ACU vice-chancellor Zlatko Skrbis set to earn contract renewal

Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Zlatko Skrbis, left, and chancellor Martin Daubney.

Call it the ultimate up-yours to the Catholic Church.

How else could anyone interpret the Australian Catholic University’s decision to imminently reappoint embattled vice-chancellorZlatko Skrbis to another term leading the institution?

ACU’s almighty Senate will convene a final meeting for the year on Thursday, the first item on its agenda being the renewal of Skrbis’s $1m yearly contract as VC and president.

Yes, no doubt, the decision will ultimately be made through a democratic vote of the university’s Senate members. The result, however, is practically ordained.

A Senate standing committee, chaired by ACU chancellor Martin Daubney, has already hashed out the finer points. It’s recommended Skrbis’s contract be renewed. When the Senate proper meets this week, it will more than likely rubber-stamp the decision recommended by that committee, and short of divine intervention (or a papal one) Skrbis will be confirmed as ACU’s vice-chancellor for another four years.

Think we’re joking? The Senate is genuinely quite useless.

This compliant governing board of 17 members barely raised a peep when we revealed the sordid details behind the termination of Professor Kate Galloway, a left-wing and pro-abortion academic who briefly held the role of ACU Dean of Law.

Galloway was treated appallingly. Appointed to the Dean position for three weeks, she was secretly paid $1m and reassigned to an inferior position within the Faculty of Law and Business following a conservative backlash against her appointment.

Professor Kate Galloway.

Senate members were kept so thoroughly in the dark on the Galloway matter that they weren’t even aware of a compensation payment having being made. They learned of this costly, monumental cock-up only when the settlement details were published here, months later, in this column.

In that instance, Skrbis oversaw a trampling of Galloway’s academic freedom. Later, in a very awkward paradox, Skrbis would participate in an equally troubling assault on religious freedoms at ACU, over a speech delivered by union leader Joe de Bruyn at a graduation ceremony in Melbourne.

Surrendering to the outrage that followed, Skrbis offered counselling services and a refund of the graduation fees to students and staff who were distressed by de Bruyn’s remarks. Skrbis spoke of the “hurt and discomfort” caused by de Bruyn’s comments on abortion and same-sex marriage, and he offered an apology of sorts by saying, “the content of this address did not meet the standards we strive for”.

Keep in mind, de Bruyn was invited to speak and his speech was vetted prior to delivery. His comments on abortion and same-sex marriage are regarded as entirely consistent with Catholic doctrine, and they were delivered at a Catholicuniversity.

No less than the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, has spoken of his shame over ACU’s handling of that incident.

Last month, Fisher compiled a six-page letter to pro-chancellor Virginia Bourke – CC’ing Skrbis and Daubney – wondering aloud at the university’s seeming abandonment of its Catholic identity.

Fisher is hardly alone in raising this sentiment. Senior officials attached to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Education and Culture are also openly questioning whether all is hale at ACU, as we reported a week ago.

Strangely, none of this has stopped a provision being added to Skrbis’s contract providing the vice-chancellor with two weeks of paid “spiritual leave” moving forward, should he require it.

In the normal course, vice-chancellors are reappointed based on outstanding service and stewardship of the institutions they govern. Under Skrbis and Daubney, ACU has become a bug-light for scandal, the university’s many dramas veering into the realm of soap and sitcom. That Daubney would rush to reappoint a VC in these circumstances is, at best, a finger in the eye of the Catholic establishment, an unequivocal message of who really runs the show.

Over to you, then, o wise and brave Senate leaders. YB

Messy collapse

Bad news for the investors who pumped a collective $45m into Saorsa Health, after the NDIS housing development became the latest of its type to go bust.

The group’s 200-odd investors in the developments face a pretty crappy Christmas after Saorsa’s sole remaining director, Aiden Garrison, called in liquidators to all of the funds late on Friday.

Where’s the money gone? Nobody seems to know. Saorsa managed to complete two of its six projects and sold at least one – but payments to many investors dried up more than a year ago and their only hope of finding out why will come down to the creditor’s report that will now be compiled by BPS Recovery’s David Sampson.

Aiden Garrison.

But given Garrison also appears to have borrowed against most of the properties along the way, you’d have to assume the mortgagees will step in first, leaving ordinary investors with very little for putting their trust in Garrison.

Not that there was much self-reflection in Garrison’s email to let his investors know about the collapse. After blaming investors for failing to support an ill-defined rescue plan he claims to have been working on for months, most recently in London, Garrison then pointed the finger at former business partner Will McKellar for exiting the group and “leaving me to run everything”.

At the same time Garrison’s failure appears to have taken down Mountain Asset Partners, which raised all of the money for his failed property empire. Mountain Asset also called in liquidators on Friday, but a spokesman told Margin Call the decision was entirely coincidental, and they only found out about Saorsa’s collapse after calling in liquidators to their own business.

The spokesman suggested Garrison may not have been transparent with the broker’s partners, who had severed any relationship with the Saorsa boss a year ago when he stopped paying out to investors, and their only involvement with the group was to try to help negotiate on behalf of investors. “The reason we are in liquidation? We have always acted in good faith and the actions of Garrison and others have decimated our ability to operate the business,” he said.

And Garrison? He told Margin Call he was back in the country, but didn’t answer questions about what happened to the money, instead repeating the complaints about McKellar and investor reluctance to support his rescue efforts. NE