Corruption watchdog probes Adelaide leadership

Investigation concerns ‘potential serious or systemic misconduct and maladministration, not corruption’

May 7, 2020
John Ross
False data illustrating need for oversight in South-east Asian universities
Source: iStock

South Australia’s corruption watchdog is investigating allegations of improper conduct by University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Peter Rathjen, and the university’s handling of the allegations.

The state’s Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC), Bruce Lander, said the investigation concerned “potential issues of serious or systemic misconduct and maladministration, not corruption”.

He said he would not go into further detail about the nature of the allegations. The university had promised “full cooperation”.

Mr Lander said he did not normally confirm or deny his investigations but had decided to do so in this case because of the “intense speculation” around the sudden unexplained departure of Professor Rathjen and chancellor Kevin Scarce.

The university announced that Professor Rathjen had been granted indefinite special leave on 5 May, after Rear Admiral Scarce’s abrupt resignation the previous evening. Adelaide staff have been warned of potential legal repercussions if they discuss the reasons.

“The law places restraints on what can be said about an ICAC investigation,” deputy chancellor Catherine Branson stressed in an email to staff and students. “While it is natural for us to want to know more about what is happening, we need to remember that this is a matter for the ICAC.”

Mr Lander said he operated upon legislation “predicated upon investigations being conducted in private”, but he was worried that continued speculation about the two leaders could inflict “unnecessary negative impact on the university’s operations”.

He said the investigation had “only just commenced” and “must not be construed as a finding that any person has engaged in impropriety. That will be a matter for findings at the conclusion of the investigation.”

He did not commit to releasing the investigation’s outcomes, saying the legislation obliged him to consider whether publicising the results of completed investigations was “in the public interest”.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (1)

#1 Submitted by Neil J 1 on May 7, 2020 - 5:21pm
This news warms the cockles of my heart and this is payback time for putting university, public, and student finances at risk and flouting laws all in the name of education export. We will see such news a lot and these so called competent administrators and educators with reputation mightier than most will come tumbling down like the real incompetent people they actually were but thought could fool most others all the time with their amplified capabilities and babel strategies that they had the gift to sound invincible and fool proof. That time has ended and with all good times gone comes the debris and in this wreckage of the education sector, deeply submerged waiting to be found are the ways and means via which these big empires have been built by the modern day education czars almost at lightning speed in a decade or so. A billion here and billion there, all was fair when the education trade was in their care, everything they orchestrated will now be laid bare, students did not matter, education even less, and their expungement will sort out the mess.

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