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The inquiry released an interim report into the quality of governance at Australian universities which also found they are blighted by a “culture of consequence-free, rotten failure”.
“These failures have contributed to damaging restructures, job losses, wage theft as well as a growing sense of abandonment among students and distrust within university communities,” Labor senator Tony Sheldon, the former chair of the inquiry, said.
“There’s no other sector in the country where failure is rewarded so handsomely and with so little scrutiny.”
The inquiry found vice-chancellors were paid in excess of $1m – more than state premiers and the prime minister – which was out of step with community expectations.
The Australian Institute told the inquiry that growth in vice-chancellor salaries had outstripped growth in incomes for university staffers for decades.
“As public institutions, largely funded by the federal government, it is important for expenditure to be distributed more evenly through the institution and to reflect public sector pay rate – rather than inflated private sector executive norms,” it said.
The report made 12 recommendations, which included a remuneration tribunal work with university councils to devise a pay structure and appropriate classification for vice-chancellors and senior executives.
It was also recommended that universities ensure elected staff and students on governing bodies were treated equally and with respect.
Stop Woodside Monash told the inquiry responses to freedom of information requests were met with an “absolute blanket rejection of every word or very document labelling it a “disturbing lack of transparency.”
The inquiry found these were often documents that should be in the public domain and universities must be prevented from hiding behind claims of commercial-in-confidence to escape transparency and accountability.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi wants the governance of universities overhauled “without delay”.
“This inquiry has truly exposed what lies beneath the tip of the governance failure iceberg – overpaid and arrogant management and their largesse, opaque, unaccountable and top-down decision making and governance bodies stacked with corporate appointees,” Senator Faruqi said.
“The depth and breadth of anxiety, stress, trauma and fear that staff are subjected to, and the lack of accountability and transparency that VCs and executives get away with without any repercussions or recourse cannot be tolerated any longer.”
The inquiry released an interim report into the quality of governance at Australian universities
