Four Decades of Neoliberalism and Australian Public Universities

Abstract

Abstract This chapter assesses four decades of neoliberalism and NPM and the associated influence of accounting, auditing, and accountability in Australian public universities. Identifying significant changes in post-1980s higher education policies reveals the growing intrusion of accounting-based performance measurement, control, and audit into university operations, and their involvement in the Covid-19-induced Australian higher education financial and social crisis. Public universities are seen to be pursuing predominantly commercial agendas exposed to significant financial and social risks. While being subject to tightening government control, university managements maintain a focus on external market position and ranking and impose an audit and surveillance culture on their staff who work under increasing pressure and deteriorating workplace conditions. The NPM inspired university business model, while demonstrably broken, is revealed as persisting in commercialised Australian universities’ strategic agendas.