The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption is scheduled to conclude hearings today for its inquiry into the “conduct of officers and employees” of Uni Wollongong.
Entirely unrelated, UoW held a Three-Minute Thesis competition the other day including Menaka Hewawaduge, (Arts, Society and Business) who is studying “how deceptive leadership behaviour erodes trust and dignity in the workplace and developing tools to help build healthier workplace cultures.”
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David Lloyd’s goodbye from the University of South Australia was golden. The university’s last (as in forever) financials for 2025 state his total remuneration as Vice-Chancellor was $3.112m, compared to $1.303m in ’24.
His 2025 pay included base salary $1.015m, superannuation $0.209m, performance pay for 2024 and 2025 and payment for Long Service Leave of $0.76m. Plus there was a $1.128m termination benefit – his job disappeared when Uni SA was merged with Uni Adelaide to become Adelaide U. If the merger had not happened, his contract ran to the end of 2027.
The un-named highest paid staff member at the old Uni Adelaide, presumably former vice chancellor Peter Høj, received $1.345m, down $14,000 on 2024.
Lloyd used to play a straight bat about his and Høj’s pay, “in my case, and I think in Peter's case, we moved to Australia because of opportunity as international migrants, and we were just the recipients of the structures that are there,” he told an SA Legislative Council committee hearing in May ’25.
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Recommendations from the R&D review formerly known as the Strategic Examination of Research and Development suggested “consolidating funding” from programs including the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. This may be why Glen Withers (ANU) argues for NCRIS (via LinkedIn), announcing “all reviews praise its role. Government must continue to support it, in co-operation with a plethora of partners.” He reports a meeting of the panel working on the roadmap for the national strategy, “provided the reasons and the way for good public partnership to maintain and enhance this globally acknowledged treasure.”
The meeting was chaired by former Chief Scientist and ANU VC Ian Chubb. “What” you ask, “the Ian Chubb who was also a member of the SERD panel?” That’s the bloke.
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The House of Reps committee report on “Asia capability” in the education system warns, “the pipeline between schooling, undergraduate, and postgraduate study has fractured.”
The Feds used to have powers to keep universities offering Asian languages but they ended in 2024 and submissions to the inquiry urged it to make ATEC the answer. The committee concurred, calling for a multi-institution “Asia Capability Compact,” “funding that removes the disincentive to provide languages, settled through the Commission’s costing and pricing work, whether by a demand-driven Commonwealth Supported Place carve-out for Asian languages, ring-fenced structural-protection funding for sub-scale but nationally important programs, or both.” Plus ATEC could have power to stop designated programs closing. Of course, the Commission can’t make courses compulsory, at least not yet.
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The SERD Independent Panel contributes to the Productivity Commission inquiry on, “reducing barriers to business dynamism” – setting out the recommendations in their report (re-named Ambitious Australia, by Comrade Industry Minister Tim Ayres). So do academics in submission that refer to their research. But as to HE industry lobbies, there is silence so far on the way they work. Perhaps they do not want to reveal the secrets of their success.
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The tenth anniversary approaches of the Ferris-Finkel-Fraser review of the Research and Development Tax Incentive, which proposed targeted savings to the then $2.95bn program. “ A smaller amount of expenditure focused more tightly on the areas of improvement identified in this review would be more likely to provide greater benefit to the Australian economy,” they wrote, in September ’16. Alas, their work was largely lobbied into oblivion over four years.
Now the ATO is having another go. The Budget included seven changes to start next financial year, intended to cost $910m, but cut payments by $1.6bn over five years. One is pitched to big biz, increasing maximum expenditure threshold from $150 million to $200 million. But another restricts funding through the tax system to a decade – which upsets med research start-ups. The Association of Medical Research Institutes and allies, warn Treasurer Jim Chalmers, ”ten years is not a long period in science-based, deep-tech industries … there are simply no short cuts.”
All they ask is for “a meeting with you and sector consultation to commence.” And once it does, presumably to continue and continue even unto oblivion. If it gets that far in its present form.
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The idea of cooperative research centres is that they either close down after a decade, or go into business. But some survive for decades and then shape-shift. Such as the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, which ran from 1991 to 2019. A successor started in 2021, the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, which now has new funding for another two years.
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In 2020 the Commonwealth gave itself power over State Government arrangements with foreigners, which covered all universities, ex-ANU. Following a review last year, there is now updating legislation which refines Foreign Affairs and TEQSA’s tag-team oversight of universities. Perhaps the biggest extension of authority is bringing all off-shore campuses under the to-be-amended Foreign Relations Act. This corrects the existing exemption for a campus with its own “legal personality,” such are not captured now by the State-Territory focus.