Western Australia is seeking a partial refund of the A$166,000 it paid Deloitte for a 219-page cost-benefit analysis of a three-university merger. The report has misattributed references, repeats 55 times a Curtin name unused since 2010 and contains arithmetic gaps of A$260 million and A$311 million. Its strangest flaw: a compliance section claiming no AI drafting, beside the file’s only ChatGPT-tagged link, ?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
- Money: the state wants part of A$166,000 back; Deloitte will reissue a corrected report.
- Numbers: two cost tables miss their totals by A$260m and A$311m; a headline conclusion contradicts table 5.1.
- Provenance: one WHO citation carries ChatGPT’s tracking tag, undercutting the no-AI claim.
A compliance claim undone by its own file
Section 4.8 sets out to certify compliance with Western Australia’s AI framework. It concedes that generative AI assisted with research collation, information synthesis and editorial proofing. It then declares:
“No AI outputs, modelling, or drafting have been used in the preparation of this report. Any information obtained from AI has been treated solely as reference material.”
AI-assisted output, it says, went through a comprehensive quality review by Deloitte professionals to check accuracy, relevance and appropriateness. Yet a reference to a World Health Organization document shows a US National Library of Medicine address, while the embedded URL adds ChatGPT’s referral parameter at the end. It is the only link in 219 pages with the tag. That is not a citation error; it is a certification the PDF itself refutes.
Misattribution, bad arithmetic and a summary that fights its table
The citation failures stop short of invention: all twenty DOIs resolve to real papers. A 2022 study of school staff views on international students is tied to a DOI for a different article, by other authors, on vocational training reform; the cited title is altered. A journal volume reads 38 where 61 belongs, and two references cannot be found in databases or web searches — not found, not proven invented.
Review failures are obvious. “UNIVERISTY” appears six times in headings, and Curtin is called “Curtin University of Technology” 55 times, a name dropped in 2010 and changed by state law in 2017. The conclusion is worse. “Key Insights” says the three-way merger “delivers the largest Benefit-Cost Ratio”, but table 5.1 gives 9.9 to 27.0 for Murdoch–UWA and 5.3 to 15.5 for the three-way option. Section G.4 later accepts a much larger “absolute” benefit for three-way while Murdoch–UWA had the better ratio, and gives a different range. Two passages on the cost ceiling differ by A$1 million, 522 against 523.
Appendix D holds bigger gaps. In the Curtin–UWA high scenario, A$514 million to day one plus A$145 million of five-year operating cost should total A$659 million; the row prints A$399 million. In the three-way low scenario, A$396 million plus A$116 million should total A$512 million; the row prints A$823 million. The misses are A$260 million and A$311 million, and one total row puts the high scenario below the low.
The parties, the claim and the pattern
The Department of Energy and Economic Diversification wrote to Deloitte to speed cost recovery. A state government spokesperson said:
“We are extremely disappointed these errors are being found now. We are advised they do not affect the modelling in the report or its findings, but any errors will be corrected as part of a review by Deloitte which will re-issue the report.”
Higher education minister Tony Buti first called the errors “typos”, then said:
“It’s incredibly disappointing. I’m angry with Deloitte. It should not have happened.”
On the merger he added:
“I want to commit to it if the business case stacks up, and then it’s a government decision”
Deloitte’s spokesperson described “minor referencing errors” and said they:
“do not affect the substantive findings of the cost-benefit analysis, which is based on publicly available university data”
Deloitte did not answer Guardian questions or a Times Higher Education request. The claim is administrative, open, with no public amount: no litigation, no sanction, no repayment. Opposition leader Basil Zempilas wants the full fee back:
“A university student, if they handed this in to their lecturer, they would get an ‘F’.”
It is the third case in twelve months. In October 2025 the federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations obtained a partial A$97,000 refund from Deloitte. The pattern matters more than the tag: generation made 219 pages easy to produce, but checking failed. Until procurement contracts punish that failure, reissued reports will keep arriving after the damage.