Luke Sheehy has been warming up all week for his appearance today before the Parliamentary Committee Inquiry into skilled migration. The Universities Australia chief has been all over the media on One Nation’s plan to cut international student numbers. And now he has something new to warn about – Immigration Minister Tony Bourke’s long overdue announcement of the Government’s immigration policy yesterday.
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Just a year into VC Theo Farrell’s first five year plan for La Trobe U, he proposes to cut staff, with an offer of voluntary redundancies announced this week. The university wants an unspecified number of people gone to help it return to “a sustainable position” in 2027 following a $25m deficit this year.
Professor Farrell tells staff international enrolments are lower than forecast for this year and next, while the university is making a strategic investment in regional campuses, health innovation and “to support funded research.” And he warns “our cost base continues to grow due to inflation and regulatory burden.” However, he did not mention that he was also about to begin enterprise bargaining – the university branch of the National Tertiary Education Union held member meetings this week and the log of claims includes a 20% (flat) wage increase over the life of the agreement.
Other university savings include, unspecified “large-scale projects” will be paused or stopped, and plans are delayed for the LT U campus in India. But LT U “will continue our AI journey to prepare ourselves, our students and our communities for a world that is being transformed by AI.”
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And the Worthy Award for a Headline in Education Reporting* goes to – the University of New England for, “UNE faculty, professional staff recognised for advancing constructive discourse across differences.” Relax, all in Armidale, it’s the UNE in Maine.
(*which TWTW just made up)
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AusTrade inducts University of Wollongong’s Global Enterprises subsidiary into its export hall of fame. “ It aims to deliver high-quality education and create opportunities for students to study, live and work across international markets” the citation states.
The news may not impress some at UoW who gave recent evidence to a NSW Legislative Council committee inquiry into university governance. “Academic witnesses expressed concern that UOWGE's international expansion priorities may be in tension with UOW's legislated regional mission (and) questioned whether offshore expansion was occurring at the expense of domestic teaching and research, particularly in the Illawarra and South Coast,” the inquiry found,
But VC Max Lu will surely welcome AusTrade’s accolade, “ Over the past decade, UOW's offshore operations have returned more than 188 million dollars in net surplus to the University. This is not money diverted from Australian students, nor a subsidy from the Illawarra. It is surplus generated offshore and reinvested locally,” he said in May.
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Opposition education shadow minister Julian Leeser knows, really knows the portfolio. On Tuesday he spoke in the House on the National Student Ombudsman Levy Bill 2026, and Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (National Student Ombudsman Levy) Bill 2026. The circumstances of their creation took up most of his time, only using the last 10% of his 3000 word speech to address the “substance of the Bills.” Mr Leeser kept his audience hanging on to the end when he welcomed that cost-recovery would fund the Ombudsman.
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ANU Media reports research by historian Caillan Davenport on what the plebs of Rome thought about the emperors they got stuck with. “Gossip and rumour are often dismissed as flights of fancy. But as frivolous as they may seem, they are an important form of evidence that reveals what people cared about at the time,” he says. What, like at ANU?
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The National Tertiary Education Union is pleased indeed with winning 17% super for casual staff in the current round of enterprise bargaining, bringing them into line with FT and PPT university employees (who have long received a 5% premium on what ordinary mortals receive). It’s good but no guarantee of a comfortable retirement. Gwilym Croucher and Liz Baré (both Uni Melbourne) surveyed employment records for casual academics at three universities to find around half were paid the equivalent of three full-time weeks per annum. (FC here).
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A petition is circulating around the Illawarra calling for the University of Wollongong Council to stand aside, “pending the final finding and recommendations” from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption’s inquiry. Failing that, the State Minister for tertiary education and TEQSA should “take all steps available” to sack the Council. And (presumably assuming it is quorate), “Council must guarantee that it will not take any actions adverse to the employment, job security, or working conditions of any university staff member during this period of instability.”
The petition’s starter is A Rorris – “who?” you ask, “Arthur Rorris, the secretary of the South Coast Labour Council, the long-time friend of union members at the university?” Could be.
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“Where are the universities in Queensland’s skills strategy?” Kriston Rennie (Second Arrow Consulting) asks. A question, he points out, that is all but unanswered in the State Government’s new TAFE-heavy “Training Priorities Plan,” which mentions them once, “explore how to build better pathways between VET and university.” Even if universities sign-up for ATEC’s “tertiary harmonisation” ambition, state ministers with TAFEs to keep quiet will not.