The crisis engulfing one of Australia’s top universities has gone from bad to worse, after its leadership was referred for investigation over potential contempt of the Senate.
Australian Capital Territory (ACT) senator David Pocock took the action after the Australian National University (ANU) understated its consultancy spending during an estimates hearing last November.
Pocock, a member of the Senate’s Education and Employment Committee, had asked the value of ANU’s contract with consultants Nous Group. He was told the university had paid Nous about A$50,000 (?24,000) so far that year, for advice about infrastructure, support services and the changing role of universities.
Two months earlier, ANU had agreed to pay Nous A$837,000 – plus consumption tax and travel expenses – for 12 weeks’ work on a project to rein in the university’s costs. The contract has since been extended twice, raising its value to well over A$1.1 million.
The updated figures were revealed in late March, in an answer to a question on notice from committee chair Tony Sheldon, who had grilled ANU over consultancy spending and perceived conflicts of interest during an additional estimates hearing in February.
Pocock he was “appalled” that ANU’s leadership appeared to have “shown such contempt” for the estimates process. “[It] seems 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.”
He said he had sought an explanation from ANU vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell and asked Sheldon to investigate the matter.
An ANU spokeswoman said the information given to Pocock had been factually accurate. “The arrangements with Nous were based on the university’s needs, were subject to regular review, and contained the ability for ANU to exit without committing the full amount of the contract.”
Pocock, an independent senator and former Australian rugby representative, is a productive contributor in a Senate committee stacked with politically partisan members. Last year he raised concerns about the government’s proposed international enrolment cap’s impacts on university research, and later tabled 11 recommendations to alleviate the impacts.
“I have sought to support ANU at every opportunity, pushing for more research funding and going into bat for them on legislation that would have made their situation worse,” he said. “However, I have heard nothing but concern after concern…about the leadership of the ANU, especially in terms of how they are responding to financial challenges and handling the restructuring of the university.
“My job as senator for the ACT is to represent the views of our community, and I think it is very clear that the community has lost confidence in the ANU leadership.”
The National Tertiary Education Union said the committee appeared to have been misled, but only the Senate could determine whether that constituted contempt. ACT union secretary Lachlan Clohesy said it was “obscene” for ANU to spend seven-figure sums on consultants while it was “sacking staff due to a financial crisis”.
He said the university was full of well-paid people “with ‘chief’ at the start of their title. Questions need to be asked about the specific deficiencies in skill sets those consultants are addressing.”
As the only Australian university governed under federal legislation, ANU is the only one that can be compelled to appear before the committee. That had happened only once before last June, when the university’s executives were summonsed to explain their handling of pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
Since then, they have been called to estimates hearings on 7 November and 27 February, and only escaped another interrogation on 28 March because parliament was prorogued earlier that day?because of the upcoming election.
The university has been under fire since the revelation that Bell pocketed payments from her former employer Intel – reportedly around A$70,000 for what the university described as “24 hours of contact” – since becoming vice-chancellor. ANU’s governing council had been informed of Bell’s continuing involvement with Intel, but not that it was remunerated.
More recently, the university has attracted a barrage of questions over A$33,550 worth of speechwriting contracted from a consultancy run by chancellor Julie Bishop’s business partner and former chief of staff. The chancellor’s office is also staffed by two people who have part-time jobs in Bishop’s consultancy business.
In March, ANU’s union members a vote of no confidence in both Bishop and Bell. Bishop after for the university’s financial problems in October.?ANU?said she had simply acknowledged survey findings that the university had the most inefficient professional services in the sector.
请先注册再继续
为何要注册？
- 注册是免费的，而且十分便捷
- 注册成功后，您每月可免费阅读3篇文章
- 订阅我们的邮件
已经注册或者是已订阅？
