Odd case of the missing ACU academic; Councillor in need of support – Moore or less

Australian Catholic University vice chancellor Professor Zlatco Skrbis.

Kicking away as we have at the carapace of the Australian Catholic University was bound to turn up a scandal eventually.

We’ve spent almost a week highlighting aspects of financial dysfunction, as well as falling enrolments, the dismissal of its chief operating officer, and a raft of staff redundancies.

And now we can lift the lid on a matter that university officials were desperate to keep quiet.

The details are as follows. In January, the ACU named Professor Kate Galloway as the incoming dean of its Law School, but good luck finding any evidence of that appointment online. There’s certainly no mention of this substantial career development on Galloway’s LinkedIn profile.

Galloway was an unusual pick for a conservative Catholic university: she’s an outspoken specialist on property law who has written extensively on reproductive justice and law reforms to abortion.

Not that this affected her standing with the ACU selection panel. It clearly didn’t find any barriers to appointing Galloway and there was certainly no attempt by the professor herself to hide these pieces from her publication record.

Yet three months later her contract as dean ended in circumstances that were never made public beyond an anodyne internal announcement at the university. Worth noting, too, is that this all happened around the time a Change.org petition sought a review of her appointment because of her remarks on abortion.

What is now known – and what Margin Call has verified – is that Galloway was paid an extraordinary sum of money – in excess of $1m – to discontinue in the role.

This was a payment made at a time when the university was reporting financial losses of $35m and cutting academic staff as a consequence. It’s also a payment that was only made possible through commonwealth funding to the university. In other words, taxpayers foot the bill, at least in part.

But Galloway didn’t actually leave the university at all. Instead, she was given a new job title: Strategic Professor, Law and Social Justice. It’s not mentioned on her LinkedIn profile, and nor is there any hint at all of her association with ACU.

Strategic professor is a position that attracts an annual salary of several hundred thousand dollars, so once calculations are made for her appointment, her exit, and her reappointment with a new job title, the cost to ACU tallies to almost $1.5m.

This isn’t money the university had to spend, and jobs could have arguably been saved for that price. This isn’t a criticism of Galloway, a victim in this mess; it’s an indication of the gross misuse of funds by university administrators, led by vice chancellor Zlatko Skrbis.

What isn’t known is whether the ACU’s governing board of directors – The Senate – was even made aware of these payments, and it remains for others to consider whether this debacle comes anywhere close to breaching the slew of protections that safeguard academic freedoms.

An ACU spokeswoman told us that Galloway wasn’t dismissed as dean of law but was appointed strategic professor “as part of ACU’s strategy to enhance the profile” of the law school “and build its global reputation for impactful research”.

“While only in the role of dean of the Thomas More Law School for a short time, Professor Galloway quickly demonstrated her integrity and professionalism and this, combined with her proven research record made her well placed to take up this new strategic role.

“As Strategic Professor, Law and Social Justice, Professor Galloway will work to accelerate the trajectory of research in the Law School.”

And of course we asked about the seven-figure payment to Galloway, but the ACU didn’t respond.

 

High council

Meanwhile, in an entirely unrelated matter, Woollahra Council heard a motion on Monday night in respect to its procurement policies. Yawn if you must, but it’s of interest to this column because procurement now seemingly butts up against the third rails of Israel and Gaza at councils across the country.

A brief primer. Last month City of Sydney Council passed a motion aligning itself to the malignantly foul guidance of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which targets goods and services produced by just one country on the planet – and it ain’t North Korea, or Iran, where women are murdered for showing their hair.

This motion at City of Sydney called for its chief executive to prepare a list of divestments that could theoretically be undertaken, essentially so the council’s investment policy could cut loose Israeli suppliers or any firm profiting “from the illegal occupation of the settlements of Palestinian territories, and the supply of weapons”.

No prizes for guessing this was a Greens motion, moved by councillor Sylvie Ellsmore, and supported by Lord Mayor Clover Moore, the infamous choker clearly slowing down the blood circulation to her brain.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

How else to explain this bizarre support for antisemitic claptrap?

Anyway, Woollahra’s motion on Monday – put up by Liberal mayor Richard Shields and Isabelle Shapiro – sought to reaffirm its own procurement policy in the face of the City of Sydney motion, but also to condemn the BDS campaign and recognise its “racist origins and intent”.

It passed without issue, but not without a curiosity of note. A Greens councillor, appearing via Zoom had their connection cut as the vote occurred. But it was Harriet Price, a councillor for Residents First Woollahra and sister of television presenter Jessica Rowe, who abstained from voting at all – which is counted as a vote against the motion, in council terms.

Woollahra councillor Harriet Price and Member for Sydney Alex Greenwich. Picture: AAP

What we know about Price is that she’s angling for a seat in NSW parliament as a successor to Sydney MP Alex Greenwich. To get there she’ll need the support of Moore, a kingmaker in the seat. Getting the idea?

Or perhaps we’re wrong with our insinuation; after all, there’s a track record forming with Price. She was one of three councillors who boycotted a vote condemning the terrorist group Hamas, and that wasn’t after the war started in Gaza, in November, but was two days after the October 7 massacres in southern Israel.