Independent senator David Pocock has referred beleaguered Australian National University vice chancellor Genevieve Bell for investigation by a federal committee, claiming she deliberately misled him and showed contempt for parliamentary processes over the value of a $1.1 million contract to a consulting company.

Pocock said he was “appalled” that Bell and other senior executives seemed “to have misled me as a senator for the ACT and, more importantly, seems to have misled and sought to hide key information from our community”.