Conclusion of Senate Inquiry into Quality of Higher Education Governance

The governance of Australia’s higher education sector was a hot topic in 2025. The Senate and the NSW Legislative Council conducted inquiries throughout the year and the Victorian Legislative Assembly established a new inquiry in December. These developments occur in conjunction with the work of the Expert Council on University Governance, which set out key principles and recommendations for organisational governance in its report late in 2025, following earlier work under the University Accord. And the interim Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) was established!

In this series on university governance, we review the final report of the Senate Inquiry, following on from our previous review of the Senate Inquiry’s interim report. We separately consider the report of the Expert Council on University Governance here and also review the draft ATEC legislation here.

Background

In January 2025 the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee (Committee) self-referred an inquiry into the quality of governance of Australia’s higher education providers (Inquiry). The Committee released a substantive interim report for the Inquiry in September 2025 (Interim Report) which focused on:

• transparency of university governance
• remuneration of senior staff
• strengthening the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), and
• improving university complaints processes[1].

The Committee made a range of recommendations, which we highlighted in our previous review.  

We consider key findings and recommendations of the final report (Final Report)[2] below.

Role and operating model of universities

The Inquiry highlights the historical and ongoing debate about the proper role and operating model of Australian universities. The so-called Dawkins reforms of the 1980s and 1990s resulted in a significant expansion of the sector and with it, a consolidation of institutions, adoption of more corporate management structures, and a greater focus on the market.

Some stakeholders have observed that the greater focus on commercial and financial management (e.g. requiring university councils to have members with business skills[3]) has reduced academic influence over organisations[4]. Others have observed a need to diversify funding sources, with less reliance on Commonwealth grant funding and greater focus on alternative sources including fighting to attract more domestic and international students, which in turn has required significant expenditure on advertising and marketing.[5]

The Inquiry heard concerns from some stakeholders that the public mission of universities was being subordinated to commercial objectives[6]. The engagement of external consultants in the governance and operation of universities was seen as a manifestation, with some expressing concern about the prevalence of use of consultants, the transparency around their engagement and expenditure and possible conflicts of interest[7].

The Inquiry identified a decline in traditional ’collegial’ university governance models in which academic staff had significant influence over university decision-making in favour of hierarchical corporate management structure[8], with this shift seemingly creating a disconnect between university management and academic staff.[9] Other stakeholders raised concerns about an erosion of academic freedom through confidentiality agreements and other legal means[10].

Without seeking to resolve the tensions around corporatisation, the Committee did accept the need to ensure due emphasis was placed on the primacy of public research and education in the enabling laws of universities and duties of university council members.

Recommendation 1: State and territory governments should review university establishing acts to ensure primacy of public research and education in their objects and functions and consider composition of members on governing bodies that ensure this can be achieved.

Recommendation 2: The duties of council members should reflect primacy of education for the public good, and assessments of the performance of university councils should reflect their role in ensuring public research and education as the core functions of universities.

Employment practices

Employment practices of higher education providers was a focus of the Committee, and the Final Report devotes significant coverage to this subject. Issues such as high workloads, underpayment of staff and employment insecurity were raised by stakeholders as issues that impacted staff welfare and student experience[11]. 

The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) identified concerns around non-compliance with workplace laws within the sector, reflecting recent enforcement activities.  These concerns were primarily relating to misclassification of roles, non-payment of work completed, and failure to pay entitlements[12].  

Recommendation 3: TEQSA should update guidance to universities to support proactive adoption of key compliance and governance measures, including:

• implementing comprehensive enterprise resource planning systems which include relevant HR and finance systems and undertake audit of systems on implementation
• establishing a ‘worker voice’ mechanism, and
• various measures to exert centralised oversight and accountability for employment law compliance, including creating specific committees of university council for this.

Recommendation 4: Department of Education should prioritise work on requirements for universities to provide data on casual staff to increase understanding of workforce patterns.

Recommendation 5: The HES Framework should be amended to require academic boards to conduct an annual review of staffing profiles for each course, to ensure sufficient academic oversight to maintain high-quality learning and outcomes, balancing continuing and casual staff to support consistent teaching quality and student access.

Recommendation 6: TEQSA should develop a monitoring and reporting framework for course quality and staffing and establish an ongoing program of course monitoring to provide assurance of quality and staffing.

Education quality and the student experience

The Committee acknowledged Australia's reputation for high-quality education[13] but also identified perceptions about declining standards, which some stakeholders linked to corporatisation and poor governance practices.[14] The Committee has recommended a more interventionist role for TEQSA in academic governance.

Recommendation 7: Strengthen TEQSA powers to consider matters relevant to the interests of students and the preservation of Australia’s reputation, and to introduce a positive duty on providers to take reasonable and proportionate actions to comply with the HES Framework.

Recommendation 8: TEQSA should set out the key considerations which academic governance processes should oversee in their internal quality assurance, including ratios of continuing vs casual staff, experience of teaching staff and subject coordinators.

Interoperability of regulation across jurisdictions

The Inquiry emphasised the complex and fragmented regulatory environment involving Commonwealth, state and territory governments and multiple agencies – which we have discussed previously  - leading stakeholders to raise concerns regarding inconsistencies, duplication, and inefficiency in such environments. An example of this relating to data reporting requirements was identified in the Interim Report, with Recommendation 11 of that Report recommending harmonisation of data requirements across jurisdictions to reduce duplication.

The Australian Tertiary Education Commission

The Committee pointed to ATEC as the solution to some of these issues. The Australian Government established an interim ATEC in July 2025 as part of its response to the Universities Accord and with a view to the ATEC providing leadership and stewardship to the higher education sector[15]. Included in this role will be certain coordination, planning, and oversight functions, which will facilitate ATEC’s overarching objective for ’all institutions to work collaboratively to meet the needs of students, community, research users and employers.’[16] The Final Report predicts the ATEC “will provide the focus required to ensure the sector meets the expectations as a public good, for all in the community”.[17]

Draft legislation to formalise ATEC was introduced by the government in November 2025[18], and has been referred by the Committee for inquiry and report, which is due on 26 February 2026, as we have discussed here. The role of ATEC may be refined during the Committee process, noting concerns raised by some members of the Committee about a lack of clarity around the role of ATEC, including how it interacts with other regulators in the sector.

Path to reform

The Committee has highlighted some key challenges facing the sector, although with the NSW and Victorian inquiries in progress, implementation of the Expert Committee principles and operationalising of the ATEC, the governance reform path may be long and winding.

[1] Quality of governance at Australian higher education providers – interim report (Sep 2025: Senate) [Link].

[2] Quality of governance at Australian higher education providers – final report (Dec 2025: Senate) [Link].

[3] The Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth) originally mandated inclusion of members with financial and commercial expertise; these requirements remain in some state and territory legislation.

[4] Para 2.32, 2.43

[5] Para 2.56

[6] Para 2.3

[7] Para 2.65-2.75, 2.109.

[8] Para 2.36

[9] Para 3.17

[10] Para 3.47

[11] Para 4.1 and 4.2

[12] Para  4.7

[13] Paras 5.1-5.6

[14] Para 5.7

[15] See: https://www.atec.gov.au/

[16] Para 6.52

[17] Ibid

[18] Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 (Cth) and the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025 (Cth).