The Australian | 17 October 2013
Group of Eight calls for the razor
Education minister Christopher Pyne has not renewed the contract of lawyer Eric Mayne, one of the five commissioners who run the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, which expired on 2 October 2. The next expiry on the commission, for Dorte Kristoffersen’s contract, is not until September next year. Chief commissioner Carol Nicoll has a contract that runs to October 2016.
He said he was given a reason for his contract not being renewed on October 3 but it was “confidential”. He expected that Mr Pyne “wants to make a new start”.
TEQSA declined to comment on the implications for the statutory authority, referring questions to the minister. Mr Pyne’s spokesman said it was “entirely natural” that a new government considered new appointments as board positions expired.
Mayne said he believed that in some respects, TEQSA’s own reform ideas went beyond ther review’s and said he believed TEQSA is “in pretty good shape – I think the commission has done a very good job as have the staff”. One criticism of TEQSA was that decision-making had become too centralised within the commission, leaving staff below with little autonomy, but Dr Nicoll argued that the agency’s legislation often allowed no delegation.
Meanwhile Group of Eight chairman, University of NSW vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer, says proposals to cut red tape put up by the 
Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency do not go far enough.
The Go8’s view is that what is needed is fundamental reform, including changes to the TEQSA Act. We would also like to see a substantially smaller TEQSA, with a significantly lower budget, in line with reduced and more tightly focused functions. The resulting savings could be applied to under-funded areas such as fellowships.
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