V-c salary capping bill ‘unnecessary’, finds Senate committee

A Senate committee has recommended against a bill that would have more than halved university bosses’ salaries, declaring that the legislation is “not the appropriate mechanism for addressing…vice-chancellor remuneration”.

The Senate’s Education and Employment Committee found that the bill, proposed by independent senator Jacqui Lambie, was redundant because of work already under way by the federal government’s Remuneration Tribunal.

Lambie’s bill would have changed the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa) Act to cap vice-chancellors’ pay at no more than A$430,000 (£223,000) a year – marginally below the federal treasurer’s earnings.

But the committee noted that the tribunal was taking steps to establish a “framework of remuneration classification ranges for vice-chancellor remuneration”, in line with recommendations from last September’s interim report into university governance.

“As such, the committee does not deem it necessary to grant [Teqsa] additional powers to determine the remuneration of vice-chancellors and other senior executives,” the inquiry into Lambie’s bill concluded.

A separate committee has recommended against another Lambie bill, which would have limited federal departmental secretaries’ salaries to the same A$430,000 maximum, finding that a cap on senior public servants’ salaries would be too “blunt”.

In additional comments tabled with the education committee’s report, Lambie said her legislation had helped put vice-chancellors’ remuneration “on the radar”.

“I agree that the solution proposed by the bill was a blunt instrument,” she said. “The intent of this bill was to provide a forum for the issue to be aired and discussed in an open protected environment.

“From the information available, there is no explainable link between a v-c’s remuneration and their universities’ standing globally. Their remuneration is not aligned with community expectations, particularly when Australians are considering degrees too expensive to undertake, there’s been wide-ranging claims of wage theft…and an estimated 3,500 university staff across the country [face] losing their job.

“I will be monitoring the development of the remuneration framework…as I expect others will also.”

Lambie posted several additional recommendations, including a “milestone delivery plan” for the establishment of the remuneration framework, and its expansion to encompass other university executives.

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi supported the bill “with amendments to expand it”. In a dissenting report, Faruqi noted National Tertiary Education Union research findings that more than 300 university executives out-earned the premiers of the states in which their institutions were based.

She said salary capping was not enough, with other changes needed to address the “corporate culture” that had spawned a “bloated” class of university executives. “Otherwise, salary caps will be circumvented through remuneration packages by offering lavish allowances, fringe benefits and other non-cash perks,” Faruqi warned.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com