took to come forward (Adeshola’s report deals with this).

But this attempt failed and FRV appealed the decision in the supreme court.

However, on Friday the supreme court upheld Vcat’s decision and ordered FRV to pay Wheatley’s legal costs.

Wheatley issued this statement this morning:

It certainly [has] been hard pursuing this case. I expected it to be a long haul, but it’s been much longer than I ever imagined. Two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars that has gone into the legal process that have just been deflections and delays by FRV.

Her lawyer, Josh Bornstein from Maurie Blackburn, said the FRV had “aggressively used taxpayer funds” to block the case:

FRV has now unsuccessfully tried twice to strike out parts of her claim of very serious sexual harassment that dates back some 20 years. The supreme court judgement allowing the complaint to proceed in full is a huge win for Donna and it’s a huge win for all woman who have suffered historical sexual harassment at work.

A spokesperson for Fire Rescue Victoria has previously told Guardian Australia the organisation is committed to providing an inclusive, safe and respectful workplace that is free from discrimination, vilification, bullying, harassment and victimisation.

Wheatley said she was looking forward to her case finally progressing.