The Senate standing committee on education and employment hands down its report of the inquiry into the Quality of governance at Australian higher education providers this week.

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The fact that this inquiry sat in the first place is a tremendous achievement, and in response to calls by university staff from across the country to address the crisis in governance in higher education.

National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) national president Dr Alison Barnes, in particular, has been at the forefront of these efforts. There is also cross-party political will to deal with this significant issue, not just from the Education Minister Jason Clare, but senators including Tony Sheldon, David Pocock, Mehreen Faruqi, Marielle Smith and more.

Now that the Senate has looked under this particular rock, all sorts of leadership and governance failures have crawled out from underneath.

These developments have also led to the establishment of a NSW government inquiry into universities. That was followed by the establishment of a similar Victorian government inquiry.

Whatever these reports and inquiries reveal, there will be more to do to reform university governance, including potential legislative change.

It is now clear that university councils and their executives have been acting as a law unto themselves.

Senator Sheldon, in announcing the Senate inquiry, described the higher education sector as "lawless," referring to an "extraordinary range of governance issues that have arisen on their watch."

The increased focus on university leadership and governance has coincided with many universities pursuing mass redundancies, and to the extent that they represent genuine financial issues (and this is often not clear or well explained), those financial issues themselves are often the result of the poor leadership and governance practices and cultures at the university council and executive levels.

The scrutiny, which has been entirely warranted, has led universities to scramble in recent times.

On September 11, the Australian National University vice-chancellor, Professor Genevieve Bell, resigned after significant backlash in relation to a multitude of issues associated with the Renew ANU program of mass redundancies.

On 18 September, the ANU announced an end to forced redundancies.

Since then, Western Sydney University and Queensland University of Technology have also announced........

© Canberra Times