UA chief Luke Sheehy on ATEC & TEQSA

“Good morning, everyone, and thank you to the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association for the invitation to be here this week. It’s great to be in Adelaide. And it’s great to be in a room full of people who understand just how much the operating environment for universities has and continues to change. Because let’s be honest. The ground is shifting beneath our sector – and fast. And I’m not talking about what’s recently happened here in Adelaide with a three-university town becoming two – as seismic as that is. I’m talking about a new era of higher education policy in Australia. An era defined by stewardship. By intervention. By oversight. And increasingly – by regulation. The recent establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) is the clearest sign yet that the Commonwealth wants a much stronger hand on the wheel of higher education policy. Now, Universities Australia supported the creation of the ATEC. We advocated for it. And we pushed hard to strengthen it. Because the sector does need long-term thinking. And it does need stability. Australia has lacked a coherent long-term tertiary education strategy for too long. That was the central insight of the Australian Universities Accord. The Accord recognised that Australia needed an independent steward for the tertiary education system. One capable of looking beyond election cycles. Beyond short-term politics. And beyond the issue of the day. A body that could take a system-wide view. Identify emerging challenges. Coordinate long-term reform. And provide frank, evidence-based advice to government. That is what the ATEC should be. A steward of the system. Not a controller of institutions. Because stewardship cannot become central planning. And coordination cannot become regulatory overreach. In fact, if the ATEC simply becomes another layer in an already overcrowded regulatory architecture, then we will have missed the point of the Accord entirely. The sector does not need another body adding duplication, reporting obligations and administrative burden. It needs a body capable of simplifying the system. Reducing overlap. Driving better coordination between agencies. And helping lift higher education policy out of the political cycle and into a more stable, long-term national framework. Barney Glover is the interim chief commissioner of ATEC, which should be ATEC should be a steward of the system not a controller of institutions. Picture: Monique Harmer That is the opportunity here. And it’s an important one. Because universities are not departments of state. They are independent institutions. Institutions with their own missions. Their own expertise. And their own statutory responsibilities. That independence matters. Not because universities want to be left alone. But because institutional autonomy is one of the reasons Australia’s universities have been successful. It allows institutions to innovate. To specialise. To respond to their communities. And yes – sometimes to make decisions governments may not like. But increasingly, the system feels like it is moving in the opposite direction. Over the past few years, universities have experienced a dramatic escalation in regulatory burden, political scrutiny and government intervention. There is now a growing sense across the sector that almost every issue facing Australia eventually lands on the desk of a university vice-chancellor. Migration Housing Foreign policy Social cohesion Artificial intelligence Campus culture Student safety Mental health The list goes on. And with every new issue comes another review. Another reporting process. Another framework. Another assurance mechanism. Another ministerial direction. Another regulator. And eventually – another compliance team inside universities trying to keep up with it all. Some universities are now navigating more than 300 separate legislative, regulatory and reporting obligations. More than 300. And every hour spent feeding those systems is an hour not spent on teaching, research or supporting students. This matters because regulation doesn’t come without a cost. Compliance changes behaviour. It drives risk aversion. It slows decision-making. And over time, it changes the character of institutions. We can see that in real time. Recent changes to the Fair Work Act, including section 15A and the definition of casual employment, have required universities across the country to rethink workforce models and teaching delivery. This isn’t an argument against workplace protections. It’s simply a reminder that regulatory decisions often have far-reaching operational consequences. Layer enough of those obligations on top of one another and eventually they begin to shape how institutions function. If the sector isn’t overregulated already, it’s getting dangerously close. That’s why Universities Australia pushed hard for the establishment of the government’s Better Regulation Working Group in higher education. Because the sector has reached a point where the regulatory burden is no longer just frustrating. It’s now actively pulling time, resources and leadership attention away from the core mission of universities. The working group matters because, for the first time in a long time, there is at least an acknowledgement from government that the system has become too complex, too duplicative and too heavy. But now the real test begins. This process can’t become just another exercise in talking about regulation while adding more of it. The sector needs real outcomes. Fewer duplicative reporting requirements. Less overlap between agencies. Greater trust in existing governance and assurance frameworks. And a system that focuses on meaningful accountability, not endless process. That’s why Universities Australia has been so vocal about reducing unnecessary red tape across the sector. Not because we oppose accountability. We absolutely support accountability. Universities are public institutions entrusted with public money and public confidence. Of course they should be accountable. But accountability and overregulation are not the same thing. And right now, our sector feels the balance is wrong. The recent decision by TEQSA to intervene at the ANU sent shockwaves through the sector. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage. Because what we are seeing emerge is a much more interventionist model. A model where government increasingly wants visibility, influence and leverage over how universities operate. Mission-based compacts are a good example. In principle, there is merit in a more strategic conversation between government and institutions. There is merit in greater clarity around institutional missions and national priorities. But there is also risk. Because if these compacts become instruments of control rather than partnership, we will have fundamentally changed the relationship between universities and the state. The question we should all be asking is this: who ultimately determines the mission of a university? The university? Or the government of the day? And that question becomes even more important when we look at recent regulatory interventions. The recent decision by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) to intervene at the Australian National University (ANU) sent shockwaves through the sector. Not simply because of the specifics of the case. But because of what it signalled. For many in the sector, it felt like a threshold moment. A moment where the regulator moved beyond questions of compliance and quality assurance into questions much closer to institutional governance and operational decision-making. And naturally, people start asking bigger questions. What role will TEQSA ultimately play in the future shape of institutions? And what role will it play in mission-based compacts under the ATEC? Read more : Former Liberal MP Julie Bishop resigns as ANU chancello r | More resignations from ANU council | Will universities genuinely negotiate their missions? Or will institutions increasingly be expected to align with a model implicitly shaped by regulators and government expectations? These questions are not far-fetched anymore. They go directly to the future autonomy of Australia’s universities. And I think the sector is right to be concerned about that. Because once autonomy is eroded, it’s very difficult to get back. And here’s the irony in all of this. At the very moment governments are asking universities to be more entrepreneurial, more innovative, and more responsive to industry, the system is simultaneously becoming more centralised, more risk averse and more tightly controlled. You cannot regulate institutions into boldness. You cannot compliance-framework your way to innovation. And you cannot build globally competitive universities while treating them like delivery agencies of government. Australia’s universities succeed because they are institutions, not instruments, and as we enter this new era of stewardship under the ATEC, that distinction matters enormously. Now, none of this is an argument for no reform. The sector understands change is needed. We understand community expectations are changing. And we understand universities must continue earning public trust every single day. But reform works best when it’s built on partnership. And stewardship works best when it allows institutional autonomy to be strengthened. Because if we get this balance wrong, we risk creating a system that is less dynamic, less innovative, and less capable of serving the country in the long run. Australia cannot afford that. Not at a time when universities are central to almost every major national challenge we face – from productivity and skills to sovereign capability, to the clean energy transition, to artificial intelligence and medical research. The challenge now is to build a system that is accountable without becoming suffocating, strategic without becoming centralised, and ambitious without losing the independence that makes universities valuable in the first place. That is the balance we need to fight for. Because a system built on trust, autonomy and partnership will always outperform one built on control.

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