Union challenges the University of Melbourne on Freedom of Information and the float of Melbourne IT
4 December 2000
The National Tertiary Education Union will contest on public interest grounds the University of Melbourne’s decision to refuse access to tapes of University Council meetings where the float of Melbourne IT was discussed. The case will be heard in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on 5 and 6 December.
The Union, which represents staff off Australian universities, argues that the float of Melbourne IT, and the resulting paper profits flowing to members of the University Council, raised a number of serious questions about the ways in which Council decisions are made, and the relationship between university governance and commercial decision-making.
`These issues were subject to widespread public debate, on campus and in the media, as well as forming the basis for a critical report by the Victorian Auditor-General’ said NTEU General Secretary Grahame McCulloch. `It’s in the public interest that questions about the decision-making processes at the University are resolved.’
`The University of Melbourne is a public university established under state legislation and receiving over $300m each year in Commonwealth funding. Its considerable assets have been developed primarily through public support. Therefore, the community has a strong stake in how it is governed and how its assets are managed.’
Mr McCulloch said that he hoped the case would contribute to greater transparency and accountability in the operations of universities more generally.
`The NTEU is concerned by the University’s refusal to make public documents that would reveal the process whereby contentious decisions were arrived at, and by the broader principles of openness and good governance,’ he said.
`With universities increasingly behaving like corporations and using `commercial-in-confidence’ provisions in relation to financial decision-making, it is important that staff and students are able to participate fully in decisions that affect their teaching and learning environment,’ he continued. `It is also important that the general public is confident that such decisions are being made in the best interests of the public university. We believe this case is important in reinforcing those principles.’