TEQSA announces its not-to-be missed conference, at least by government relations people who do not want the regulator wondering what questions they are frightened of being asked. It is, the Agency states, “a must-attend for the higher education calendar.” It probably only sounds like an order.
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Last July the Federal Court found that Monash U had not paid casual academics the correct rate for student consultation hours for years and in December the university accepted an Enforceable Undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman to pay 10,000 people the $20.7m (including super and interest) they are owed.
So when did the casuals get their cash? They haven’t, according to the National Tertiary Education Union, which brought the case. The comrades claim Monash U has not paid anybody.
Which appears correct. A Monash U representative tells FC that the university made a public statement and told all staff about the remediation process in November and told sessional staff about the payment schedule a fortnight back and again yesterday, when former sessionals (June 2016-September ’25) were also emailed.
Current sessional staff will receive remediation payments from mid-July. Former and current staff who have not been told what they are owed should hear from the university next week.
The university adds, “throughout the process, we have worked in a constructive, transparent and good faith manner with the NTEU and remain committed to this collaborative approach.”
Good-o, apart from nobody getting their money yet.
Back in November, the university launched a new payroll system (the old one was not a problem in this case) with VC Sharon Pickering saying, “Monash remains steadfast in our commitment to paying our staff correctly.” Just not everybody quickly in the past.
After years of underpayment cases across the system making universities look incompetent at best, perhaps Monash should have picked up the pace.
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There is more of the same in the April international student visa grants. Higher ed was up 6% on 4/25, but 30% lower than post-pandemic April ’23. VET dropped by half on last year to 10,570, just a third of 2023; and ELICOS was down 27% to 5,600. It’s not that English language students are being knocked back, the grant rate is nearly 80% – there just aren’t many of them.
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Does Deakin U have a key comms person on exchange to Matt Damon U, on Mars? As of late yesterday the VC webpage had a pic of Iain Martin who is “driving balanced excellence in our mission to be Australia’s most progressive university.”
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University lobbies thought Universities Accord references to “tertiary harmonisation” were there to keep the minister happy and shut TAFE up. Not if outgoing head of Jobs and Skills Australia and incoming ATEC chief Barney Glover has anything to do with it.
JSA has a paper on creating a post-school system for a workforce with, “non‑linear careers, frequent occupational transitions, fast‑moving skill demands and the practical imperative for lifelong and life-wide learning across formal, informal and non-formal contexts.”
The aim, JSA assures us, “is not to replace qualifications with skills, or to diminish institutions that have served Australia well.” But diminish is what it will do, to institutions whose currency is job titles and credentials.
For VET it means adding “adaptive capacity” to competency-based training.
Adding to formal frameworks, it means a “human-centred approach” for recognition of prior learning and experience.
And there would be support for universities “to express learning outcomes in ways that are intelligible to the labour market while preserving the depth, coherence and quality assurance functions of degrees.”
The task for all is transformative, creating a “common and inclusive” definition of skills, “modernising” qualification descriptors and digital signalling infrastructure. No faulting the agency for optimism.
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As unions and management get into Round Ten bargaining, the NSW Auditor General advises why staff underpayment is still a problem. “The complexity in university enterprise agreements and inconsistent interpretation of the terms within those agreements have contributed to inaccuracies in some of the payments made to certain staff for several years.” But its Queensland colleague suggests things are improving. In 2025, four universities recorded liabilities of $2.3 million in total relating to wage underpayments (2024: 5 universities and $8.8 million). This represented estimates of amounts still owing, or likely to be owing. But only up to a point. “The decrease in liability has been partially offset as universities have identified more instances and new categories of underpayments,” the Queensland Audit Office 2025 report states on education institutions.
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The Group of Eight released the report it commissioned on dealing with antisemitism this week. It’s the work of a panel chaired by former Australian Chief Scientist and Monash U Chancellor, Alan Finkel. The recommendations include adopting the Universities Australia definition of antisemitism on managing protests, liaising with police and ensuring courses include “an appropriate balance and evidence-based information to support students in deepening their understanding of complex issues and forming their own views are built into the course curriculum design.”
Overall, the report points to “substantive steps universities took in response to “encampments and protests” in 2024. But there are also carefully worded statements that some could have done better, that they “did not always communicate” their actions effectively. “This contributed to a widespread and persistent perception that very little had been done … (which) underscores the importance of transparency, clarity and confidence in institutional responses.”
Plus universities’ “uncertainty about institutional thresholds has further compounded risk, particularly during fast-moving situations.”
And “experiences shared with the committee indicate that overly accommodating approaches to protest activity were often ineffective.”
The report is silent on specifics but media reports of protests at Uni Melbourne and Uni Sydney in 2024 created impressions that managements lost control of their main campuses. When the late Emma Johston became VC of Melbourne in early ’25 she introduced a Vice-Chancellor Rule to forbid indoor protests and others that “unreasonably obstruct” university activities – which was opposed by student groups and external allies.
The Rule, as per policy, was up for review in March-April and it stays. Acting VC Glyn Davis says, “every university must weigh up the balance between a right to protest on campus and the right of students and staff to attend classes and workplaces without unreasonable disruption. The Protest Rule was introduced in March 2025 in response to incidents which breached that balance within university buildings. The Rule has proved effective in achieving its stated aim.”
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The Perth applause rolls-on for Edith Cowan U’s new city campus with Government House announcing a Vice-Regal tour. “Top marks from the Governor,” is the message, confirming Jason Clare’s view, in May that “this is about as good as it gets.” FC hopes somebody is sending former Vice-Chancellor Steve Chapman the clips, the project started on his watch.