AustraliaProfessional services2024–2025Deloitte Australia
AI-assisted government assurance report
Deloitte refunded part of a A$440,000 government contract after its AI-assisted report cited sources that did not exist
Problem
Australia's Department of Employment and Workplace Relations hired Deloitte to review the IT system that automates penalties in the welfare system. Assurance reports of this kind rest on accurate citations of law and research.
Approach
Deloitte signed the contract, worth about A$440,000, in December 2024 and delivered the report in July 2025. A University of Sydney academic then found references to papers that did not appear to exist, made-up points attributed to scholars and an invented quote from a Federal Court judgment in the robo-debt case. Deloitte published a corrected version that disclosed the use of a generative AI tool chain based on Azure OpenAI GPT-4o, hosted on the department's own Azure tenancy. Deloitte and the department said the findings and recommendations were unchanged, and Deloitte refunded part of the fee.
Results
Takeaway
Deloitte disclosed its use of AI only after an outside reader found the errors; its own review had missed them. The refund was a small share of the fee.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Professional services
- Business function
- Internal work and knowledge management
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Regulator, audit or court
Sources
Source summaries
Reports that Deloitte would partially refund the government for the report first published in July. Lists the errors identified by University of Sydney academic Chris Rudge, including references to papers that do not seem to exist and an invented quote from a Federal Court judge in the robo-debt case. States that the revised report disclosed a generative AI tool chain based on Azure OpenAI GPT-4o, and that Deloitte said the findings were unaffected.
Reports a department spokesperson saying Deloitte had refunded more than A$97,000, less than a quarter of a contract originally valued at about A$440,000 on AusTender and signed in December 2024. Describes the report as an assurance review of the IT system that automates welfare penalties. Quotes the department saying some footnotes and references were wrong but the substance of the review stands.
Full details are in the original sources.
