Australian opposition condemns ‘turgid and bureaucratic’ Atec

Australia’s opposition has savaged the government’s proposal for a tertiary education “steward”, offering a default rejection of legislation to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec).

Shadow education minister Julian Leeser said the “turgid technocrat policy” would impose an unnecessary bureaucratic layer on an already over-regulated sector.

Addressing the House of Representatives, where the governing Labor Party holds a comfortable majority, Leeser said the opposition had adopted a “holding position” of rejecting the bill until the Senate’s Education and Employment Committee – which is examining the legislation – had completed its inquiry.

He said this would involve publicly questioning analysts, representative bodies and other organisations that opposed the proposal, often after initially supporting it.

“The list of critics is extraordinary,” Leeser said. “Unions, government bodies, universities, independent providers, experts – all of these are saying that the Atec legislation currently before this parliament is not fit to pass.”

Leeser said Atec would be “a regulator in all but name”, joining 13 other bodies that exercised oversight, influence or control over universities. “There will be overlap and there will be duplication. Translated, that means there will be cost to taxpayers.”

He was especially critical of the “National Tertiary Education Objective”, which is intended to guide Atec in performing its functions. As recommended by the Australian Universities Accord, the bill entrenches an objective of promoting “a strong, equitable and resilient democracy” and driving “national, economic and social development and environmental sustainability”.

An amendment introduced by Leeser adds teaching, learning, research, scholarship and student experience, among other things, to the objective. He said the bill had supplanted common understandings of the purpose of tertiary education with vague and “loaded” terms.

“What does social development even mean? This is an undefined, heavily contested and entirely inappropriate function to confer on a bureaucratic body entrenched by law in the Department of Education. This is a bill about ideology, not improvement.”

Leeser cited the academic union’s criticism of the objective as an attempt to dragoon tertiary education into “broader” government policy. “When a member of the Liberal Party is quoting the National Tertiary Education Union in its criticism of a Labor bill, then the bill is in real trouble.”

The remarks highlight the challenge the government faces in shepherding the bill through the Senate, where it does not have a majority. While the opposition had originally expressed deep scepticism about Atec, its stance appeared to have softened under Jonathon Duniam, who took over as shadow education minister following the May 2025 election.

Leeser’s criticism suggests that the bill will fail without support from independent senators or crossbench parties – particularly the Australian Greens, whose 10 Senate votes would be enough to get the legislation across the line.

While the Greens have not announced a position on the bill, their commentary in a report on university governance indicated in principle support for Atec. However, they are fierce critics of the Job-ready Graduates (JRG) reforms – which Atec, under the bill, appears powerless to overturn.

Atec’s apparent impotence over JRG drew criticism from independent MPs in the House of Representatives. “This legislation fails to recognise and act on the structural failures that have created the current HECS [student loans] crisis,” Victorian independent Monique Ryan told the house.

Western Australian independent Kate Chaney vowed to oppose the bill unless the government accepted her own tranche of amendments. They would empower Atec to advise on tuition fees, produce reports of its own volition, adopt an “explicit focus” on research and increase its ranks of commissioners, among other changes.

Chaney told parliament that she supported Atec in principle, but the proposed version lacked independence, authority or capability. “It risks becoming a lightly rebranded branch of the department,” she said.

“It must be…independent, expert and able to work across election cycles; not constrained to speak only when invited; and not prevented from publishing uncomfortable truths. If Atec is not meaningfully different from the department, then why bother?”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com