Beefed-up regulatory powers ‘undermine institutional autonomy’

Australia’s higher education regulator risks being transformed from a quality assurance body to an agency of “micromanagement” with the investigative model of an “integrity commission”, under legislative amendments being rushed into parliament.

Universities Australia (UA) has warned that proposed changes to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa) Act represent a “profound and unjustified restriction” on institutional autonomy.

UA is particularly concerned about proposals to give Teqsa the power to issue legally enforceable “general directions” dictating how universities and colleges must comply with regulatory standards around “systemic or emerging risks” such as racism, safety issues and governance problems.

“There is a fundamental distinction between regulating institutional compliance and directing institutional decisions,” UA chief executive Luke Sheehy protested in a letter to federal education minister Jason Clare. “Teqsa’s role is to assure quality against the threshold standards, not to prescribe how universities must meet them.

“These powers are disproportionate and fundamentally inconsistent with the principles underpinning university autonomy.”

Under the proposals, Teqsa would “take a more proactive regulatory posture”, with beefed-up powers to compel institutions and their staff to provide information on matters “that could become systemic risks”.

Institutions would have to comply with the threshold standards at all times – not just at the point of registration and re-registration, as occurs now – and fines for breaches would rise tenfold to A$436,800 (£223,934). Courts would also be empowered to raise this penalty to A$2.184 million under a “corporate multiplier” provision allowing published fines to be increased fivefold if the offenders are statutory corporations rather than individuals.

Teqsa would have the power to issue “immediate and clear directions” on steps institutions must take to “correct” regulatory breaches. The agency would also have enhanced powers to name and shame institutions and individuals accused of breaches.

The measures are among proposed changes enabling Teqsa to “respond to systemic risks, not just individual compliance” and “make sure universities are meeting student, staff and community expectations”. Announcing his intention to strengthen the regulator’s powers in September 2025, Clare said the agency needed better tools. “At the moment, Teqsa has a sledgehammer and a feather and not much in between,” he explained.

Feedback on an initial consultation paper, which posed 16 questions on how to modify Teqsa’s powers, was due by mid-October last year. The proposed changes have now been outlined in an 11-page “overview” document.

Times Higher Education understands that Department of Education officials held briefings on the proposals on 5 November this year. Stakeholders were sent copies of the overview document and notified of the briefings a day beforehand, and were given until 6 November to provide feedback.

“The sector has waited over 12 months to view the outcome of its…engagement with this reform process, only to be given hours to respond to a highly consequential set of proposed legislative amendments that appear to have overwhelmingly disregarded concerns previously raised,” the Regional Universities Network complained.

The government intends to table the proposed amendments during parliament’s last 2026 sitting week commencing on 23 November, THE understands. Sheehy asked Clare to instead release the bill through a “traditional exposure draft process” so that the sector had “adequate” time to scrutinise the proposals and suggest “appropriate” safeguards.

“UA’s concern is not with Teqsa’s present intentions but with the power the amendments would create,” Sheehy explained. “The risk is greatest in periods of intense political controversy, or under a future government more willing to bend institutions to its purposes.

“Those are precisely the moments when universities most need to function as places of contested inquiry, dissent and free expression.”

He cited overseas examples of how such powers operated “under political pressure”, including the Trump administration’s freezing of Harvard University’s federal research funding, Hungary’s legislation targeting the Central European University and the UK Office for Students’ £585,000 fine against the University of Sussex. All three actions had been overturned by courts but “in each case review came late and at great cost”, Sheehy said.

The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (Capa) said it had argued for a “sensible” strengthening of Teqsa’s powers to allow for independent audits of university governing bodies, and “honest reporting” of campuses’ handling of racism and safety. “We didn’t ask for…a regulator that polices the whole of student life,” said Capa president Jesse Gardner-Russell.

“The real question is whether Teqsa stays a quality assurance agency or becomes a broad-based quasi Icac [integrity commission] for the sector. It’s students who would bear the cost of getting that wrong.”

The Group of Eight said a stronger regulator “should not automatically mean a more intrusive regulator. Nor should additional powers simply be layered over existing regulatory requirements without addressing duplication, regulatory burden and the responsibilities of other agencies.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com