PwC scandal: agriculture minister says hiring freeze left public sector reliant on consultants

Murray Watt tells Senate estimates he is ‘seriously concerned’ about the apparent actions of some consultants hired by his department

• Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter
• Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community

Murray Watt says a hiring freeze made the public service reliant on external consultants such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, which reportedly led to the company making an unsolicited bid for work based on information from internal meetings.

The agriculture minister told Senate estimates that he was “seriously concerned … about what seems to have been the actions of a range of PwC personnel”.

Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter