Voluntary undertaking

Question

Senator KOVACIC: ... I'm thinking about the comment that you made. You said you saw the advice and 'it didn't change our view'. Is that the position of the remaining council members, or was that the position of all of the council members who were members of the council at the time that the advice was received? Mr Metcalfe: That's an interesting question, because there are a series of resignations that occurred around that time. I would probably need to check the detail. Certainly a majority of the council, on the evening of 7 May, reconfirmed our decision that the appropriate course of action at that stage was to not move away from the voluntary undertaking, having agreed to it. The particular council member who provided the legal advice-the eminent former jurist-was not present. He was overseas and did not participate in that meeting, but we had his advice. And then I'll have to check- Senator KOVACIC: Could I interject there? Just to clarify, you said you had his advice. He wasn't there. Was his advice to continue, which, as you said, was the view of the council, or did he have contrary advice? Mr Metcalfe: Certainly, but I think the point we're getting to is: was it everyone in the room or was it a majority? I'm quite clear it was a majority, but I'll have to get the university secretary to go back and check whether there were any votes against the motion. But it was a clear majority to proceed. Senator KOVACIC: If you could provide that on notice, that would be great.

Answer

Please see the attached PDF.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• ASQ26-0206.pdf (opens in a new tab)