The reformist head of the representative body for Australian university chancellors, who is trying to resolve a governance crisis exacerbated by perceptions that university executives are paid too much, stands accused of lobbying the government to have his own pay increased.

Swinburne University of Technology chancellor John Pollaers has made “repeated” attempts to convince Victorian Skills Minister Gayle Tierney to approve a re-banding of the remuneration levels applying to the university’s council, according to a source who requested anonymity.

The Australian Financial Review that if Tierney had consented, the upper limit of Pollaers’ remuneration would have increased from about A$90,000 (£45,000) to A$120,000. Other council members would also have been entitled to pay rises. The minister rejected the requests.

����Vlog asked the offices of Pollaers and Tierney to confirm or deny the reports. Neither took the opportunity. “Any concerns about governance at Swinburne University should be raised with the university,” a Victorian government spokeswoman said.

����Vlog

Swinburne’s annual report shows that at least seven of the university’s 13 council members attracted pay increases last year, with overall remuneration rising 15 per cent. Pollaers’ total package was between A$100,000 and A$110,000, up from between A$90,000 and A$100,000 in 2023.

A Swinburne spokeswoman said council remuneration increases were in line with rates by the Victorian government. “The university periodically reviews its Victorian banding classification to ensure it accurately reflects the university’s scale and performance. This process, which requires ministerial approval, is standard practice across all Victorian universities.”

����Vlog

THE understands that Swinburne’s council would have been entitled to be re-banded if the university’s revenue exceeded A$1 billion, or if it achieved an operating surplus of more than A$100 million. The institution earned A$961 million with a A$71 million surplus last year.

Resentment over the salaries of university leaders has helped bring about numerous investigations of governance in the sector. The then chair of the Senate’s Education and Employment Committee raised the issue when he announced an inquiry early this year.

“There’s no other job in Australia where you can be paid so exorbitantly while performing so badly,” he said.

The committee’s interim report, released in September, called for governments to work with the Remuneration Tribunal to set pay bands for vice-chancellors and other senior university executives.

����Vlog

Pollaers, who appeared before the committee on 10 November, said he had nominated to be convener of the University Chancellors Council because he “saw a crisis and…felt that something needed to be done”.

He said governing bodies needed to listen “genuinely” to the “vital perspectives” of universities’ stakeholders, including critics. “This crisis is the crisis that the sector needed to have,” he said. “It kind of deserves what it’s getting.”

He acknowledged “flaws” in the mechanisms for setting vice-chancellors’ salaries, and supported the Remuneration Tribunal’s involvement. He advocated compulsory public disclosure of senior executives’ and academics’ pay “to strengthen transparency and community confidence” in how public funds were used. “These are big roles and they must come with big accountability.”

Council members earn a fraction of the A$1 million-plus salaries paid to many Australian vice-chancellors. Most chancellors are distinguished former leaders in politics, civil service or business. They often perform the role for a pittance or donate their salaries back to the institutions.

����Vlog

Simon Longstaff, executive director of Sydney thinktank The Ethics Centre, said resentment about university leaders’ salaries was not about their “size” so much as the relativities between the best and worst paid. “It’s when the gap is very great that I think issues of justice begin to open up,” he told the committee.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com