The federal government is facing calls to explain why it has spent almost $1 billion on Australia's four biggest consulting companies in the past few years.
Ernst and Young, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte were awarded more than $420 million worth of contracts in 2015/16.
That was more than double the $196 million they received in 2013/14.
Senator Nick Xenophon said the figures, released by the Finance Department in answer to a question on notice from Budget estimates, were "staggering".
He wants the auditor-general to investigate the process involved in awarding a total of 2,743 contracts valued at $998.3 million.
"The government needs to urgently explain why at a time of belt tightening for practically everyone else, they seem to have let rip for the big four consultancy firms," he said in a statement on Thursday.
The exponential increase in payments to those companies raised serious questions, he said.
"Surely there's enough expertise amongst 243,000 Commonwealth public servants to have provided a lot of these services that taxpayers have forked out nearly a billion dollars for in just three years."
KPMG has been the biggest beneficiary by far, winning more than 1200 contracts worth $395 million.
Senator Xenophon said there was anecdotal evidence smaller firms were missing out to the larger four.
"The government needs to give a breakdown of these contracts, what they are for, why it couldn't have been done in-house and whether there was a competitive tender process for them," he said.
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