Commonwealth Ombudsman

Question

I refer to submissions made by Professor Peter Tregear, on 28 August 2025, to the Senate's Education and Employment Committee on the subject of the quality of governance at Australian higher education providers: https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=8a4b17b0-51e5-4f2b-a466-ecab74a3a1a1&subId=777818 a) Does the interim/current Vice-Chancellor concede that, in the above referenced submissions made by Professor Tregear, it is plainly the case that a complaint had been made before June 2025 to the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman about the failure of the Australian National University to provide Professor Tregear with procedural fairness during the course of a whistleblower disclosure investigation under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth)? b) Does the interim/current Vice-Chancellor concede that, in the above referenced submissions made by Professor Tregear, the complaint sets out allegations of breaches of the ANU's responsibilities under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth), as well as the ANU's own procedural materials? c) How can the statement that the set of obligations that the ANU has under the Public Interest Act 2013 (Cth) "is something that the University and the team involved take extremely seriously" be reconciled with evidence that Professor Tregear was denied procedural fairness by the Australian National University's investigators during the investigation of a whistleblower disclosure under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth)? d) How can the statement that "we [had not] been [made] aware, until reading the media reporting, of any such complaints made to either our Minister or to the Commonwealth Ombudsman" be reconciled with the correspondence to Chancellor Julie Bishop, dated 12 November 2020 and appended to Professor Tregear's submissions to the Senate's Education and Employment Committee, showing that the then serving Chancellor of the Australian National University was aware of Professor Tregear's complaint about an inadequately investigated public interest disclosure investigation? e) How can the statement that the set of obligations that the ANU has under the Public Interest Act 2013 (Cth) "is something that the University and the team involved take extremely seriously" be reconciled with the evidence that the Australian National University's officials refused to respond to repeated requests for information during an investigation conducted by the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman into Professor Tregear's complaint about, amongst other things, being denied procedural fairness during the ANU's investigation of a whistleblower disclosure under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth)? f) Does the interim/current Vice-Chancellor concede that the Australian National University's Chancellor at the time, Ms Julie Bishop, was aware of a complaint, to the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, about an inadequately investigated public interest disclosure investigation when Professor Bell's email was sent to all staff in June 2025? g) Does the interim/current Vice-Chancellor concede that the Australian National University's Chancellor at the time, Ms Julie Bishop, was aware of a complaint, to the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, about failures of officials in the Australian National University to cooperate with an investigation conducted by the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman into allegations of an inadequately investigated public interest disclosure? h) As Professor Bell was not a staff member during the period that Professor Tregear's public interest disclosure was being investigated by the ANU, nor when his subsequent complaints about that investigation were being considered by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, on what basis, or on whose advice, did Professor Bell rely when she stated that "to date, no allegations of any breach of ANU's responsibilities under either the PID Act or the PGPA Act have been made to the University"?

Answer

Please see the attached PDF.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• ASQ26-0108.pdf (opens in a new tab)