Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the corrosive influence of consultants and contractors in the university sector. Today the ABC has revealed that our universities are paying external consultants and contractors over $1.8 billion a year, without disclosing which firms they're hiring and what the money is being spent on. This is a staggering amount of money, and it's an extraordinary misuse of public funds. Universities are routinely outsourcing work that could be done by their own academic and professional staff, and our public institutions are being hollowed out. Jobs and courses are being slashed. The quality of teaching is plummeting, yet universities can find money for costly consultants and million-dollar salaries for vice-chancellors. Shame!

The past three years of Senate inquiries have shown that profiteering, land-and-expand practices and poor value for money are rife within the consulting sector. It is their business model. Our universities are becoming increasingly corporatised, yet there is no clear definition of what a consulting engagement is and how it's reported. Corporate executives and consultants on university councils—talk about a conflict of interest—are running our universities as businesses, leading to consultant capture and endless restructures. This is incredibly concerning. We need more transparency about the use of consultants, the details of contracts, accountability about outcomes and clear criteria as to why this work is not being completed internally by staff.

Universities need to reduce their reliance on contractors and consultants, and they need to ban dodgy contractors from getting work at all. We need a register shared by universities about their use of consultants and the dodgy contractors which we know are out there taking an enormous amount of money at the expense of the public purse and taxpayers.