Executives lose bonuses at cost-cutting University of Technology Sydney

The decision emerged during a Senate inquiry, where a Greens senator criticised the embattled vice-chancellor following a SafeWork ruling that job cuts threatened ‘psychological harm’ to staff.

The University of Technology Sydney campus; the institution faces regulatory probes and significant internal changes. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Performance bonuses worth $2.5m have been stripped from executives at the University of Technology Sydney, as it faces probes from work safety and university regulators.

UTS chief executive Andrew Parfitt, who was paid $935,000 last year, revealed the loss of ­bonuses at a Senate inquiry into university governance in Sydney on Monday.

He said the UTS remuneration committee had decided earlier this year that no senior executives would receive a performance bonus – saving $2.5m in salary expenses.

The Greens spokeswoman on tertiary education, Mehreen Faruqi, said it “should be embarrassing’’ to Professor Parfitt that SafeWork NSW had intervened last week to pause job cuts.

The SafeWork notice, distributed to senators, said “workers are and will be subject to a serious and imminent risk of psychological harm for actions taken and planned relating to the UTS operational sustainability initiative’’.

Professor Andrew Parfitt is vice-chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney, which has announced $100m in cost cutting. Picture: Kym Smith

Professor Parfitt said SafeWork NSW had lifted its ban late on Friday afternoon.

However, he did not quantify how many jobs would be lost, after Senator Faruqi told the hearing that 400 staff – including 150 academics – would lose jobs as UTS tries to save $100m a year.

Professor Parfitt said any job losses “will be subject to a consultation’’ with staff.

He also revealed he had apologised to staff for the UTS website’s wellbeing hub, which included advice for stressed staff to wash their delicates, prepare receipts for their tax return, floss their teeth and “do that task you’ve been dreading’’.

Senator Faruqi said UTS staff with their jobs on the line “rightly felt insulted’’.

“Do you accept that telling staff to do these ridiculous things to manage their exhaustion, while cutting jobs and piling on work, is not a wellbeing strategy?’’ she said.

Professor Parfitt said he was “disappointed’’ the advice had been on UTS’s website, and it had been removed.

Senator Faruqi also criticised the University of Wollongong for advertising for an executive position paying $523,000 a year, at the same time as it was cutting 99 jobs through “Hunger Games scenarios, with staff pitted ­directly against one another for survival’’.

Chancellor Michael Still said: “I deny absolutely that there is any environment of Hunger Games.’’

“We need the best people we can to be the executives of the organisation … if we don’t offer a competitive salary, they’ll go somewhere else,’’ he said. “That there are job losses is indeed a great sadness for many of those, great happiness for others, but the two are not the same issue at all.’’

Mr Still said it was “understandable’’ that people might see a conflict of interest in the university appointing private consultancy firm KordaMentha to review its operations, and then hiring the firm’s partner John Dewar as interim vice-chancellor.

“I understand at face value there’s a likely perception of conflict,’’ Mr Still told the hearing. “That is understandable. The university needed some outside help.

“Before Professor Dewar was even mentioned to us as a possible interim V-C, we were working on a small panel of potential consultants to come in and help with an operational review.

“I knew (KordaMentha) have a specialist education arm … the lead consultant was somebody who had been head of operations in a major university, which had been very successful in its transformation, so clearly they were somebody who should be on the list. The Professor Dewar element of this came about later … at the suggestion to me, from another vice-chancellor, as being somebody who had retired and might be available.

“The two elements of this were completely different.’’

Macquarie University chancellor Martin Parkinson said his vice-chancellor, Bruce Dowton, who earns just over $1m a year, had not received a pay rise since 2019. “That has nothing to do with any reflection on his performance,’’ he said.

“He’s made clear he will not seek nor accept an increase in remuneration while (we’re) working through the process of addressing medium term sustainability of the university.’’