National Tertiary Education Union Media Release
The National Tertiary Education Union has urged the federal government to overhaul Australia’s broken university governance system following an unprecedented intervention by the Education Minister.
Jason Clare has referred serious governance concerns at ANU to regulator TEQSA, after staff passed a no-confidence motion in Vice Chancellor Genevieve Bell and Chancellor Julie Bishop over a litany of failings.
While the government holds special powers over ANU – due to its foundation in federal law – new national and state legislation is urgently needed to fix governance failures across the rest of the higher education sector.
NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes said the case for major change was now overwhelming.
“This is a watershed moment in the NTEU’s campaign to fix the disgraceful governance crisis that has engulfed our public universities,” she said.
“The situation at ANU has sparked an unprecedented ministerial intervention. Unfortunately, the problems at ANU are being replicated all around the country.
“We’re seeing egregious conflicts of interests, eye-watering amounts of wage theft, a hiring-firing yo-yo, and zero transparency for leadership decisions that cripple universities.
“It’s time for a major change in how our universities are run. That means governance reform that makes university bosses accountable for the incredible damage they are doing.
“This must mark the end of vice chancellors pocketing a million dollars a year and acting with impunity as they destroy student experience and slash jobs.
“The government has acknowledged the crisis, now we need national laws that pull these rogue university executives into line so we can provide world-class research and teaching.”
NTEU ACT Division Secretary Dr Lachlan Clohesy said:
“ANU is a great university with great people, which has been let down by poor governance and leadership. We welcome this intervention by Minister Clare. It is a signal of intent in terms of cleaning up university governance.”
“It is difficult to see how the continuation of the current ANU leadership is tenable. Every day they remain in place further damages our national university and its people.”
NTEU ANU Branch President Millan Pintos-Lopez said:
“A lot of staff are doing it tough at the ANU and will welcome this development. This news demonstrates that the Minister is treating our concerns with the seriousness they deserve.”
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J Bishop, painted, coiffed, patched and primped, is and was unfit to front a body dedicated to intellectual honesty, research, fostering, caring, so who might reasonably expect a vacuuminous former rigger, twister, goader to behave well or decently? OUT. Vanity, profanity, inanity, depravity, duplicity, iniquity…
Lest we forget: Asbestos Julie, advocate on behalf of CSR in their legal battle to avoid paying compensation to the many dozens of men suffering from mesothelioma as a function of their exposure to asbestos fibres by virtue of their employment with CSR.
CSR personnel manager Norman Irving, in an internal memo, wrote “Even if the workers die like flies, they will never be able to pin anything on CSR.” And Bishop duly accepted the brief to defend that corporate position.
What a wretched individual she is.
My God, the more you read about these dictatorial, power-obsessed LNP stalwarts, the more one realises just how dangerously undemocratic they are, stooping to a level of authoritarian, corrupt fascism that is rarely seen outside of a third world African nation! You only have to look at that appalling, racist, political psychopaths: that rusted-on misogynistic racist: phony Tony Abbott and the born-to-rule megalomaniacal psychopath: Scott Morrison, to see how truly undemocratic they are! As such, we must NEVER FORGET that the highly toxic Julie Bishop was one of the very few hard-lined, inhumane elitist women who not only cheered-on the diabolical misogynists in both the Abbott and Morrison regimes, she was a signed-up MEMBER of both regimes who openly supported their horrendously cruel and misogynistic policies and, as such, willingly went on to betray the women of our nation!
Following the 2022 Australian federal election, at which Morrison’s government was soundly defeated, it was revealed that Morrison had had himself secretly appointed to five ministerial positions without the knowledge of the public or his own government! WOW! (see link below)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Morrison_ministerial_positions_controversy#:~:text=Following%20the%202022%20Australian%20federal,public%20or%20his%20own%20government.
Let’s reiterate: Julie Bishop openly supported the very same power-obsessed megalomaniac (Morrison) who, as the worst, most corrupt Crime Minister in our nation’s history – and with considerable help from his sycophantic puppet GG, David Hurley – tried to surreptitiously take over at least FIVE political portfolios in order to rule over our nation like some hideous despot? Really? WOW! Instead of justifiably castigating Morrison for this horrendously ruthless step towards fascism, this monstrous, power-obsessed sociopath was handed the highest recognition in this year’s King’s Birthday honours list! No wonder the HUGE majority of egalitarian Australians are so dismissive of these hideous awards, handed out by condescending elitists in the Royal family, that seem to reward the worst scoundrels and corrupt political RWNJs in the country – most of whom are sycophantic members (or deluded supporters) of the elitist LNP – who are willing to kowtow and emulate the nauseating level of appalling, inegalitarian snobbery that is so endemic throughout the UK! Julie Bishop was willing to sign-up and support Abbott and Morrison and any other totally depraved, power-obsessed male sociopath the LNP were prepared to vomit up. As such, she went out of her way to betray the huge majority of women in our nation who, justifiably, despised the alpha-male misogynists who took up most of the seats in the LNP and continue to do so!
Fancy rewarding a corrupt, power-obsessed megalomaniac like Scott Morrison! This is a man who’s sadistic Witch Hunt – known as ROBODEBT – hunted down the poorest, most vulnerable members of our society leading to many desperate victims seeing no way out but suicide as a manner of escape! Morrison, widely known as the notorious Jerk with the permanent Smirk: a self-promoting, bone-idle member of the worst, most corrupt and undemocratic regime in our history – during the worst, most destructive fires in living memory – stated (with his usual condescending smirk) that “I don’t hold a hose, mate!” when asked what HE was going to do to provide assistance to the countless hapless people who lost their homes during those horrendous fires! (see link below)
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1113710232499532
Seriously, if these are the type of condescending, smirking, callously inhumane political psychopaths they are selecting to receive the King’s Award these days, NO WONDER such Awards are widely regarded with contemptuous disdain by the huge majority of intelligent, egalitarian Australians!
HECS and HEES trough rorting is rife in universities but the rabbott (remember his daughter’s scholarship??? she works in fitness) gave private tertiary institutes access to the trough worth $millions to private businesses whose graduates are, like many uni courses, unlikely to get a job.
ps
great read, Katie
Personalities aside, the ANU, is pursuing a controversial restructure to save $250 million by 2026. That follows the university revealing a cumulative deficit of around $600 million.
That’s enough to focus the mind of any administrator.
All the universities are suffering from appalling neoliberal economic strangulation via mindless gradual legislative and regulatory stupidities over a couple of decades. In response the unis brought in shiny-arsed self-serving managerialism in a bid to cope.
All that has done, in the rapidly changing geo-political climate has caused a deepening of the hole-to-hell. The shiny-arsed bean counters and prestidigitators who actually know SFA on the complexities of higher education operations, have trashed the real wealth – the academics, teachers and researchers, lied to the Vice-Chancellors and their administrators, who have in-turn cloaked considerations with opacity, lying and deceiving, not only to their vital intelligentsia, but also to parliament.
In this ‘industry’ reputations, which hugely count globally, now hang in serious tatters. Albo & Clare have a big job to restore this calamitous situation urgently – not with bandaids, but by underpinning the old foundations to secure modernity.
PhDs pending on how a country that once had a world-class tertiary system which graduated thousands of well-educated and well-qualified people across all major disciplines managed to trash that system… along the way turning institutions of higher learning into degree mills that rely heavily on offshore student intakes – to a large extent people who often cannot string together ten words into a coherent English-language sentence – as well as gifting some of the highest incomes in corporate Australia to vice-chancellors who bear the responsibilities for the disastrous circumstances they oversee, not to mention the fact of the never-ending indenture students face as they struggle to pay off their debts ‘earned’ as a consequence of their wish to better themselves in a competitive job market.
If ever the word ‘clusterfuck’ had an appropriate subject for its usage, the ruination of this country’s tertiary system is well & truly apt.
Asbestos Julie is but one of many whose snouts are stuck so deeply into the trough of largesse and undeserved privilege, it’s a wonder they can still come up for occasional air. In more robust times and appropriate disciplines, there’d be universal clamour for ‘off with their heads’.