You know you’re in trouble when the executive summary of a government report runs to 41 pages – without pictures. It means that no one has actually read the report itself.

In the case of the Australian Universities Accord final report, that’s also clear from the content. Its recommendations run from the ridiculous (that 55 per cent of young people should obtain a bachelor’s degree) to the contradictory (increasing “responsiveness” and “flexibility” by creating new education bureaucracies) to the startlingly unambitious (that 3.3 per cent of university students should be Indigenous by 2035).