Accenture meeting raises fresh concerns over Stuart Robert links

By David Crowe and Nick McKenzie

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Former cabinet minister Stuart Robert met consulting firm Accenture to discuss a federal project worth $111 million after his close friend David Milo had been trying to help the firm win lucrative government contracts.

The meeting triggered probity concerns over Robert’s decision to discuss the sweeping visa processing deal at a sensitive point before the winning bidder was announced, raising new questions about his links to people who had helped Accenture in the past.

A cache of leaked emails reveals Milo and his consulting company, Synergy 360, sought a series of deals with Accenture in the years before the major federal project.

The meeting triggered probity concerns over Stuart Robert’s decision to discuss the sweeping visa processing deal at a sensitive point before the winning bidder was announced.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

At one point, Synergy 360 asked Accenture for at least $15,000 a month and a “success fee” of 5 per cent of the total contract value from any federal deals they won.

The new details add to a series of revelations about Robert’s help for Milo and Synergy 360 over several years when he was a backbencher and a senior minister, including meetings with tech giants Unisys and Infosys while they gained major deals in Canberra.

The Australian National Audit Office highlighted the meeting between Robert and Accenture in a highly critical report on June 7 into the government’s decision to choose the consulting firm to build a new visa system for the Department of Home Affairs that was ultimately cancelled at a cost to taxpayers.

Robert met Accenture with Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo and a probity adviser from law firm Maddocks on July 13, 2021, before the final negotiations with leading bidders and before a deal was announced on September 6 that year.

The federal auditor found the meeting was contrary to the probity protocols, but the department disputed that conclusion by claiming it was only an “administrative oversight” that the meeting was not recorded in the register.

Robert told this masthead it was ridiculous to ask him about Milo’s relationship with Accenture and that the July 2021 meeting had been cleared by probity advisers. But he declined to answer a question about whether he had disclosed his relationship with Milo.

“As it turned out, for this project I did sit with the probity adviser and they presented me a list of everyone ever connected with any of these Home Affairs projects and their investors, directors and advisers. I indicated who I knew and in what capacity,” said Robert, who resigned from parliament last month.

Asked whether he spoke to Milo about the project and discussed Accenture with his friend, Robert said: “I reject all of your insinuations.”

Milo did not respond to an email asking him about his proposal for a marketing agreement with Accenture and any work he did with the firm, but he has previously denied being a lobbyist.

“Our relationships with government officials or ministers are definitively intermittent. It is always incidental to the work that we do for clients,” he told a parliamentary inquiry on April 14 that questioned him about the assistance he sought from Robert.

Robert has denied receiving any payment for his help to Milo and others, telling this masthead: “I have never assisted any companies to win any contracts. If my advice is sought, I provide it freely.”

The confidential emails show that Synergy 360 sought the government marketing agreement with Accenture in March 2018 with no expiry date on the deal.

It said Synergy 360 would provide “political and/or government marketing services to assist Accenture business activities within the Australian federal government” and this included finding new tenders or business opportunities.

The leaked emails also show Milo was in contact with senior Accenture executives including Mike Kerrigan and Josh Kennedy-White about business opportunities in defence and other sectors.

In one email in 2017, Milo contacted Kerrigan and Kennedy-White and said: “As I mentioned to Mike, I’ve been working with Accenture for the last six months on proposals in defence and have a couple of other opportunities … in DHS [Department of Human Services] and Home Affairs.”

Accenture said Kerrigan and Kennedy-White left the firm in the middle of 2019. The Department of Home Affairs began the procurement process for the “permissions capability” in October 2020.

Accenture said its records did not show any payment to Milo, Milo Consulting or Synergy 360.

“We have looked into this matter and found no record of any business relationship between Accenture and Synergy 360 or David Milo,” a spokeswoman said.

“We did not engage the services of Synergy 360 in relation to the request for proposals for the permissions capability or for any work done on that project.

“We have searched our financial systems including our contracts, procurement system and our payment system, and have not found any evidence that we have ever engaged the services of Synergy 360, nor made any payment to them.”

Milo and Synergy 360 sought a share of the work on the precursor to the permissions capability system when Home Affairs wanted to overhaul the visa system in 2017 and manage $2 billion in annual revenue from visa fees.

Bidders for the project included Scott Briggs, a close friend of former prime minister Scott Morrison who set up a new firm, Australian Visa Processing, in the hope of outsourcing the visa system with a consortium that also included PwC Australia, Oracle and Ellerston Capital.

Milo’s consulting firm invested $200,000 in Australian Visa Processing in return for 9946 shares, according to emails obtained by this masthead, but the bid ultimately failed. Morrison recused himself from any decision on the deal given his friendship with Briggs.

When Home Affairs attempted a different project with the permissions capability in October 2020, it was meant to start with visa processing and extend to citizenship, customs and personnel security clearances in the hope of creating a system that could be used by other departments.

The project began when the home affairs portfolio was led by Peter Dutton as minister, but Robert also had oversight after he was put in charge of the Digital Transformation Agency.

Documents released under freedom of information show that Morrison decided in April 2021 to transfer the key digital agency, which has a broad remit over federal tech projects, from then-government services minister Linda Reynolds to Robert.

Accenture delivered one element of the major project – the digital passenger declaration – in March last year, but key elements were delayed. The digital passenger declaration online system was switched off in July and people reverted to the incoming passenger cards that have been used for decades.

Accenture and Home Affairs reached an agreement in August 2022 to terminate the permissions capability. The audit found the department paid Accenture $16.5 million for its work on the failed projects.

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