Curtail Catholic university’s registration, lawyers urge Teqsa

Australia’s higher education regulator has been urged to curtail the registration of one of the nation’s universities, in an extraordinary intervention from a group of senior lawyers.

A letter to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa) says the Australian Catholic University (ACU) should receive a conditional three-year registration, rather than the standard seven years, pending an investigation of “egregious matters” in its management and governance.

The two-page letter accuses ACU’s senate and executive leadership of “gross failure in governance obligations”, citing information from “confidential sources whom we believe have the interests of the university at heart.

“Although we are not in a position to adopt the accuracy or truth of the allegations contained in the report, we are firmly of the belief that…it deserves close inquiry.”

An 18-page annexe says the university’s governing body has not been kept properly informed, senior appointments have been blighted by “inappropriate and opaque decisions” and the reappointment of vice-chancellor Zlatko Skrbis may not have followed due process.

The report also criticises ACU’s management of its enrolments, finances and research. It says the chancellor and vice-chancellor have “soured relations” with the university’s “chief institutional backers” in the Catholic Church, and that the university cherry-picked positive elements from a mostly negative rankings performance in a media release in March.

All of these transgressions demand action from Teqsa, the report says. “To grant ACU an unconditional renewal for seven years would make both a mockery of the renewal process as well as the threshold standards that demand sound governance.”

ACU said “outrageously inaccurate information” had been “put into the public domain by individuals motivated by a particular agenda”.

“Highly experienced lawyers” had admitted that they could not verify the allegations but circulated them anyway, the university said. “A basic Google search would show errors in the report.”

The letter’s signatories are mostly the same barristers who authored a December open letter seeking an independent investigation of ACU’s executive or withdrawal of the university’s Catholic title. Two are former New South Wales government ministers and at least three have worked as university lecturers. Most identify as conservative, and none appear to have studied or taught at ACU.

Times Higher Education sought comment from several of the signatories and received no response.

ACU has attracted criticism for actions including closing down humanities research, sacking senior executives and paying A$1.1 million to quash the appointment of a law dean subsequently found to have expressed support for abortion.

“The use of public monies to remedy a hiring mistake by the vice-chancellor due to religious considerations is beyond the appetite of the taxpayer…and…should similarly be so for Teqsa,” the report says.

Asked whether the governing body had been informed of the size of the former law dean’s settlement, ACU said the arrangements had been “addressed at senate to the appropriate level. Such arrangements and discussions remain confidential”.

The university said due process had been followed in all senior appointments, and the process for reappointing the vice-chancellor had been “identical to that undertaken for his predecessor”. A claim that consultants KordaMentha had been paid A$3 million in 2023 was “wildly inaccurate”, ACU said.

Skrbis said the report’s suggestion that he had stopped providing written reports to the senate was absurd. “Any university would be concerned if false, inaccurate or misleading information was used to influence the regulator’s independence,” he said.

ACU’s registration is due for renewal on 30 July. It was granted a seven-year registration in 2015 and received a three-year extension during the coronavirus pandemic.

Teqsa declined to comment.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com