2022 UTAS Council Minutes yield up their secrets

Background

On 19 September 2025, after I had fought a 20 month battle with UTAS, the Ombudsman decided a fifth Right to Information (RTI) case in my favour against UTAS.

As part of this decision, the Ombudsman, directed UTAS to release by 1 October 2025 the large majority of material UTAS had previously sought to exempt from disclosure (and redacted/blacked out), in the UTAS Council Minutes for the period between March 2022 to February 2023.

Here are the Minutes. I have highlighted the sections UTAS previously sought to keep hidden from the public in orange.

(Note: you can also read/download the Minutes from here, if preferred).

The previously redacted text

As there is so much in the previously redacted (orange) text, I will just list some of the key issues for readers to explore rather than offering commentary.

• I will list these issues by the page number of the pdf document rather than by Council meeting dates and agenda items, as this would be too complex.

One point I would make first, however – and this is common to the both the previously redacted text and unredacted text in the Minutes, and indeed in nearly everything I have ever read by UTAS (and I have read thousands of pages) – is that according to UTAS none of the problems it faces are ever due to Council and/or management mistakes, rather they are due to external circumstances or a need to correct the narrative.

• Some particular examples here are the comments on on-line learning on page 7 and the loss of social licence on page 51.

• Smart organisations learn from their mistakes and replace repeat ‘offenders’. Not UTAS.

Key issues

• Reappointment of Vice-Chancellor Black for life – pages 2-3, 39 (see also the previously unredacted text on page 29)

• Stakeholder communications/relations and the Elector Poll – pages 5, 7, 29, 39 and 51-52 (in these last pages see the discussion around the change in UTAS’ plans)

• The high cost of casualisation – page 6

• UTAS’ Future Fund and budget matters – pages 7, 35, 44, 54-55, 56

• Staff/employee engagement – pages 32, 53-54, 65

• The pausing of Sandy Bay development – page 33

• Third party management of campuses – pages 42, 47

• CBD works, including planned use of a Joint Venture to provide funding – pages 44-45, 55, 56

• The Newnham Development Strategy – pages 46-47

• The LegCo inquiry – page 47

• Student accommodation – pages 53, 66

• Right sizing UTAS – page 64

This list not be complete, and of course, there will also be relevant/interesting material in the previously unredacted text as well.

If you notice something of interest, please make a comment below.