(Note: I originally drafted this post following UTAS’ 9 December 2025 Right to Information (RTI) decision on VC Black’s Deloitte board appointment. I then decided to wait for the outcome of an internal RTI review request to UTAS. After protracted delays, on 13 March 2026 UTAS issued an internal RTI review decision and a small quantity of additional information. Taken together, these confirm, and indeed increase, the governance concerns I originally identified and add two significant points (both in the decision): a belated assertion that Black will donate his Deloitte remuneration to UTAS, and the revelation that his formal conflict‑of‑interest form was not lodged until 16 September 2025, some six months late at least. I have amended my original text, where relevant.)

Key points

UTAS Vice‑Chancellor (VC) Rufus Black’s appointment as a director to the Board of Deloitte Australia (Deloitte), effective from 1 September 2025, is a clear-cut conflict of interest that highlights deep failures in UTAS governance, and runs counter to nationally agreed university reforms.

On 9 December 2025, I received 163 pages of documents under RTI concerning the appointment of VC Black to the Board of Deloitte. Following my request to UTAS for internal review, after protracted delays by UTAS, on 13 March 2026 I received an internal RTI review decision and eight pages of documents.

The documents reveal that UTAS has an extensive commercial relationship with Deloitte, which is embedded in UTAS’ operations. Between 1 March 2018, when VC Black commenced in office at UTAS, and my initial RTI application on 30 August 2025, UTAS paid Deloitte and its affiliates $10.52 million across more than 60 separate contracts (see Appendix 1 for full details).

Even perceptions of a conflict of interest should be rigorously avoided by the UTAS Council and management. Yet when UTAS has such a deep and ongoing financial relationship with Deloitte, and makes payments to a contractor at this scale, the distinction between perceived and actual conflict evaporates.

VC Black’s appointment to the Deloitte Board is, plainly, a conflict of interest. UTAS is a major Deloitte client, and its chief executive now sits on Deloitte’s governing board.

  • Can it be credibly asserted that future UTAS tender decisions involving Deloitte will be entirely free from influence – one way or another, explicit or subconscious – given the VC’s dual role?

  • Can it be credibly asserted that UTAS’ RTI decision makers will treat RTI applications relating to UTAS and Deloitte in exactly the same way they would other RTI applications?

If VC Black functions as a responsible and diligent Director of Deloitte, his time commitment to Deloitte should be between 24 and 36 days a year, or more, based on Deloitte’s schedule of monthly Board meetings.

  • I am advised that, at a meeting with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) on 6 February 2026, Chancellor Watkins claimed that VC Black would manage his Deloitte commitments in sixteen days a year (eight for meetings; 8 for preparation). Such a claim would appear fundamentally deceptive and/or irresponsible.

VC Black can be expected to receive between $100,000 and $200,000 a year in remuneration from Deloitte, and probably at the higher end of the scale. This adds to his remuneration as VC, which the NTEU estimated at $1,115,000 in 2023 – making Black the 10th highest paid of 37 Australian VCs in that year.

The RTI documents present a clear case of governance failure, in which Chancellor Alison Watkins and the UTAS Council allowed the applicant for the Deloitte position, and the subject of conflict-of-interest concerns, Rufus Black, to control UTAS’ process of consideration of his appointment to Deloitte:

  • Instead of the matter being considered and determined by the UTAS Council before VC Black applied for the Deloitte position, most of the relevant communications among the RTI documents came after Deloitte had offered Black the position, when acceptance was already assumed.

  • Chancellor Watkins presented the UTAS Council with a fait accompli, on VC Black’s behalf, instead of conducting a transparent governance process.

  • UTAS’ major commercial relationship with Deloitte was mentioned substantively only once in the RTI documents, and then only in briefing to Chancellor Watkins, with its scope completely understated and conflict-of-interest risks minimised.

  • Independent legal advice was not sought, and misplaced reliance was put on “Chinese wall” arrangements, which were drafted by VC Black himself.

  • The RTI documents contain no reference to the level of VC Black’s Deloitte remuneration, the extent of the time commitment required or the duration of his appointment, other than a Calendar of Deloitte Board meetings apparently seen only by the VC.

  • A claim in UTAS Council Minutes that VC Black would use annual leave for Deloitte duties is implausible, and no offset of his Deloitte remuneration against his UTAS salary has been required – a decision made by the VC himself in May 2025, contrary to some media reporting and the wording of UTAS Council Minutes.

  • UTAS’ internal RTI review decision of 13 March 2026 indicates that, after months of external pressure (by, for example, my RTI applications, NTEU criticism and parliamentary scrutiny), VC Black has now undertaken to donate his Deloitte board fees to UTAS – ten months after he decided not to offset his Deloitte remuneration and in a move that still allows him to reclaim close to half of his estimated $100,000–$200,000 annual Deloitte remuneration through taxpayer-funded deductions. The actual amount of his earnings from Deloitte remains secret.

  • There was no consideration of national reviews in which unease over VC remuneration and external work, and the overuse of consultants, was being expressed.

  • Notably, on 18 October 2025, the Commonwealth Minister for Education announced the legislation of a new set of University Governance Principles requiring, among other relevant matters, that external work by VCs should be “agreed with and approved by the governing body” and occur only on an exceptional basis. VC Black’s Deloitte appointment is contrary to both these criteria.

(For full details on these points, see Background and Appendix 2, which provides images of all relevant RTI documents in chronological order, with detailed commentary).

VC Black’s Deloitte appointment exemplifies a deeper failure of governance within UTAS, with Chancellor Watkins having ceded the UTAS Council’s authority to the VC (a matter on which I have already written, but on which I will provide much greater detail in future).

Quite apart from the fact that it was a conflict of interest, VC Black should not have proceeded with his Deloitte application until the UTAS Council had considered all relevant facts and approved the application (or more appropriately, disapproved).

VC Black’s Deloitte board appointment, and the UTAS Council’s handling of it, contravene the Commonwealth Higher Education Standard Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021, the University of Tasmania Act 1992 and the applicable versions of UTAS’ University Council Ordinance, Compliance Policy, People Policy, Behaviour Policy and Conflicts of Interest and Gifts and Benefits Declarations Procedure; and guidance issued by the Tasmanian Integrity Commission.

  • Among other things, VC Black’s formal conflict‑of‑interest form was not lodged until 16 September 2025, at least six months after he decided to apply for the Deloitte Board position.

UTAS at critical point

VC Black’s additional Deloitte workload comes at a time when UTAS faces major, largely self‑inflicted challenges, that Tasmania, being a one‑university state, can ill afford:

  • One of the worst records of wage theft of any university in Australia – in its June 2024 Wage Theft report, the NTEU identified UTAS as the third worst culprit, and in December 2025 the Fair Work Ombudsman announced that UTAS must complete repayments of more than $21.4 million to over 10,000 staff under an Enforceable Undertaking.

  • A lack of meaningful commitment to transparency, exemplified by the loss of five out of five RTI cases that I have taken to the Ombudsman and increasingly opaque UTAS Council Minutes, drafted more as public relations statements than as true records of discussion.

Action required

If VC Black’s Deloitte appointment were merely a case of poor judgment, the remedy might be simple – he could resign from Deloitte and offset any earnings to date against his UTAS salary.

But given the extraordinary mishandling of the appointment process and the disregard shown for governance standards, both VC Black and Chancellor Watkins should resign immediately.

  • Chancellor Watkins’ position on Boards of the Reserve Bank may have shielded her conduct as Chancellor of UTAS from adequate scrutiny. It should not.

Tasmania’s journalists and politicians – save for a few honourable exceptions – must also now confront issues squarely. The Deloitte episode is only a symptom of UTAS’ deeper malaise. Without decisive action, the university risks going ‘down the gurgler’.

Background

This section provides important background on the key points above.  For more detail, see:

  • Appendix 1, which provides a table of Deloitte invoices and payments derived from the RTI documents initially provided by UTAS; and

  • Appendix 2, which reproduces all RTI documents relating directly to VC Black’s appointment to the Deloitte Board, and UTAS’ processes for considering the matter, arranged chronologically and with detailed commentary. This appendix also includes other relevant documents available on the public record.

VC Black’s conflict of interest – UTAS’ commercial relationship with Deloitte

The UTAS Chancellor and Council’s consideration of the conflict-of-interest issue was derelict.

The only substantive reference to UTAS’ commercial relationship with Deloitte appears in the Briefing Note for the Chancellor, provided to the Chancellor Watkins by the Secretary of the UTAS Council on 23 May 2025 (see Appendix 2 for the complete document), in which it was stated:

“Complication (Reason a decision is needed):

    • The University currently utilise Deloitte for management of the payroll system. This is unavoidable as there are currently no other providers in the market who specialise in PeopleSoft.
    • As a member of the Deloitte Board, the Vice-Chancellor would have a potential conflict of interest and will have an actual conflict of interest in circumstances where he was involved in any ongoing negotiations for current contractual arrangements and/or decisions around engaging Deloitte for any other programs of work. His role does not involve him in the selection of providers for these services or negotiation of these contracts.”

This should have been enough to elevate concerns over a conflict of interest, but the brief is problematic or just wrong in a number of key respects, including:

  • It indicates that Chancellor Watkins’ agreement to VC Black’s Deloitte appointment was only sought (after he had been offered the position) because of the potential conflict of interest. As this was the sole point in UTAS’ internal processes at which approval for VC Black’s Deloitte appointment was required, it suggests that, if UTAS had not had a commercial relationship with Deloitte, all decision‑making would have been left to the VC. Any external work by the VC should be subject to approval processes, whether there is a conflict of interest or not.

  • Deloitte’s management of UTAS’ PeopleSoft payroll system is characterised as “unavoidable”. I look forward to feedback on whether PeopleSoft is the best payroll system UTAS could possibly use and whether Deloitte has a monopoly on that system.

  • There is no reference to the level of contract payments made to Deloitte for the management of the payroll system – nearly $3 million between the date of VC Black taking up his appointment at UTAS on 1 March 2018 and my RTI application on 30 August 2025.

Most significantly, UTAS’ commercial relationship with Deloitte extended and extends well beyond “management of the payroll system”. It is deeply embedded in UTAS’ operations. Appendix 1 reveals that UTAS paid various Deloitte entities $10.52 million between 1 March 2018, when VC Black assumed office at UTAS, and my RTI application on 30 August 2025. These payments relate to over 60 different contracts – involving many different activities and numerous ‘client’ areas within UTAS. Major contracts and contract areas (tasks covering a number of contracts) include:

  • PeopleSoft Payroll Management system (2021-25) – $2,998,000

  • Customer Data Platform Services (2023-25) – this may be another ongoing commercial relationship that should have been mentioned in the brief – $1,300,000

  • Payroll rectification and remediation (2022-23) – $876,000

  • ETMS (enterprise time management system?) support (2023-24) – this may be another ongoing commercial relationship that should have been mentioned in the brief – $651,000

  • Northern Tasmania Business Case (2018-19) – $377,000

  • STEM Precinct Business Case (2024-25) – $261,000

  • Sandy Bay Masterplan Financial Feasibility (2021-22) – $238,000

  • Student modelling (2018) – $217,000

(All figures rounded to nearest thousand dollars)

There have also been significant payments to seconded Deloitte staff, although the exact amount is impossible to quantify, as the secondments are grouped in with other tasks. Former Deloitte staff have also occupied/occupy senior positions within UTAS management, including Craig Barling, the second in charge to VC Black, who recently departed UTAS in curious circumstances, and Duncan Buckeridge.

Based on the RTI documents I received from UTAS, no-one in the UTAS Council ever sought to query the extent of UTAS’ contract arrangements with, and payments to, Deloitte.

UTAS’ management plan for future dealings with Deloitte

In regard to future dealings with Deloitte, the Briefing Note for the Chancellor refers to the establishment of a “management plan” which would primarily act to:

“Restrict the Vice-Chancellor’s involvement in any matters relating to the procurement of Deloitte’s services should this arise. The Vice-Chancellor can be effectively separated from parts of the activity or process, including contract negotiations or approvals, when this situation arises in the future.“

It is not clear what the management plan looked like at the time of this brief (it was not an attachment to the brief), but a management plan drafted by VC Black himself was included at the very end of the RTI documents initially provided by UTAS. As this management plan is undated, I have placed it under the UTAS Council Minutes of 27 June 2025 in Appendix 2, as the Minutes refer to the management plan.

It is a feeble document and totally disregards concerns about ‘Chinese wall’ arrangements recently summarised by Senator David Pocock that have been prominent in public discourse, particularly since the PwC scandal in 2023. 

There are just too many ways appointments such as that of VC Black (a client) to Deloitte (a provider) can have negative impacts. Quite apart from the possibility of VC Black influencing UTAS’ contract decisions, not that I am suggesting that he would seek to do this (and his own management plan says that he would not), it is simply not plausible to suggest that no UTAS employee will ever be influenced, consciously or not, by VC Black’s position on the Deloitte Board.

The only satisfactory way of dealing with conflict of interest, let alone perceptions of a conflict of interest, in such a situation is to avoid the situation altogether.

It will be interesting to see how the conflict-of-interest issue is dealt with in Deloitte itself. Perhaps Deloitte will refrain from tendering for UTAS work.

Contravention of UTAS governance instruments and TIC guidance

As I have stated above, VC Black’s Deloitte board appointment, and the UTAS Council’s handling of it, contravene the Commonwealth Higher Education Standard Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021, the University of Tasmania Act 1992 and the applicable versions of UTAS’ University Council Ordinance, Compliance Policy, People Policy, Behaviour Policy and Conflicts of Interest and Gifts and Benefits Declarations Procedure; and guidance issued by the Tasmanian Integrity Commission (TIC).

This is such an important and large issue in its own right that I will shortly publish a blog post on this matter. For now, I note that the Conflicts of Interest and Gifts and Benefits Declarations Procedure states that “Individuals are required to declare conflicts of interest…as soon as they arise“, not only once an offer of external employment has been made. For a VC contemplating a remunerated directorship with a major existing contractor, the point at which he began pursuing the role is the latest point when a potential conflict arose and should have been disclosed to the UTAS Council and issues resolved (most sensibly, through the VC not pursuing the position or resigning as VC).

I also note that, based on the RTI documents that I have received from UTAS, the VC, the Chancellor and the UTAS Council appear to have had little or no regard for legislation, UTAS’ own governance instruments, and TIC guidance, on conflict of interest.

The internal review decision (page 9) now reveals that VC Black’s formal conflict‑of‑interest declaration for the Deloitte role was only lodged on 16 September 2025 and only approved by Chancellor Watkins on 21 September 2025 – as Appendix 2 shows this was:

  • At least six months after VC Black decided to apply for the Deloitte position;

  • Some four months after Deloitte had confirmed him as its preferred candidate; and

  • Only after VC Black took up the Board position on 1 September 2025, a truly staggering display of disregard of normal – let alone prescribed – standards of behaviour, and/or incompetence.

VC Black’s Deloitte time commitment and remuneration

Deloitte Australia, with its various affiliates/entities, is a large entity with reported revenue of $2.55 billion in its annual report for 2024-25 (down from a peak of $2.85 billion in 2022-23).

Deloitte Australia’s Board meets for a full day each month (see the email from Deloitte to VC Black of 13 May 2025 in Appendix 2). Setting aside travel time, as VC Black may attend meetings remotely (although Deloitte’s email suggests he should attend 6 meetings a year physically), preparation time by a diligent and responsible director would be in the order of one to two days for each meeting (see articles by the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Board Direction, BoardPro, Boardroom Advisors and Board Appointments. This suggests a total time commitment for Board meetings in the order of 24 to 36 days.

  • Involvement in Deloitte Board work between meetings, or on Deloitte Board committees, would add to this time commitment.

  • Chancellor Watkins’ reported claim to the NTEU on 6 February 2026 that VC Black would manage his Deloitte commitments in sixteen days a year (eight for meetings; 8 for preparation) raises serious issues, including its seeming lack of accuracy. Was this sort of claim made to UTAS Council members? Did VC Black inform the Chancellor the Deloitte Board met monthly? What would Deloitte make of such a claim?

  • Whether VC Black puts in 16, 24 or 36 days a year into to his Deloitte responsibilities, the claim in the UTAS Council Minutes of 27 June 2025 (see Appendix 2) that he would take “annual leave to attend Deloitte Board meetings”, is implausible.

As a professional services partnership (with related private companies), Deloitte is not required to publish details of its remuneration to VC Black, however articles by Executive Agent and Guerdon Associates suggest it would be in the order of $100,000-$200,000 a year, and probably at the higher end.

  • I would happily be corrected by VC Black or Deloitte on VC Black’s Deloitte time commitment and remuneration, and undertake to publish any corrections.

The amount Deloitte is paying VC Black and the exact extent of his time commitment to Deloitte are not specified in RTI documents (even after the internal review process), suggesting that neither Chancellor Watkins nor any other member of the UTAS Council ever sought detail on these, apart from VC Black himself. The duration of VC Black’s Deloitte appointment is also not mentioned.

  • These matters must have been addressed in correspondence between VC Black and Deloitte.  The fact that, apart from the email of 13 May 2025, these matters are excluded from the RTI documents indicates that they must have been dealt with in private correspondence between the VC and Deloitte or UTAS has erred in its RTI responses.

I have not discussed VC Black’s time commitment to Deloitte in the context of conflict of interest, but if VC Black fulfils his responsibilities as a Director of Deloitte conscientiously, with 24-36 days of input, realistically this must reduce his time commitment to UTAS.

The national context

During 2025, two major reviews on Australian universities proceeded:

These two reviews have focused considerable attention on issues such as the excessive level of VCs’ remuneration, the conduct of external work by senior university staff, particularly VCs, and overuse of consultants.

The Commonwealth Minister for Education, The Hon Jason Clare MP, has already committed to giving legislative force to the principles proposed by the Expert Council, stating among other things:

“The Australian Government, in collaboration with the Commonwealth Remuneration Tribunal, states and territories, and stakeholders including the Universities Chancellors Council, will establish a remuneration framework for Vice-Chancellor remuneration. 

University governing bodies will also be required to publish: 

    • outcomes of meetings and decisions taken,
    • consultancy spending, its purpose, value and justification,
    • Vice-Chancellors’ external roles,
    • annual remuneration reports in line with requirements for public companies, and
    • composition of governing bodies.” 

At a more detailed level, the report of the Expert Council states:

“The Council also notes the value that can be derived for university leadership and the university from some commercial roles, for example the experience provided by participation on company boards. Recognising the responsibilities and expectations of Vice-Chancellor roles, any external roles need to be demonstrably in the interest of the university and agreed with and approved by the governing body considering potential conflicts, the performance of the individual concerned and their ability to continue to deliver against expectations. As a general rule, significant external roles and remuneration should be by exception.” (pp29-30; my bolding and underlining)

There is no reference to either of the national reviews in the documents in Appendix 2, suggesting that not a single member of the UTAS Council or staff reflected on their relevance to VC Black’s Deloitte appointment.

Lest it be argued that review findings came too late to be given consideration in VC Black’s Deloitte appointment process, it should be noted that an interim report was published by the Senate Inquiry in April 2025 and “failures to appropriately manage conflicts of interest” and “growth in the remuneration of vice-chancellors” had already been identified as key issues (pp 3-4; my bolding)”, supported by evidence and many submissions.

As the NTEU has said, UTAS has a “tin ear”.

It should also be noted that on 1 April 2024, the Tasmanian Education Minister, Jo Palmer, committed the Tasmanian Government to respond to the report of the Legislative Council Select Committee inquiry into the Provisions of the University of Tasmania Act 1992 after the Expert Council reported. Tasmania’s future will depend heavily on this response, and the Tasmanian Government and Parliament will need to take this task seriously, rather than believing everything UTAS tells them, as most MPs are currently wont to do.

Appendix 1 – UTAS’ commercial arrangements with Deloitte – invoices and payments 2017 to 2025

Trial-pdf149-159-v2-1

The original 163 pages of RTI documents provided by UTAS included 11 pages relating to Deloitte invoices and payments between the announcement of Rufus Black’s appointment as VC of UTAS on 10 November 2017 and the submission of my RTI application on 30 August 2025 (pages 159-169 of the pdf).

As these 11 pages were poorly presented, it was difficult to identify contracts and figures could not be readily tallied. I have therefore converted the pages into the excel spreadsheet provided above and ‘tidied’ them up, so that they can be more easily scrutinised. This has involved fixing typographical and conversion errors, where these were significant.

Some invoices were tied to engagement (contract) numbers by UTAS, but many were not. In these cases, I sought to identify distinct contracts through their text descriptors.

I believe my count of over 60 distinct contracts is conservative.

The absence of engagement numbers also made it difficult to identify the precise purpose of a number of invoiced tasks and payments in the spreadsheet.  This may mean the figures provided in Background for Customer Data Platform Services and ETMS are understated. I did, however, particularly seek to identify all contracts and payments associated with PeopleSoft (see Background section on VC Black’s conflict of interest – UTAS’ commercial relationship with Deloitte above).

  • In my original RTI application I requested copies of contracts between UTAS and Deloitte. In negotiations with UTAS over the scope of my application, I agreed to withdraw this particular request, as I was told it would delay processing, or prompt refusal, of my application.

As I have previously indicated, it is a mark of UTAS’ governance failings that, according to the documents provided by UTAS under RTI, and reproduced in Appendix 2, no-one in the UTAS Council requested the details of UTAS’ commercial arrangements with Deloitte when considering VC Black’s application to join Deloitte.

Appendix 2 – Annotated chronology of VC Black’s Deloitte Appointment

This appendix reproduces all the documents from among the 163 pages of RTI documents provided by UTAS that relate directly to VC Black’s appointment to the Deloitte Board and UTAS’ processes for considering the matter. It also reproduces or details new information provided in the internal RTI review decision and eight pages of documents provided by UTAS on 13 March 2026. These pages are arranged chronologically and with detailed commentary. The appendix also includes other relevant documents on the public record.

  • The original 163 pages of documents were poorly organised and took considerable effort to analyse and arrange. This has been a common issue in RTI responses I have received from UTAS.

  • Even with receipt of the internal RTI review decision and the eight pages of documents on 13 March 2026, there are large gaps in documentation, meaning some combination of inadequate searching (a breach of RTI requirements) or poor record keeping/further lapses in governance by UTAS.

One point, however, is very clear in the documents below.  The Chancellor and UTAS Council allowed VC Black to control UTAS’ process of consideration of his appointment to Deloitte.

(NB: As this appendix is intended to provide a comprehensive analysis of the documents reproduced here, a number of points made above are necessarily repeated).

April 2024

Deloitte announced its intention to appoint independent Board members:

“The process for identifying independent board members will commence in June [2024] following the completion of our 2024 board election process.”

At some stage between June 2024 and March 2025, through whatever recruitment process Deloitte conducted, VC Black applied for a Deloitte Board position.

Before VC Black decided to apply, which effectively would have involved a decision to take the position if he was successful, UTAS Council approval should have been sought, legal advice obtained, and issues around conflict of interest, remuneration and the VC’s potential time commitment to Deloitte should have been considered in depth and with full regard to all relevant facts.

March 2025

UTAS’ RTI documents relating to VC Black’s Deloitte appointment do not start until April 2025. However, the Briefing Note for the Chancellor by the Secretary of the UTAS Council of 23 May 2025 (see thread below) states:

  • “In March 2025, the Vice-Chancellor approached the [UTAS] Council Executive [which comprises the Chancellor, VC and Deputy Chancellors] to seek their input and gage their level of support for applying for the position of Non-Executive Member of the Deloitte Board.
  • Following consideration of a variety of potential issues identified, including consideration of the remuneration for this role, Council Executive expressed support for the Vice-Chancellor pursuing the opportunity.“

Comment: In the absence of any documentation of this meeting, or of any prior documentation, it is not clear when VC Black decided to apply for the Deloitte position or whether he had raised it with the Chancellor or any of the Deputy Chancellors (namely James Groom, Alicia Leis, Sheree Vertigan) prior to the March 2025 meeting, although the first paragraph of the email at 26 May 2025 below indicates that he consulted with the Chancellor first. The issues considered at the March meeting are not detailed, and it is not clear what was said and/or agreed in relation to remuneration. It can be reasonably assumed, however, that VC Black decided to apply for the Deloitte Board position in March 2025, if not earlier. Information on members of the UTAS Council Executive and other members of the UTAS Council is here.

I can now also note that no documents relating to the March 2025 meeting, or earlier communication between VC Black and Chancellor Watkins (or any other UTAS Council members), were provided with UTAS’ internal RTI review decision on 13 March 2026, not even text messages or WhatsApp communications, which I specifically requested.

I will be pursuing this issue further through an external review application to the Ombudsman. However, if communications were oral only, and undocumented, it would represent a further damning indictment of UTAS’ governance on a major issue.

11 April 2025

RTI documents, page 131 (of the pdf file)

Comment: This was apparently a meeting or interview in relation to VC Black’s application for a vacancy on the Deloitte Board.

17 April 2025

RTI documents, page 144

Comment: This appears to be the meeting referred to in an email of 12 May 2025 below about:

“Deloitte’s auditor independence obligations, in connection with your [VC Black’s] interest in joining the Board of Deloitte as an Independent Board Member.”

29 April 2025 – Morning

RTI documents, page 139

Comment: This was the first of, at least, two meetings (see 30 April 2025) between VC Black and the Deloitte Board – perhaps interview or ‘get-to-know’ you sessions.

29 April 2025 – Afternoon

RTI documents, page 141

Comment: This relates to a meeting between VC Black and the Deloitte CEO, Jo Gorton. The initiator of the email (and the person who said they would not join the meeting) may have been the Deloitte Chair.

30 April 2025

RTI documents, page 140

Comment: This was the second of, at least, two meetings (see 29 April Morning) between VC Black and the Deloitte Board – perhaps interview or ‘get-to-know’ you sessions. There is a significant gap between this and the next document.

12 May 2025

RTI documents, pages 78-80

Comment: This is Deloitte going through the process of probity checks. I am very surprised that there was apparently no consideration of conflict-of-interest issues here. What arrangement has Deloitte put in place in relation to current contracts with UTAS and future tendering for UTAS work?

12 May 2025

RTI documents, page 128

Comment: The purpose of this meeting between Deloitte and VC Black is unclear.

13 May 2025

RTI documents, page 145

Comment: I assume that the above document was provided to notify VC Black of the date of future Deloitte Board meetings, and/or indicate frequency. Note the comment to the side of the Calendar that:

“The [Deloitte Australia] Board meets for a full-day meeting each month, with approximately half of the meetings held in-person in various Deloitte office locations around Australia.

The remaining meetings are held in a hybrid format, with Members joining the meeting from their local office.”

However, it would have been irresponsible of VC Black to apply for a position on the Deloitte Board without knowing the total time commitment involved for a responsible and diligent Director.

UTAS has provided no record indicating that this email from Deloitte was passed on by VC Black to the UTAS Council or other UTAS staff. Indeed, the Chancellor’s reported comments to the NTEU about a 16-day time commitment may indicate ignorance on her part, but would otherwise seem misleading and/or irresponsible.

23 – early 24 May 2024 (read this thread from the bottom up)

RTI documents, pages 33-37

The following documents from 23 May 2025 were provided by UTAS on 13 March 2026. I have placed them out of chronological sequence as I do not understand how they fit with the documents above (some of the times on the emails do not make ready sense to me).

Internal review documents, pages 7-8

Comment: I find it extraordinary that, according to these email threads, VC Black advised the Secretary of the UTAS Council that he had been successful in seeking a Board appointment with Deloitte before he advised the Chancellor. The internal review documents also show that VC Black was involved in the UTAS Council Secretary, Sally Paynter’s, Briefing Note for the Chancellor.

Ms Paynter’s Briefing Note for the Chancellor, and the proposed email to Deputy Chancellors the Chancellor sent to VC Black on 24 May 2025, are deficient in numerous respects and/or raise serious issues, despite the involvement of VC Black, a poor reflection on him.  While I have mentioned some of these in Background above, these points bear repeating here:

(1) The Secretary writes in the Briefing Note:

“Complication (Reason a decision is needed):

    • The University currently utilise Deloitte for management of the payroll system. This is unavoidable as there are currently no other providers in the market who specialise in PeopleSoft. 
    • As a member of the Deloitte Board, the Vice-Chancellor would have a potential conflict of interest and will have an actual conflict of interest in circumstances where he was involved in any ongoing negotiations for current contractual arrangements and/or decisions around engaging Deloitte for any other programs of work. His role does not involve him in the selection of providers for these services or negotiation of these contracts.

This indicates that the Chancellor’s agreement to VC Black’s Deloitte appointment would not have been sought if not for the potential conflict of interest. Any external work by the VC should have required formal consideration.

(2) Deloitte’s management of UTAS’ PeopleSoft payroll system is characterised as “unavoidable”. I look forward to feedback on whether PeopleSoft is the best payroll system UTAS could possibly use and whether Deloitte has a monopoly on that system.

(3) There is no reference to level of contract payments made to Deloitte for the management of the payroll system – nearly $3 million between the date of VC Black taking up his appointment at UTAS on 1 March 2018 and my RTI application on 30 August 2025.

(4) The fact of Deloitte’s management of UTAS’ PeopleSoft payroll system (and the level of payments involved) should have been enough to elevate concerns over a conflict of interest.

(5) However, as fully detailed in Background and Appendix 1, UTAS’ commercial relationship with Deloitte extended and extends well beyond “management of the payroll system”. It is deeply embedded in UTAS’ operations. UTAS paid Deloitte $10.52 million in relation to over 60 separate contracts between VC Black taking up his role as VC on 1 March 2018 and when I submitted my RTI application on 30 August 2025.

(6) In regard to future dealings with Deloitte, the Briefing Note for the Chancellor refers to the establishment of a “management plan” which would primarily act to:

“Restrict the Vice-Chancellor’s involvement in any matters relating to the procurement of Deloitte’s services should this arise. The Vice-Chancellor can be effectively separated from parts of the activity or process, including contract negotiations or approvals, when this situation arises in the future.“

As noted in Background, this document, which is probably that located below under the Council Minutes for 27 June 2025 below, was drafted by VC Black himself. It is a feeble document and totally disregards concerns about ‘Chinese wall’ arrangements recently summarised by Senator David Pocock that have been prominent  in public discourse, particularly since the PwC scandal in 2023. 

(7) Independent legal advice, detailing UTAS’ commercial relationship with Deloitte and VC Black’s potential Deloitte remuneration and time commitments, should have been a part of formal consideration by the UTAS Council of whether VC Black should be allowed to apply for the Deloitte position.  It should certainly have been insisted on by the Chancellor and other UTAS Council Executive members involved in the process to up to this date, who allowed VC Black, all too easily, to manage them towards his desired outcome.

(8) The Briefing Note does not quantify VC Black’s potential remuneration or time commitment as a Director of Deloitte, or even the duration of his appointment. There is no record these facts were ever requested by Chancellor Watkins or the UTAS Council Executive or by the rest of the UTAS Council when they were eventually engaged in the process.  These facts certainly do not feature in the documents provided by UTAS in response to either my original RTI application or my application for internal review (apart from Deloitte’s email to VC Black of 13 May 2025).

(9) Presumably referring to the March Council Executive meeting, Chancellor Watkins’ draft email for the Council Executive that she sent VC Black included this statement:

“We felt an unlisted NED [non-Executive Director] time commitment would be very manageable especially given Rufus’ external defence commitment has now ceased.”

This beggars belief. As noted above, as a responsible and diligent Director of Deloitte, even leaving aside travel time, VC Black should be spending 24-36 days a year on Deloitte work.

Far from somehow ‘legitimising’ his Deloitte appointment, if VC Black was spending anywhere near this level of time on his defence commitment, it should have been raising serious questions about the level of his prior commitment to his VC role. Instead, Chancellor Watkins repeated the statement in the actual email she sent Council Executive members.

As an experienced company director and a member of Boards of the Reserve Bank, Chancellor Watkins should have known better.

(10) It is not clear why Deloitte delayed announcing VC Black’s appointment from the week starting 2 June 2025, and his actual appointment from “on or about 30 May 2025” to 28 August 2025, with effect on 1 September 2025. Perhaps this was in part to allow UTAS to prepare the “reactive statement” mentioned in both Chancellor Watkins’ email of 24 May 2025 above, and VC Black’s response below.

24 May 2025

RTI documents, page 39

Comment: This is VC Black’s response to Chancellor Watkins’ email, which included her draft email to Deputy Chancellors, of earlier in the day. His one point of departure was to raise the issue of remuneration. He mentions that he had suggested a pay cut (presumably offsetting or partly offsetting his Deloitte remuneration against this VC remuneration), but then provides reasons why such a pay cut should not apply. The whole thing has a performative (posturing) air, and appears entirely self-serving, with VC Black finding whatever reasons he could not to make an offset.   All other issues aside, the only moral course on VC Black’s part would have been to insist on offsetting his prospective Deloitte remuneration against his VC remuneration, particularly given the time commitment involved. This is another example of VC Black controlling the process and Chancellor Watkins’ acquiescence to, and subsequent support of, VC Black’s position reflects very poorly on her. It is of a piece with her earlier ceding of the UTAS Council’s authority to the VC, and raises questions over whether she truly exercises a supervisory role over VC Black.

The internal RTI review decision of 13 March 2026 (page 9) includes the following:

The statement about the UTAS Council’s formal endorsement is incorrect and I deal with it in more detail under the UTAS Council Minutes for 27 June 2025 below. With regard to VC Black’s donation of his remuneration, I am not aware of any formal announcement yet, however I note that:

  • The ‘announcement’ in this letter comes some 10 months after VC Black originally decided he would keep all his Deloitte remuneration;

  • Donating his Deloitte remuneration, rather than offsetting it against his UTAS remuneration, allows VC Black to reclaim close to half of his estimated $100,000–$200,000 annual Deloitte remuneration through taxpayer-funded deductions;

  • VC Black’s remuneration from Deloitte still remains secret; and

  • It is not clear when VC Black will commence his donation or what he will do with Deloitte remuneration received to date.

In the internal RTI review documents (page 1), UTAS provided the redacted names, in order James [Groom, Vice Chancellor and UTAS Council member], Kristen [Derbyshire, Chief People Officer], James [Groom again] and Ben [Wild, Manager of Corporate Communications]. For the sake of completeness, Kate is Kate Huntington, Executive Director of Strategic Communications.

24 May 2025

This document was included in the original RTI documents (page 44), but for improved clarity I have included this excerpt from the internal RTI review documents, pages 5-6.

RTI documents, page 44

RTI documents, page-45

Comment: Through her email, Chancellor Watkins’ sought “feedback” on VC Black’s Deloitte appointment, through a tendentious presentation of the remuneration and time commitment issues (with no quantification), from Deputy Chancellors Groom, Leis and Vertigan. Chancellor Watkins received unquestioning support from Mr Groom and Ms Vertigan.

UTAS did not provide Ms Leis’ response in the original RTI documents, and I requested this in my internal review application. As UTAS did not provide this with its internal RTI review decision on 13 March 2026, I can only assume Ms Leis made no written response (another governance failure) or UTAS conducted an insufficient search.

25 May 2025

    RTI documents, page 38

    Comment: This is VC Black’s draft email for Chancellor Watkins to send under her own name to UTAS Council members, as he again sought to control the process. As it is redacted, it is not clear to what extent the Chancellor merely repeated it as her own words in the email immediately below.

    I sought removal of the redaction as part of my application for internal review to UTAS. In its internal RTI review decision (page 3), UTAS declined to provide this on the basis that VC Black’s draft was an internal working document (a ground for exemption). I will challenge this in my application for external review to the Ombudsman on public interest grounds, as it is important to see to what extent the Chancellor ‘added value’ to VC Black’s draft. The review decision claimed that VC Black’s draft included “sufficient differences to demonstrate that it was an earlier working draft rather than a final version.”

    26 May 2025

    Internal review documents, pages 4-6

    Comment: While largely repetitive, this adds some further detail about the chain of correspondence.


    26 May 2025

    RTI documents, page 47

    Comment: This is the email Chancellor Watkins sent UTAS Council members about VC Black’s Deloitte appointment. As noted above, as VC Black’s draft is redacted it is not clear to what extent she used his words. However, as indicated in previous comments, the positions on conflict of interest, remuneration and time commitment are misleading, omit key facts, and are self-serving (for VC Black). The matter is presented as a fait accompli, and the Chancellor invites only “questions”.

    I have not received any record of the “input” referred to in the first paragraph of the email through RTI, either initially or on review, other than what is provided in this Appendix. If “input” was oral only, and undocumented, it would represent a further damning indictment of UTAS’ governance on a major issue. It is notable that the email takes no account of national developments in the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee inquiry into the Quality of governance at Australian higher education providers, where the excessive salaries of university VCs, the (questionable) undertaking of external work by VCs, and the excessive use of consultants by universities had already emerged as “key issues” (see Background above).

    3 June 2025

    RTI documents, pages 42-43

    Comment: Predictably no objections were raised as none were sought, and little substantive information (on conflict of interest, remuneration, time commitment) had been provided to UTAS Council members, and what there was was totally misleading. It is not clear what the “useful suggestions” were.

    There is a major, and questionable, gap till the next document.

27 June 2025 – UTAS Council Minutes

Comment: As is now usual with UTAS Council Minutes, these Minutes took about two months to be published (and, as of 15 March 2026, they are still marked “unconfirmed”) and appear to be highly massaged as a public relations document. The item “Non-Executive Membership with Deloitte” repeats much of the wording contained in Chancellor Watkins email to the UTAS Council of 26 May 2025 and other earlier communications.

Accordingly, I do not believe that this wording is a true account of the UTAS Council’s discussion and requested a copy of the actual record taken on this item on 27 June 2025 as part of my internal RTI review application to UTAS.

The internal RTI review decision of 13 March, suggests there was no other record, which I do not believe, but also states on page 9:

This is simply incorrect. Formal endorsement “of the Vice-Chancellor’s appointment” would require a formal resolution by the Council, and no resolutions were recorded in this part of the meeting. Moreover, the Minutes refer to “endorsement” of the approach to managing conflicts of interest and not to the appointment itself. Over and above both these points, VC Black’s appointment to the Deloitte Board had already been presented to the UTAS Council as a fait accompli in the Chancellor’s email of 26 May 2025 (see above). However, the UTAS Council could and should have exercised decision-making authority and I will be commenting in the future on their failure to do so, and to allow VC Black’s blatant conflict of interest to occur. (I have already commented on the donation issue under the 24 May 2025 entry above).

One claim in the Minutes, however, that is not mentioned in the RTI documents is that VC Black would take “annual leave to attend Deloitte Board meetings” (earlier mentions in the documentation refer to the time commitment being “manageable”, without specifying what the commitment would be or how it would be managed). As I have previously indicated, as a responsible and conscientious member of the Deloitte Board, VC Black’s minimum time commitment should be around 24-36 days a year, even putting aside travel time. I do not believe that VC Black could or would manage his full Deloitte Board time commitment within his annual leave. This looks like ‘window dressing’.

Undated – but may be the proposed approach referred to in the Minutes

RTI documents, pages 162-163

Comment: I have commented on this document in Background and under the email thread for 23-24 May 2025 above. I note that the conflict-of-interest plan was not lodged until 16 September 2025 (see document with my comments below).

15 August 2025

RTI documents, page 130

22 August 2025 – UTAS Council Minutes

Comment: See my comments on the 27 June 2025 Minutes. This is highly tendentious wording. Even in the massaged Minutes of the UTAS Council meeting of 27 June 2025, the UTAS Council did not “support… [VC Black’s] acceptance of the role of Non-Executive Director of the Deloitte Board Australia”, which had, anyway, been unilaterally agreed by the Chancellor much earlier in the ‘process’. As noted above, there was also no formal Council resolution on this matter.

I also note that UTAS’ Conflicts of Interest and Gifts and Benefits Declarations Procedure states that “Individuals are required to declare conflicts of interest…as soon as they arise“, not only once an offer of external employment has been made or accepted. For a VC contemplating a remunerated directorship with a major existing contractor, the point at which he began contemplating pursuit of the role is when a potential conflict arose and should have been disclosed to the UTAS Council and issues been resolved.

I also note that VC Black’s conflict-of-interest declaration was not lodged until 16 September 2025 (see document with my comments below). The claim in the Minutes of 22 August 2025 that the declaration had already been lodged is the sort of ‘error’ that can occur when it takes two months to produce minutes and they are massaged as public relations documents.

28 August 2025

RTI documents, page 147

Comment: On 28 August Deloitte issued a media release on VC Black’s board appointment. Below is a copy of a resultant article in the Australian Financial Review.

30 August 2025 – my RTI original application

31 August 2025 – Article from the Sunday Tasmanian

Comment: It will be seen that the article was based in part on the UTAS Council Minutes of 27 June 2025, which – as I noted above – were thoroughly misleading.

16 September 2025

Internal RTI review decision, page 9

Comment: VC Black’s formal conflict‑of‑interest declaration for the Deloitte role was only lodged on 16 September 2025 (and only approved by Chancellor Watkins on 21 September 2025):

  • At least six months after VC Black decided to apply for the Deloitte position;

  • Some four months after Deloitte had confirmed him as its preferred candidate; and

  • Only after VC Black took up the Board position on 1 September 2025, a truly staggering display of disregard of normal – let alone prescribed – standards of behaviour, and/or incompetence.

By : Robert Hogan

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