It’s no secret that Australia’s public universities are in a governance crisis. Wage theft, endemic casualisation, the erosion of academic freedom, excessive executive salaries, mass layoffs, and the gutting of courses have become routine.
Mon 22 Jun 2026 10.45 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch
It’s no secret that Australia’s public universities are in a governance crisis. Wage theft, endemic casualisation, the erosion of academic freedom, excessive executive salaries, mass layoffs, and the gutting of courses have become routine.
The Senate inquiry into university governance laid the evidence bare last December. Among its many findings: the regulator charged with overseeing the sector is not fit for purpose.
The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) is reactive in its focus, while the professional standards it enforces are at once overly prescriptive and too vague to compel meaningful change. To restore public trust, the Albanese Government is reforming TEQSA’s powers and standards. We understand those reforms will be publicly canvassed within weeks.
The central problem is well known. In the Minister’s own words, TEQSA’s enforcement toolkit is “a sledgehammer and a feather, and not much in‑between”. TEQSA can’t issue infringement notices. It can’t suspend a provider’s registration in an acute crisis. To impose any penalty, it must go to court. That process that can take months or years, consume huge public resources, and leave staff and students in limbo.
When Senator David Pocock raised serious governance concerns at ANU with TEQSA in 2025, more than six months elapsed before the matter progressed.
Section 60 of the TEQSA Act limits its ability to ensure compliance with the “Threshold Standards” to making assessments of the “quality of education” in “courses of study”. It has no ability to act on sector‑wide risks, which is why systemic wage theft has gone unaddressed, student safety crises have festered, and international students have been exploited through unscrupulous recruitment practices.
All of these things are explicitly outside TEQSA’s remit. They’ve happened without meaningful scrutiny or sanction.
TEQSA has admitted that the Threshold Standards lack enforceable requirements for council members’ skills, transparency measures, workforce sustainability, and executive pay. University governing bodies increasingly lack sectoral expertise; skills matrices commonly prioritise financial and commercial backgrounds over academic and public mission expertise, a trend that is compounded by the rise of a “consultocracy” that displaces governance to opaque commercial systems. Without enforceable governance standards, TEQSA’s capacity to ensure quality and integrity remains limited.
The recent Senate inquiry has provided a clear roadmap. The Government must now act.
First, expand TEQSA’s enforcement powers. Introduce infringement notice powers, civil penalty provisions, and the ability to suspend registration in acute risk situations. Allow TEQSA to issue enforceable codes without begging a court for permission.
Second, create a positive duty on providers. Amend the TEQSA Act to require universities to take reasonable and proportionate steps to comply with the Threshold Standards. This would allow TEQSA to act early, for example, when a provider fails to protect students or staff rather than waiting until harm is done.
Third, strengthen the Threshold Standards. Mandate minimum governance standards: council composition requirements (including higher education and public sector expertise), public minutes, conflict‑of‑interest registers, disclosure of consultancy spending and senior executive external roles, and workforce sustainability targets.
Fourth, authorise systemic risk monitoring. Amend the Act to explicitly allow TEQSA to conduct sector‑wide thematic reviews of governance failures, not just course quality. Establish a national data‑sharing framework to enable TEQSA to access timely, accurate information from the Fair Work Ombudsman, state auditors, and other agencies.
Fifth, clarify jurisdictional roles. TEQSA should be the primary national regulator for governance and quality. State and territory oversight should be limited to financial and process assurance – not duplication.
While the Government has committed to “modernising and strengthening TEQSA’s powers”, the lack of legislation so far risks eroding trust. Prompt action is essential.
We have seen this pattern before: inquiries, reports, consultations, then silence. But the governance crisis is not abating. Universities are still cutting courses, casualising and sacking staff, and paying executives millions while underpaying their own people. The Fair Work Ombudsman has now recovered over $218 million for more than 110,000 university workers. TEQSA has recovered nothing because it lacks the legislative powers to do so.
We understand that the Minister’s office and the Department of Education are currently preparing legislation for the Spring 2026 sitting. We urge the Minister to ensure that academic and student voices are adequately represented in these deliberations, rather than privileging those of university executives and senior managers.
Our public universities are too important to be governed by a toothless tiger. Staff, students, and the Australian public deserve a regulator that can act. Parliament must make that happen now.
Dr Adam Lucas is Honorary Senior Fellow, University of Wollongong, and Founding Member, Academics for Public Universities.
Dr James Guthrie AM is Emeritus Professor, Macquarie University, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and Member, Academics for Public Universities.
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