Adam Lucas
Adam Lucas is an honorary senior fellow at the University of Wollongong and a founding member of Better University Governance and Academics for Public Universities. Prior to working at UOW, he was a researcher and policy analyst in the NSW Cabinet Office and the Departments of State and Regional Development, Aboriginal Affairs and Housing.
Adam's recent articles
3 September 2025
Reining in vice-chancellor and executive pay: Restoring governance in public universities
In recent years — especially since the COVID-19 pandemic — executive pay in Australian public universities has drawn increasing public and political scrutiny.
2 September 2025
Reining in the consultant culture in Australia’s public universities
The quiet rise of private consultancy in Australia’s public universities has now reached a point where it is reshaping the sector’s priorities, governance, and capacity to act in the public interest.
1 September 2025
Reforming university governance: Restoring accountability and the public mission
Over the past three decades, Australia’s public universities have experienced a profound shift in governance culture.
24 April 2025
Feeding the beast: The use of private consultants by public universities and its implications for tertiary education
Global consulting partnerships are not only reshaping public sector organisations along corporate lines and hollowing out government expertise in the process, but they have also been responsible for a significant decline in tertiary education quality and standards, including billions of dollars in wasteful expenditure on non-core business.
5 March 2024
Show us the money! APU’s Australian Universities Accord response (Part 1)
The Australian Universities Accord Final Report (the Final Report) was made publicly available on 25 February 2024 by the Federal Minister for Education, the Hon. Jason Clare MP. It contains 47 recommendations for the reform of Australia’s higher education system over the next few decades. As one of us noted shortly after the Accord’s interim report was published on 20 July 2023, that document provided little cause for optimism that either the Accord panel or Minister Clare were particularly concerned with addressing the systemic problems that currently plague Australia’s dysfunctional, inequitable and authoritarian higher education system.
1 August 2023
The Australian Universities Accord Interim Report: the devil is in the detail
The Australian Universities Accord Interim Report (the Report) was made publicly available on 20 July 2023. Since Labor regained office in May of last year and the Accord process was announced, hopes have not been high that either the process or the Minister would make any commitments to reforming what is widely perceived as Australia’s dysfunctional, inequitable and authoritarian higher education system.
15 June 2023
The corporate-government power nexus
Mass surveillance and manipulation should not be allowed to become the new normal.
12 December 2022
Multinational tax integrity and tax avoidance by the fossil fuel industry: Part 2
This is the second instalment of a two-part series based on our recent submission to the Australian Government regarding tax transparency and the fossil fuel industry. The first part examined how transnational fossil fuel corporations are routinely engaged in accounting practices which enable them to avoid paying the Australian Government hundreds of billions of dollars in income tax. This second part provides recommendations for minimising these tax avoidance practices and recouping some of the wealth these corporations have extracted from Australia.
16 November 2022
Multinational tax integrity and tax avoidance by the fossil fuel industry: Part 1
This is the first instalment of a two-part series based on our recent submission to the Australian Government regarding tax transparency and the fossil fuel industry. The first part examines Australia's global fossil fuel transnational corporations' problems and tax practices. The second part provides recommendations for minimising their tax avoidance practices.
26 September 2022
Global university rankings: what function do they serve?
Under the influence of New Public Management, Australia’s public universities have increasingly engaged in ‘management by numbers’ for ’performance measurement’. The accompanying proliferation of metrics has been used to discipline academics, bolster the ranks of senior managers and build tens of billions of dollars in assets. One of the more prominent metrics to which universities now dedicate disproportionate time, energy and resources is global university rankings (GURs).
3 August 2022
James Guthrie and Adam Lucas: It's time for a Royal Commission into the governance of Australia’s public universities
What is the core purpose of a university? Is it to share knowledge and engage in research? Or is it to make money? Our analysis of university management rhetoric versus financial reality for Australian public sector universities finds that they have drifted far away from their core mission to become property development and financial investment vehicles.
3 May 2022
If I were the Minister responsible for Higher Education in the next government these would be my priorities
What should be the top priorities of any incoming Federal Government concerning tertiary education in Australia after decades of cost-cutting, restructuring and corporatisation?
9 December 2021
Education left behind in the corporatisation of our universities
The rise of middle management and the non-democratic nature of university governance are undermining Australia's higher education system.
2 November 2021
Universities' wage theft as a business model must be stamped out
Wage theft is widespread at Australian universities. Independent prudential oversight and democratic reform of Australia’s public universities is long overdue.
18 June 2021
The authoritarian academy: corporate governance of Australia’s universities exploits staff and students and degrades academic standards. Part 3
The corporatization of Australia’s public universities has been driven by government funding cuts and regressive changes to how universities are governed. The rationale for corporatization was that it would encourage universities to become more entrepreneurial by turning vice-chancellors into CEOs and governing bodies into corporate boards. The resulting hybrid has been very successful at promoting university ‘brands’ to international students but has utterly failed to maintain a supportive and collegial work environment for staff and students on university campuses.
17 June 2021
Coalition policies and corporatization of universities are premised on shifting costs to students and staff. Part 2
Australia’s tertiary education system is large, complex, and poorly regulated. Its government funding sources, governance structures and annual reporting requirements lack transparency and are inconsistent between and within jurisdictions. Distorted government priorities and discredited ideological fixations have created a dysfunctional system that devalues the work of academics and professional staff while imposing ever higher burdens on students to pay more for less.
16 June 2021
COVID cuts highlight intellectual bankruptcy of Coalition higher education policies. Part 1
Australian universities are in crisis, a crisis that has been a long time in the making, but is becoming increasingly obvious as the country’s borders remain closed to international students and the rivers of gold that had flowed from them rapidly evaporate.
8 October 2020
LobbyLand: Democracy on life support as the revolving door keeps swinging
Australian public policy is now routinely moulded to suit the interests of the highest corporate bidders and the lobbyists who represent their interests.
7 March 2018
Revealed: the extent of job-swapping between public servants and fossil fuel lobbyists.
Last month Australia slipped further down the rankings in the international corruption index. Among a wide range of factors cited by Transparency International was Australia’s “inappropriate industry lobbying in large-scale projects such as mining”, as well as “revolving doors and a culture of mateship”.