The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) NSW Division welcomes the release of the final report of the Inquiry into university governance by the Standing Committee on Social Issues in the NSW Parliament Legislative Council, following the report’s introduction into Parliament on Tuesday.
The inquiry has laid bare the true scale of management and governance failures: from basic accountability and transparency, conflict of interest and financial management, to the psychosocial health of university workers, free speech and academic freedom, and the critical teaching and learning experience of students, university managements have demonstrated their inability to properly manage.
Over the past two years, university staff and students have been slammed with mass job cuts, pervasive wage theft and public scandal. Amid this chaos, staff and union members have worked tirelessly to expose the failings of the sector. The inquiry’s report is a reflection of this dedication and a culmination of years of campaigning.
NSW Treasurer Hon. Daniel Mookhey MLC recently said in the Sydney Morning Herald “When it comes to our universities, we should recognise that they are NSW’s second-biggest export earner, the biggest source of income in our service-based economy,”. Given how important the university sector is to the NSW economy, the report’s recommendations are a crucial pathway to restoring public faith.
The NSW government now has a generational opportunity to make sure universities deliver on the public mission expected of them by students and the broader community.
NTEU are particularly pleased to see recommendations that encourage a comprehensive review of the NSW Acts, legislation providing checks and balances on power held by senior leaders, increasing minimum requirements for elected staff and student representation on university councils, and the requirement to establish an independent university council secretariat at each university,
It is critical that the recommendations materialise and are enacted into legislation as quickly as possible. While we look forward to the government’s response to the report’s recommendations, we’ll also draw on the expertise of our membership to analyse the more than 300 pages of the report in order to prepare a response that properly represents the heart of our universities.
The NTEU NSW will host a public forum in response to the report’s release this coming Monday (28/09/26) with members and representatives from the University of Wollongong at the North Wollongong Hotel from 5.30pm. They will be joined by members of the panel including the Hon. Sarah Kaine MLC Dr Richard Denniss (The Australia Institute) and Arthur Rorris (South Coast Labour Council).
Quotes attributable to Vince Caughley, NTEU NSW Division Secretary:
“The state’s university managements have collectively failed to protect the public good and damaged the reputations of these critical institutions. The NSW inquiry has, in detail, laid bare the scale of their failures and demonstrated that the sector’s oversight bodies and processes are unfit for purpose.
However, this report presents the State Government with a concrete and evidence-based roadmap to setting things right. It begins with restoring the role of elected staff in university governance processes – those who are, unlike the current myriad corporate appointees – experts in education, finance, governance, psychosocial health and teaching pedagogy.
The fact that management of our public universities currently excludes the experience of leading experts in the core functions of universities and denies their input into day to day governance is a scandal and a folly that the NSW inquiry has shone a light on.
The public should know that our members have carried an enormous weight on their shoulders across this state’s ten public universities and have put in countless hours in defense of education, research and the university community. Thanks to their efforts, this report tells every university worker who has been through unnecessary change or faced up to attempted job cuts that they’re not alone and their experience wasn’t in vain.
It has been thirty years since New South Wales last reviewed the Acts its universities run on. It’s well past time for the laws that govern our universities to change, and the state government must act decisively to adopt and implement the report’s recommendations. We look forward to utilising the incredible collective expertise and experience of NTEU members to making this happen.”
