Media Release
13 July 2026
The federal government's new university governance standards represent a substantial win in the campaign for reform at Australia's public universities, according to the National Tertiary Education Union.
NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes said the standards showed the government was listening to union members.
“Thousands of university staff have spent years raising the alarm about a governance culture that allowed vice-chancellors and governing bodies to operate with almost no scrutiny,” she said.
“University governance is broken. Consultancy spending is out of control. Executive pay exploded while universities aggressively casualised. These principles should send an unequivocal message to university executives to end these toxic approaches to running our public institutions.”
Under the new standards:
-Universities will now be required to fully disclose consultancy spending, including the purpose, value and justification for each engagement, with that information reported publicly
-Vice-chancellors and senior executives will have to disclose their external roles
-Remuneration reporting will be brought into line with the standards public companies face under the Corporations Act, requiring a detailed breakdown of pay, bonuses and benefits against individual performance measures rather than the vague aggregate figures universities have relied on to obscure executive pay
-Governing bodies will be required to publish the outcomes of their meetings and decisions, undertake genuine consultation before major decisions, and take direct responsibility for risks to their university's social licence
-Governing bodies must protect academic freedom and freedom of speech, and keep teaching and research free from outside political or commercial pressure.
"For too long, university councils and senates have acted like the reputational and social damage caused by their decisions was somebody else's job to manage,” Dr Barnes said.
“This makes clear it's theirs. That's a significant shift that builds the guardrails we’ve sorely lacked.”
The standards also strengthen the diversity and independence of governing bodies, including protections for the independence of academic boards.
Dr Barnes said the real test would now be implementation.
"Standards on paper mean nothing if nobody enforces them,” she said.
“The next fight is making sure TEQSA has the teeth and resourcing to actually monitor compliance, and there are real consequences when vice-chancellors and senior executives fall short.
“The NTEU will be watching how every university responds to these standards, and we will call out any institution that treats this as a box-ticking exercise rather than genuine reform."
Media contact
Matt Coughlan 0400 561 480 / [email protected]