The Australian | 10 April 2014
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The two founding leaders of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) have gone on extended leave with no official word on their return.
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TEQSA chief commissioner Carol Nicoll and Brisbane-based commissioner Ian Hawke, who served as interim chief executive of the new national regulator, are on leave as the agency confronts an agenda of radical reform and a federal austerity budget.
The commission, identified as a bottleneck for key regulatory decisions, will be down from five to three members at least until the end of the financial year, TEQSA’s spokesman confirmed.
The agency and education minister Christopher Pyne confirmed that Nicoll and Hawke had taken leave, and said it was business as usual, but would not be drawn on a return date. Pyne said he was “confident that the work of TEQSA will continue in line with my direction to simplify processes and improve timelines of decisions for key activities.”
