(NB: Frequently when I refer to UTAS in my writings I am referring only to the clique who make the big decisions for the University; my meaning can normally be judged from the context).

The ‘end’ of UTAS accountability

On 24 November 1992, in his second reading speech to the House of Assembly for the University of Tasmania Bill 1992, the then Minister for Education, John Beswick (Liberal) stated:

The bill provides the university with…flexibility but also ensures its basic accountability to the Government and the people of Tasmania, particularly through a significant government, parliamentary and community representation on the council of the university.

On 27 October 2022, in reply to a question by Cassy O’Connor (Green), the Premier (and former Minister for Education), Jeremy Rockliff (Liberal), reiterating a line he had already used in correspondence, stated:

the decision to relocate the southern UTAS campus and how that may align with the university’s educational priorities is a matter for the University of Tasmania as a private organisation.

The legal status of UTAS did not change between 1992 and 2022 – UTAS was and is a public institution (more specifically a statutory corporation) established by an Act of the Tasmanian Parliament.

How did matters get to this point?

How then do we find John Beswick espousing the basic accountability [of UTAS] to the Government and the people of Tasmania in 1992, while in 2022 Premier Rockliff denied there was any accountability from UTAS to the Government even on so large a matter as UTAS’ move to the CBD, and redevelopment of its Sandy Bay site as (effectively) a new suburb? Why was the Premier so intent on denying UTAS’ accountability, that either intentionally or unintentionally, he misled the Parliament as to the legal status of UTAS, by calling it “a private organisation”?

  • I have written at length on the Premier’s error in my posts of 30 October and 4 November.
  • On 8 November 2022, in reply to a question, again by Cassy O’Connor (37 minute mark of the linked video), while correctly stating that UTAS was a “statutory authority”, the Premier stated that it was incorrect that the State Government had “a responsibility” for UTAS. This statement is wrong. (This will be addressed in further parts of this article, including Part 2).

One immediate reaction is to see the answer as deriving from the actions of the Tasmanian Parliament, which in passing the University of Tasmania Act 1992, removed the restraint on UTAS from selling or leasing its Sandy Bay site that had existed in previous legislation (this was the main area of UTAS “flexibility” that John Beswick mentioned in his second reading speech in 1992).

There are two major points to be made on this.

First, as Dr Julian Amos, a Labor MHA in 1992, has stated:

Included in that thinking [that is, to remove the sale/lease restraint] – but not specifically stated – was the idea that there could be an interest in private interests being more connected with the campus, and thus that there might be surplus land that the university no longer required, but was restricted in its capacity to effectively manage.

It was never suggested that the University had any desire to bail out of the campus site altogether, and I suspect if it had been stated it would have been vehemently opposed by all at that time.

As it was, the UTAS Act was passed with absolutely no debate on the removal of the sale/lease restraint and a handful of unrelated amendments. To be fair to the Parliament of 1992, I do not believe it could reasonably have foreseen the situation we now face with UTAS’ proposed CBD relocation and, anyway, it had an overriding sense of UTAS’ accountability – a sense that is now clearly lost in the Government and Opposition (if not the Greens).

Second, while the creeping notion in UTAS that it might be able to sell/lease the Sandy Bay site is clearly a major part, and driver, of the current UTAS malaise it is only one part. The submissions to the Legislative Council Inquiry have clearly demonstrated dissatisfaction with almost every facet of UTAS’ operations and culture, including UTAS’ core functions of teaching and research, student welfare, treatment of staff and respect for academic standing.

There are, indeed, a number of other interconnecting and compounding factors that have led to the current situation of UTAS:

1. The erosion of the public accountability and representativeness of the UTAS Council, through a succession of amendments (including particularly the amendment of 2012) to the UTAS Act, creating the potential for the UTAS Council to self-perpetuate and for institutionalised group think.

2. The ability of the UTAS chief executive (that is, the Vice-Chancellor), when strongly supported by senior management, to steer – if not dominate – the thinking of the UTAS Council.

3. The Government’s expressed denial of responsibility, and thereby its own accountability, for UTAS. This is very important, because according to the Government there is no direct accountability link from UTAS to the “people of Tasmania”, such as described by Minister Beswick in 1992.

4. The high-handed approach UTAS now feels free to demonstrate in matters such as its proposed CBD move, its annual reporting to Parliament (with opaque financial reporting, and vapid jargon and photos replacing substantive content) and the cavalier approach it adopts to its legal obligations under the Right to Information Act 2009.

I will examine each of these factors in turn. While I have written about them before, I continue to make new finds. Something is rotten in UTAS and, I suspect, in the State of Tasmania.

A final thought on the actions of State governments/parties

I have been careful to say “expressed denial of responsibility” at factor 3 above, as I believe what has been made obvious/transparent by the Government represents only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of its relationship with UTAS. There is evidence to suggest that the Government has been knowingly acquiescent, if not collusive, in the way UTAS has operated over the last seven years. Were a private company proposing to do something as major as establishing a city-changing presence in Hobart and building a new suburb on UTAS’ Sandy Bay campus site, we would consider it derelict for the Government not to be involved. Has the Government really just left matters to UTAS in the way it suggests, or has it suited the Government for UTAS to ‘wear the heat’ on this? This is something I will also explore.

This should not be seen as letting the Labor Opposition ‘off the hook’. In Part 2, I will examine how a representative and largely elected UTAS Council became an unrepresentative and largely unelected body, through amendments to the UTAS Act, made under a Labor Government in the name of national reform.

I will also consider, in a later part, the Opposition’s long-standing disinclination to ask the Government about significant UTAS issues in question time.