Senate inquiry criticises university bosses’ pay and side hustles
Universities face demands to reveal secret deals and executive pay after a Senate inquiry found more than 300 university leaders earn more than state premiers.
Secret deals between university executives, consultants and corporations have been exposed by a Senate inquiry that has demanded limits on vice-chancellor pay.
Universities should be forced to publish board minutes, justify executive pay, reveal spending on consultants and disclose conflicts of interest, the inquiry into university governance has recommended.
It concluded that “vice-chancellor pay in excess of $1m a year is out of step with community expectations’’.
Secret payment deals and links between university executives, consultants and corporations have been outlined in the interim report, tabled in federal parliament on Friday afternoon.
The Senate education and employment legislation committee chairwoman, Labor senator Marielle Smith, said students and staff had told the nine-month inquiry they felt “betrayed, undermined, and let down’’.
“Universities are public institutions, established for the public good,’’ she said.
“Their governance arrangements and the remuneration of their senior executives, should reflect that, yet we’ve heard that more than 300 university executives earn more than their state premiers.’’
The inquiry has called for the Remuneration Tribunal to set new classifications and pay ranges for university vice-chancellors and senior executives.
The report flags potential conflicts of interest arising from university council members and executives making money on the side as consultants.
At Griffith University, four senior positions are held by former Nous Group consultants, the report states.
“Between October 2023 and April 2025, Griffith University spent more than $2.5m on consultancy services with Nous Group or its subsidiary, Cubane Consulting Pty Ltd,’’ it says.
“The University of Wollongong engaged KordaMentha to undertake a cost-cutting exercise.
“A month later, the university appointed KordaMentha partner John Dewar as its interim vice-chancellor. Three days after John Dewar’s appointment, the university struck a second ‘operational review’ contract with KordaMentha.’’
The inquiry was told some universities failed to properly manage actual or perceived conflicts of interest.
“The focus for much of this concern was the close affiliation of university management with consultancy firms, as well as the ability of vice-chancellors to engage in outside employment,’’ the report states.
A former University of Sydney deputy vice-chancellor, Tyrone Carlin, was paid to serve simultaneously as president of CPA Australia, earning $390,657 a year, and as a director of Teachers Mutual, earning $72,000 a year, on top of his university salary, the report says.
Since 2020, Professor Carlin has been vice-chancellor of Southern Cross University, which paid him between $975,000 and $989,000 last year.
“This was despite Southern Cross University being one of the smallest universities in the country, ranked 638th in the world, with falling numbers of student applications, and a seemingly high student dropout rate – two-thirds of undergraduate students drop out of their degree within three years,’’ the report states.
The Senate report says former University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell earned $US187,334 as a paid director of CSL Limited in 2023.
The report says “questions were also asked about the appropriateness of former ANU vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell retaining a paid position with Intel, which evidence suggests she failed to disclose to the university council’’.
Professor Bell has previously insisted she told the ANU governing council of her $70,000 payment for 24 hours’ work with Intel.
The inquiry also took aim at the University of Technology Sydney for spending more than $140,000 for five executives to travel to the US on an alumni trip – at the same time UTS announced $100m a year in budget cuts.
The report criticises universities for keeping their decisions secret, singling out the University of Queensland.
“(The UQ) guiding document, the Senate Charter, is not publicly accessible,’’ it states.
“Minutes of meetings are either unavailable for staff to access or are extremely vague.’’
The inquiry found that Monash University conducted an independent and external review of its council yet failed to give staff or students a chance to contribute and never tabled the results with the council.
In additional comments, Coalition senators objected to the committee’s recommendation to mandate two students and two staff members as elected representatives on every university board.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said he would discuss the Senate report with state and territory education ministers when he met them next month to finalise reforms to university governance rules.
“Anyone who doesn’t think there are challenges with university governance has been living under a rock,’’ he said.
“There is a lot of work to do to make sure our universities meet the expectations of students, staff and our community.’’
National Tertiary Education Union president Alison Barnes welcomed the findings, stating that “secrecy, conflicts of interest, executive excess and the exclusion of staff and student voices have corroded our public universities’’.
National Union of Students president Ashlyn Horton said mandated representation for students and staff “is a long-overdue win”.
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