The University of Sydney was established in 1850 by an act of NSW parliament. Most other universities in Australia are established by acts of state parliaments and are governed by a Council or Senate; and their respective state governments have theoretical oversight over the universities.
The persistent contradiction in the governance of universities is that, to this day, state governments, despite their legal requirements, do not view it as their responsibility for the provision, funding, and oversight of university education. Gough Whitlam’s sweeping reforms entrenched the full responsibility of the federal government to fund tertiary education, further divorcing the responsibility of state governments to universities. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) operating nationally means it has the unenviable task of regulating disjointed independent operations that are each governed under their own state legislations.
The recent federal Senate inquiry into university governance was born out of decades of disquiet over mismanagement, wage theft, and the general sentiment that tertiary education as a whole has forgotten that its true purpose is for the public good.
I am not unaware of the enormity of my task condensing 83 years of history, spanning 20 prime ministers. Of course, each prime minister did not just have one minister for education (which has the added factor that often the role was split between a minister for education and a minister for tertiary or higher education or a minister for skills) over their term in government.
I begin my telling of the tale in 1942, elaborating on the detachment of universities from the Commonwealth, then detailing the cultural foundations of university education and Robert Menzies’s reforms in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Of course, I am compelled to talk of Gough Whitlam’s historic reforms to higher education and their enduring influence in the subsequent years. I explain the reforms made under the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating governments, spearheaded by Minister John Dawkins, and how they have made university education what they are today.
Sadly, the rest of the story spanning from 1996 to the present day must be left to another edition. Columns inches and all.
Four of the six ‘sandstone universities’ (University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, University of Adelaide, University of Tasmania) predate federation, with the University of Queensland established in 1909 and the University of Western Australia established in 1911. These universities were small independent operations established by state legislation, detached from the affairs of the Commonwealth. This is not to say the Commonwealth did not desire influence and control over the operations of universities.
In the book A History of the Modern Australian University, historian Hannah Forsyth observes the historical detachment of universities to the Commonwealth government. During the Second World War, the Commonwealth did not directly requisition university resources but wrote a polite letter to vice-chancellors asking them to volunteer for the war effort, to which they responded enthusiastically.
Our very own Honi Soit published an editorial in April 1942 titled Dig or be Damned! The editors and the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) implored the student body to “hew out a few ditches so that when bombs start falling…you’ll be able to… save your own shabby skins”. The SRC and the editors chastised the absentees and bemoaned the lacklustre efforts of those that did show up. Only a few months earlier, Singapore had fallen to the Empire of Japan and an invasion of Australia did not seem far off. An edition in May 1942 listed absentees by faculty and year and asked that they “explain their absence”.
Requisitioning students to dig was not the only encroachment onto these sandstone institutions. Forsyth notes that the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) — which became the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in 1949 — request for buildings on university campuses was naturally accepted given their working relationship with academia, but that this marked the beginning of the Commonwealth’s incursion and desire to influence the operation of universities.
Nowadays, research is considered a vital part of the essence of the university, with staff and students rushing to defend 40:40:20 — the division of an academic’s labour and time between teaching, research, and administration or service, in the ratio of 40:40:20 respectively — during enterprise bargaining.
This was not always the case. Forsyth identifies that it was unusual when the Australian National University was established in 1946 as a research-only institution. The CSIR’s establishment in the interwar years primed the capacity for universities to engage in research useful for war efforts.
What was the purpose of universities then, if research was not at the core of what they did? Universities then were sandstone bastions of knowledge concerned with preserving ‘civilisation’ and ‘culture’, by which they meant so-called British civilisation and British culture.
Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies described universities as a “home of pure culture and learning” and academia as one of the “civilised and civilising things”.
He commissioned the Chair of the British University Grants Commission Sir Keith Murray and Chair of the CSIRO Ian Clunies Ross to investigate and make recommendations on Australian universities as a whole. The 1957 Murray Report was the first instance of an investigation into the operations of universities by the Commonwealth government. The investigation was detailed, with the committee visiting each university to solicit submissions from not just the vice-chancellors but also from students and staff associations.
Murray and Ross impressed the urgent need for intervention and reform of the university system, apologetically noting “our report is not so polished a work as we should like”. The Murray Report identified poor conditions in universities, high attrition rates, and poor research levels. Their recommendation was to increase expenditure, form a University Grants Committee modelled after their British counterparts, and investigate the distinction between university and technical education.
Menzies responded enthusiastically to the recommendations. Forsyth notes that Menzies funded universities more generously than any prime minister who preceded him. The Commonwealth also formed the Australian Universities Commission (AUC), entrenching the role of the federal government in steering the direction of higher education.
In 1965, the Martin Report, commissioned by the AUC, made the key recommendation for a ‘binary’ system of tertiary education. This adopted system separated universities, tasked with academia and research, and Colleges of Advanced Education (CAE), tasked with teaching and vocational education. These CAEs persisted until the early ‘90s. This separation mirrored the UK’s move to separate universities and polytechnics.
Menzies was also keenly aware of the need for technical and vocational education to supply skilled labour for a changing workforce. The system of separating universities and CAEs matched his desire for both ‘culture’ and a growing economy. This move also firmly placed research as the identifying attribute of universities.
In this era, tuition was either paid by students or by Commonwealth scholarships, which only existed in a fixed quantity each year. In 1974, Gough Whitlam’s Labor Government abolished fees for tertiary education, something he had vowed to do while in opposition. Forsyth observes that the policy of fee abolition did not cost the government much, since it replaced the Commonwealth scholarship scheme that covered the majority of students attending university. The Whitlam Government also introduced the Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme, to provide support to students undertaking tertiary education, which persists to this day in the form of Centrelink programs Youth Allowance, Austudy, and Abstudy.
During Whitlam’s brief three years in government, higher education participation increased 25 per cent. Despite this, higher education policy researcher Andrew Norton’s critique of Whitlam’s policy of free education is that it did not make higher education more equitable — despite anecdotes of those from marginalised backgrounds saying they went to university because of Whitlam, the demographics of universities remained largely privileged and homogenous.
Additionally, fee abolition makes funding dependent on the federal government, amplifying the risk universities face during economic downturns. Indeed, the economic shocks of the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 affected the decisions of many young people to attend university — while enrolment growth slowed, it did not decline. Cementing funding as the full responsibility of the Commonwealth government made university planning economic policy.
Whitlam’s legacy cannot be understated; his policy of fee abolition is a potent symbol of the belief that higher education is a public good.
Following Whitlam’s dismissal in 1975, the Liberal Malcolm Fraser Government was elected in December that year. The agenda at the time was to link education firmly to the economic needs of the country. John Carrick, the Education Minister, tasked the USyd Vice-Chancellor Bruce Williams to write the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Education and Training, or simply the Williams Report. The report provided a detailed analysis of the data that linked the benefits of higher education on the economy.
In a climate of economic instability and faced with the prospect of future growth in enrolments, Fraser certainly wished to reintroduce student fees to offset the pressures on the budget. He was unable to enact this proposal as it faced widespread opposition. Staff unions and student unions protested the proposal, having grown in numbers and militancy since the ‘50s. The move was so unpopular that even Vice-Chancellors joined. Forsyth notes that rebellious and well organised universities threatened to refuse fee collection if they were introduced.
Whitlam’s legacy was enduring. He cemented in the public consciousness the principle and necessity of free education.
No discussion of the Hawke-Keating era, named after Labor Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, who governed from 1983 to 1996 is complete without introducing the Prices & Incomes Accords and the global climate of neoliberalism. The Accords were a series of agreements between the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), where the unions agreed to restrain their wage demands for the purposes of curtailing inflation. In return, all workers were afforded a ‘social wage’.
The Public Service Reform Act (1984) sought to implement some recommendations from the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration commissioned under the previous Fraser Government. The reforms sought to have the public service emulate the private sector in management practices. Managerialism, as it is termed, is the belief that public service is best managed by a professional body of managers. This was accompanied with the erroneous belief that market principles and appropriate financial incentives could deliver socially desirable outcomes without direct political control.
Universities were not spared. Traditionally, the management of universities was done by fellow academics that were considered primus inter pares, “first among equals”. The proliferation of the neoliberal ideal created a managerial class, many of whom did not come from an academic background.
John Dawkins, as Hawke’s Education Minister, instituted wide-reaching reforms that cemented the system we are familiar with today. Dawkins released the Green Paper in 1987 and a White Paper in 1988, detailing his and the Labor government’s vision for the future of higher education. He also sought to bring higher education firmly under the control of the federal government by abolishing the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, which acted as a buffer between government and universities.
Under Dawkins, the ‘binary system’ of universities and CAEs was abolished, and many CAEs were elevated or merged with universities. The new system still retained two classes of education: university education and Technical and Further Education (TAFE). These mergers stemmed from a desire to see efficiencies achieved from economies of scale and the creation of an environment where large universities competed with each other to incentivise “excellence at all levels”.
These mergers meant universities burgeoned in administrative size, requiring more and new systems of management. Enter the wave of managerialism and private sector practices that had already spread across the public service; the role of the vice-chancellor moved from a role as first among academics to full-time manager.
The newly established Australian Research Council (ARC) replaced the Australian Research Grants Committee with the intent to make research funding competitive. The scarcity in research funding also allowed the Commonwealth government more levers by which to steer the direction of research. Funding would be distributed competitively to projects that aligned with the Commonwealth’s interest.
Forsyth recounts the fear amongst academics at the time that the ‘national interest’ would be preoccupied with science and engineering and less so with the humanities. Don Aitkin, the Chair of ARC, when questioned by Monash University as to why the sciences were getting more funding, responded that science had “fewer wankers”.
There also existed the push for academia to have greater partnership with industry. If universities could not align their research interests with the national interest for funding, perhaps they could align with commercial ones instead. Vice-Chancellor Philip Baxter of the University of New South Wales introduced a system of commercial partnerships in the ‘50s, but this did not proliferate to other universities until the Hawke-Keating era.
Accompanying this was an increase in the casualisation of the academic workforce. Most postgraduate academics were not young people who had just transitioned from undergraduate education — most were well into their 30s or older, many with families to support.
Unsurprisingly, in the era of the Prices & Incomes Accords, the industrial nature of higher education also changed. Forsyth observed that up until 1983, universities and education as a whole was not considered an industry, and therefore could not have industrial relations. Until 1983, all academics and their unions effectively had one ‘boss’, which was the Universities Commission; after 1974 their ‘boss’ became the Academic Salaries Tribunal. Sector-wide bargaining was characteristic of the industrial landscape prior to the Accords.
The Accords Mark VII in 1991 ushered in the move from sector bargaining to enterprise bargaining, where unions bargain with individual employers. Existing university associations and unions adapted to this brave new world of industrial relations and the constituent unions voted to form the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in 1993.
Perhaps the change that is most familiar to readers would be the reintroduction of student fees through the Higher Education Contributions Scheme (HECS). Norton identifies five rationales for student contributions, namely: course costs, private benefits, public benefits, increased resources per student place, and incentivising course choices.
Where Fraser attempted to reintroduce fees and failed, Hawke tasked former NSW Premier Neville Wran with investigating how student contributions would be charged. Thus, the 1989 Wran Report was delivered and HECS, the brainchild of economist Bruce Chapman, was born.
The HECS system was a unique system where students would be charged for their studies after graduation, only if and when their income exceeded a certain threshold. This solution, unlike Fraser’s attempt to have universities collect fees, made sure that no money changed hands at the time of enrolment and that debts would be collected through the tax system. The use of ‘contribution’ was just subtly different enough that students weren’t outright ‘customers’.
Wran’s rationale was one of private benefits: graduates receive higher benefits in the form of higher employment rates and better earnings than non-graduates. Wran also made the appeal that free higher education should not be paid for by working class taxpayers for the benefit of a select few. Although, he conceded that graduates also present a benefit to the public, with the thinking that more doctors would lead to a healthier society. However, Wran did not believe it possible to determine exactly the split of public and private benefits conferred by a degree. Instead, he opted to set a flat fee to contribute to course costs.
The key to this model of dividing public and private benefits is the assumption that the knowledge university students acquire is no different to how they might acquire tools or equipment, and should thus be able to have an accompanying return on investment for their education.
Prior to Hawke, Menzies instituted the Colombo Plan; from 1951 to 1964, Australia sponsored and received over 5,000 students from Asia. The Commonwealth back then realised they were unlikely to attract foreign students given the White Australia Policy, and required a way to rehabilitate the nation’s image as a racist state. Menzies ensured that these students were given significant support and support officers that would check in on their progress.
When Hawke opened Australia to international students, the goal was not to rehabilitate Australia’s racist image but a desire for the wealth of the ‘rich asians’ to give higher education a much-needed cash boost. In addition, this framed education as an export and would result in fixing Australia’s balance of trade.
Around this time, there were also experiments with establishing private universities, following the argument that fees would incentivise providers to offer better quality teaching. Of the private universities that started, Bond University — founded in 1987 by businessman Alan Bond and backed by Joh Bjelke-Petersen — was one of the rare few that survived.
Central to these decisions was a desire for universities to be accountable. The question is, accountable to who? As Forsyth notes, corporations are accountable to their shareholders, unions to their membership, and the public service to their minister. A university’s line of accountability is ill-defined, leaving them with simultaneously far too few and far too many lines of accountability.
Undoubtedly, the Hawke-Keating years saw the greatest expansion of university places. Norton places Dawkins as the Labor education minister that made the greatest difference for the working class. Despite this, these reforms have been bitterly criticised as a neoliberal assault on education, allowing market forces to encroach on universities and introducing unwanted private sector management practices.
Akin to the discourse surrounding the Prices & Incomes Accords, there is debate on whether Labor’s educational reforms had the deliberate intent of ushering in neoliberalism or were simply due to its unstoppable global tide. Both the NTEU and National Union of Students (NUS), while advocating for a return to free education, accept that HECS is preferable to outright fee deregulation and privatisation. The reality is that the consequences of Dawkins, intended or not, have had a profound and not always positive effect on higher education as a whole.
Here it is clear that the modern university is the product of many contradictions. It is torn between its inception as a de facto independent entity established under state legislation and the desire of the Commonwealth to influence and control the research and steer the direction of the university. It is torn between its old ideal as a colonial ivory tower and the economic need to train skilled workers for a modern economy. It is torn between its purpose to educate and its purpose (and much more compelling incentives) to produce research.
This is unfortunately where I must leave you. The second part of this tale will begin with analysing the entrenchment of neoliberal ideals in higher education under the John Howard Liberal Government through 1996 to 2007. Then I will touch on the reforms of the Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard Labor Governments from 2007 to 2013, including the 2008 Bradley Review and the introduction of demand-driven funding.
The Liberal Governments that followed Rudd-Gillard attempted to bring fee deregulation back on the agenda to varying degrees of success, but ultimately culminated in the disastrous Job-Ready Graduates Package under the Scott Morrison Liberal Government. Finally, we will cover the work of the Anthony Albanese Labor Government, with a particular analysis on the Australian Universities Accords.
We will produce our diagnosis of what ails our university system and our vision for a future where education is seen as a right and a public good.
