Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is not about accountability; this is about the Howard government seeking to impose on universities its view on how universities should be managed. This is all about the Howard government believing it knew better than any of the governance arrangements in the higher education sector—that somehow, sitting here in cabinet in Canberra, you knew what size a university board should be, and that is simply outrageous. I encourage other senators to look closely at the opposition’s proposed amendments, because I think, indirectly, they simply seek to keep alive the prescription and the intervention in the administrative arrangements of universities in a way which undermines trust and improvements in the productivity and outcomes of those institutions.