Richard Denniss | ANU woes highlight accountability loophole for universities

The leaders of Australian universities are enjoying the best of both worlds when it comes to the way they are regulated, but students are getting the worst.

Put simply, the governance of Australian universities has slipped through the regulatory cracks, somehow managing to avoid the scrutiny the corporate sector gets from the ACCC and the oversight the public sector gets from Parliament.

Our universities have become too big to ignore but too slippery to pin down.

The result is million-dollar salaries for management and millions more spent on management consultants, while students, staff and taxpayers are wondering how universities can be charging our kids so much more to deliver so much less than they used to.

Take the Australian National University for example. A group of music stud