Year One of the ATEC imperium has begun and FC will report the plans and politics, the plots and policies of what will be the biggest year for higher education change since John Dawkins had a bright idea. FC will be up and at ‘em, first thing Monday.
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Submissions are already in to the Senate committee inquiry on the ATEC legislation and not all are as impressed with what universities will get, as distinct from what they expected when the Universities Accord inquiry started, which was more money without strings. Indeed, there is a sense around the traps that people feel they were less sold a pup than encouraged to back 101 Dalmatians of duplicity. But the Bill will surely pass, with giveaways for the Greens; it is hard to imagine them not voting for an increase in public sector power.
As ever, Deakin U’s Iain Martin was frank and fearless in a comprehensive early submission which included a warning against ATEC being another “regulatory lawyer” which seemed harsh. The university meant “layer.”
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Barney Glover is the sole interim commissioner of the (interim) Australian Tertiary Education Commissioner still standing. The Jobs and Skills Australia head’s University Accord colleagues Mary O’Kane and Larissa Behrendt (UTS) have both gone to their day jobs – Professor O’Kane is newly appointed the next chancellor of University of Queensland.
Education Minister Jason Clare promises two new interim commissioners, presumably to serve until the ATEC legislation passes Parliament. The Bill is in the Reps and the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee will have a look, to report on February 26. Mr Clare says applications for the three positions are due January 29. The Chief Commissioner and First Nations Commissioner are FT roles, the other Commissioner is PT.
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Robyn Denholm and colleagues filed their Strategic Examination of Research and Development late last year, but Industry Minister Tim Ayres did not release it before Christmas. Perhaps he wanted for relaxing holiday reading.
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Four days after the Bondi mass murders the Albanese Government finally released its 2026 response to Jillian Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism, filed in July. Measures include
- An antisemitism in education taskforce chaired by recently retired UNSW Chancellor David Gonski
- Delivering the university report cards being created by former ACU VC Greg Craven. These will report “adoption of an appropriate definition of antisemitism,” staff training, “complaints processes and governance responses to activities that may incite discrimination.”
The government also included previously-announced actions;
- (unspecified) New powers for the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency to “step in and act when it is justified in the public interest”
- “Strengthening Commonwealth higher education regulation to ensure institutions demonstrate a commitment to addressing racism.”
There was no mention of Ms Segal’s original proposals to withhold public funding of universities “that facilitate, enable or fail to act against antisemitism” and terminate grants, “where the recipient engages in antisemitic or otherwise discriminatory or hateful speech or actions.”
Presumably a stiff talking-to from TEQSA is considered much scarier.
But universities were quick to back the proposed Royal Commission. Most would not face rigorous questions about antisemitism on campus if called to appear, although for the east-coast members of the Group of Eight, their best bet Is that Alan Finkel gets to speak for them. Dr Finkel, former Monash U chancellor and ex Chief Scientist is chair of the new Go8 working group, “to lead decisive action to eradicate antisemitism on university campuses.”
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Graeme Samuel added his influential oomph to calls over the summer for a national Royal Commission. He used an op ed in the AFR to also have a go at Uni Sydney VC Mark Scott, “who has earned the disdain of the broader Australian community for his pathetic response to antisemitism on the campus he governs.”
Professor Samuel (Monash U) wondered if Uni Sydney chancellor, David Thodey, “considered terminating the role of Mark Scott.” FC thinks Samuel meant sacking him rather than abolishing the VC position. Whatever, the advice was way late. Mr Thodey announced a second term for Scott in September, before his first concluded. He is in the job to 2031.
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It was a near-run thing, but Adelaide U starts life with what it could not do without – an enterprise agreement of its own. While details are still to be sorted, crucial terms include, a 14.4% flat pay rise, August 2025-Septemnber ’29 and casual academics making up less than 20% of the workforce; “a significant reduction,” says the union. Teaching intensive staff keep 40% of work time for research and service. Flexible work can only be refused on evidence that it cannot be accommodated.
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International students who want to stay permanently are up, set out in the national government’s Centre for Population report for 2025. Temporary Graduate Visa holders grew from 95,000 in September 2019 to 239,000 in the same month last year. The increase is “likely to indicate a growing number of people onshore who aspire to permanent residency,” is Treasury’s illuminating explanation.
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There was, as promised, $233m in new money in MYEFO for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). It is two one-off annual payments to patch up plant, not recurrent funding to keep people on the payroll who work in fields the agency isn’t interested in anymore. As Industry and Science Minister Tim Ayres made plain in November, “for the first time in 15 years, the CSIRO has had a systemic look at its research portfolio and is going through a process of making sure that portfolio is aligned with our national science priorities.”
And lest anyone miss Mr Ayres intent, a message from the Hermit Kingdom itself welcomed the MYEFO money, stating, “CSIRO must retain the savings that will come from the recently announced changes to our research portfolio – which include an estimated reduction of 300-350 FTE roles.”
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The Australian Research Council announced delays in announcing what were supposed to be second half 2026 awards. Linkage applications due mid March, for example, were to be announced 10 December this year; it will now be 9 March 2027. Discovery Project bids are due 2 March to 26 April and were to be announced on 15 January next year, now it is 15 April '27.
The ARC explains the delays are to meet “due diligence and research security processes, which are required to meet new legislative requirements.” Good-oh, but the national security requirements date from the University Foreign Interference Taskforce (2021) and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security’s 2022 inquiry into universities. Did ARC not have enough time to work out how to pick up the pace on new processes? Unless of course, three-month delays is the best it could come up with.
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The National Tertiary Education Union had a huge ’25, winning VC-sacking influence at ANU and having multiple state and national parliamentary inquiries established to support its view that Vice-Chancellors and Councils are incompetent and indifferent to staff and students. But it seems the comrades are extending their strategies, with a focus on classic member issues. “The government plans to double the number of university students by 2050. But years of underfunding, job cuts and growing workloads mean staff are already stretched, and students are feeling the impact,” is the pitch. There is a survey to support a campaign for, “better funding and fair workloads.”
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The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency announces its 2026 fees for the cost of bossing institutions about. Private providers who think the agency finds their existence an affront to good government will point to the new $36 000 application fee for authorisation to set-up offshore. Giant universities will grumble that the per-EFT component of the annual Registered HE Provider levy is up 90%, to $2.02.
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University libraries and for-profit journal giant Elsevier reached terms on a new access agreement the week before Christmas. It was a surprisingly quick settlement, following the Council of Australasian University Librarians suspending stalled talks in November. In past Euro and US negotiations, Elsevier dug in and apparently anticipating the same, CAUL members had already advised staff that access to its 1650 journals would be turned off.
The agreement with Elsevier follows settlements with three others of the big five, Taylor and Francis, Springer-Nature and Wiley (new terms with Sage are not yet due). CAUL was coy on details of those agreements, other than they all extend free-to-read community access, but it sets out significant wins over Elsevier, noting a “substantial reduction in sector expenditure, uncapped hybrid open access publishing … and other measures to begin addressing the inequities associated with previous legacy pricing models.” However, Elsevier’s prestige Gold OA (pay to publish) journals are not included.
Overall, CAUL calls this a win, stating it, “addresses many of the longstanding issues associated with previous Elsevier agreements.” There is plenty more margin to argue about, the STM Division of RelX Corporation, which includes Elsevier, had a first-half 2025 operating profit of A$1bn.