Opinion
University councils appear powerless against government intervention and union campaigning – they brought both on themselves
Last week, the Deakin U branch of the National Tertiary Education Union had a quick and clean victory when the university’s Chancellor Claire Higgins vetoed management-proposed staff cuts. There was no threat of industrial action. Council folded, “after listening to colleagues and the community.”
This was the second restructure cancelled in nine months – it took a huge brawl for the previous one at ANU to be called off. The union there won because it built an alliance with dissident senior managers and rank and file staff, plus Canberra politicians and pals in the press. And they all made enough of case for regulators to get involved.
The attacks on many fronts overwhelmed VC Genevieve Bell, Chancellor Julie Bishop and the five independent members of the ANU Council, who resigned. It was a huge brawl, but an easier achievement for the alliance than relying on process in the Fair Work Commission – where they may not have won. A series of FWC cases to overturn a restructure at UTS last year failed and management, making some concessions, got its cuts.
Deakin U Media ignored FC’s request to interview Ms Higgins and acting VC Matthew Clarke, so why the university folded on its restructure plans is unknown, but fear of losing a fight along ANU lines is a fair guess. Understandably so; Deakin U under Iain Martin was never at the forefront for claims of incompetence, but university managements and governing councils in general are in the frame for cutting jobs, underpaying staff and generally being out of touch while paying VCs multiples of what the Prime Minister makes.
The NTEU and staff at individual universities have seen to that, with continual campaigns that encouraged multiple Senate inquiries into university governance, plus three in State Parliaments, (those in NSW and Victoria are underway now). The NSW anti-corruption commission is also hearing evidence this week in its inquiry into the University of Wollongong.
University managements collectively have taken a huge hit from years of critical coverage of how they run their institutions, not what they exist to do. An ANU poll last September reported 62 % of the survey sample had confidence in universities, down from 80 % in 2019.
To rebuild public confidence, universities “need to focus on transparency, accountability and demonstrable public value—not only in economic terms, but in social and civic terms,” the ANU team reported.
But for now, university governing bodies are so distrusted that Education Minister Jason Clare said last year, “if you don’t think there are challenges in university governance, you’ve been living under a rock.”
He has responded with greater regulation, university council oversight, more powers to come for TEQSA and other regulators and above all ATEC, the creation of which no university lobby dared defy, despite initial and near-universal alarm at its legislation.
It will be a crazy-brave council that draws the critical attention of any of these agencies, let alone MPs; and the best way to do it is to appear indifferent to the interests of staff and students. If the outcome at ANU, where TEQSA is now involved in the selection of the next chancellor is not top of Chancellors’ minds, they indeed must be hiding under a rock.
The question will sooner or later be, how long can they stay there. Ms Higgins told staff Friday that there are “financial realities facing the sector and the university. Change will be needed in time,” but it “must be shaped with you.”
Plans by councils at any universities to save money by retrenching people will take some shaping.