Macquarie Group has declined to comment on allegations raised in Federal Parliament that it was involved in a series of scams that improperly boosted the export revenue of Australian coal producers.
In an explosive statement to the House of Representatives on Monday morning, Tasmanian MP, Andrew Wilkie, claimed that Macquarie along with a string of coal miners and coal grading companies had engaged in fraudulent practices that misrepresented the quality of Australian coal sold in Asia.
“In essence, coal companies operating in Australia are using fraudulent quality reports for their exports and paying bribes to representatives of their overseas customers to keep the whole scam secret,” Wilkie told parliament.
“This has allowed them to claim for years that Australian coal is cleaner than it is in order to boost profits and to prevent rejection of shipments at their destination.
“This shocking misconduct includes exports to Japan, South Korea, China and India, and it involves companies including TerraCom, Anglo American, Glencore, Peabody and the Macquarie Bank.”
Wilkie did not give any specific details about Macquarie’s participation in the alleged misconduct.
A Macquarie spokesperson yesterday declined to comment.
Wilkie told the parliament that a whistleblower, who he identified as a former coal industry executive, also alleged that global accounting firm Ernst & Young was aware of the fraudulent practices.
“The coal executive whistleblower also alleges that global accounting firms such as Ernst & Young are aware of all this and choose to ignore it because the coal companies are lucrative,” Wilkie said.
“As a result of all this, I call on the government to establish—at least—a parliamentary inquiry into the matter, one where the witnesses of this misconduct, including the whistleblower I'm in contact with, can safely present their testimonies and evidence, and where the industry can explain itself.”
Wilkie said the whistleblower had provided him with thousands of documents exposing misconduct relating to the testing of coal exports and the bribery allegations.
He said that although the whistleblower’s allegations and evidence had been furnished to
federal and state law enforcement agencies and the financial regulator, ASIC, no authority was investigating the allegations.
“So far, no authority - not one - has been willing to act on this alleged criminal behaviour,” he told parliament.
In a statement issued outside parliament last night Wilkie said the documents provided to him by the whistleblower were “too extensive” to release publicly and that a parliamentary inquiry was needed to scrutinise them publicly.