Julie Bishop quit as ANU Chancellor last Friday, but not without a parting shot:

“Following unprecedented and co-ordinated interference, the ANU Council is no longer able to discharge its legal and ethical obligations,” she said. “The higher education sector is at a crossroads of regulatory overreach in the governance of our institutions or autonomy and academic freedom.”

The ANU needs to move on from the last few years of drama and disruption. The departure of controversial figures, including Julie Bishop, will help with that process. But her parting shot made a valid point. A TEQSA decision that Bishop is alluding to, while at least in part a by-product of weaknesses in TEQSA’s enforcement mechanisms, was an odd one. It was at most a partial solution to the ANU governance problems identified by TEQSA. Compared to other options it raised more serious legal compliance issues for members of the ANU Council.

The voluntary undertaking

The most prominent “unprecedented interference” is this voluntary undertaking the ANU made to TEQSA about the appointment of a new Chancellor. This was to happen in the lead up to Bishop’s term expiring on 31 December 2026, but will now be brought forward.

What the voluntary undertaking does is set a process by which the Council will accept or reject a recommendation for the new Chancellor.

The recommendation will come from a panel of TEQSA-approved members. The panel will have an independent chair nominated by TEQSA (announced as Peter Coaldrake), two TEQSA-nominated people with experience and expertise in higher education and university governance, an Indigenous person if neither of the earlier two nominees are Indigenous (who appoints this person is not stated, by inference TEQSA) and two members nominated by ANU Council who are “accepted by TEQSA in writing.”

So TEQSA will either appoint or have veto power over all five or six members of the panel.

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