THE LAST GREAT upheaval in our universities was that perpetrated by John Dawkins when he was federal Labor Minister for Education. The chief aspect of this was the abolition of the two-tier tertiary system such that overnight the former Colleges of Advanced Education were rechristened as universities, and their academic staffs suddenly were elevated to the status of Professor when they had hitherto been unable to aspire to anything higher than Principal Lecturer. Needless to say this was achieved without any process of testing their credentials or considering whether a person who had been unable to obtain appointment to a chair in any existing university was indeed sufficiently qualified to hold a chair in the expanded system.

Thus a new class of universities was created, the Dawkins universities, and a new class of academics, the Dawkins professors. Some of these proved adequate, but there is little doubt that the greater number did not. Built into the Dawkins system was the presumption that all universities were equal in the value of their product.

By the time of the election of the Howard government the financial stresses of the universities in the face of government funding inadequate to maintain the old preferred collegial model, while at the same time expanding it almost indefinitely, had led to the increasing "managerialism" of the universities - that is, attempts however unsuccessful and sometimes misconceived to introduce some concepts of accountability and efficiency into the academic structures. And attempts to supplement university finances from non-governmental sources (apart from the traditional reliance on inheritances and endowments) were well under way. So were the increasing marketing of universities in lucrative areas like paying overseas students and even the setting up of overseas subsidiaries. Inevitably this often led to a debasement of some products (like the proliferation of worthless masters courses at a lower level than standard undergraduate honours degrees), and even the falsification of marking in order to favour paying students.

The Howard government encouraged the trend towards managerialism by making clear to the universities that they would have to expect a growing proportion of their funding to come from non-government sources. Unsurprisingly while the traditionalists resisted any change and simply complained bitterly about the "starvation" of tertiary education, refusing to countenance any change in financing formulas, the managerialists got on with the job with a considerable degree of success. Certainly abuses have continued, but in general the universities have never been so independent in that they enjoy greater flexibility in the mix and application of their resources. The ability to charge differential fees has assisted this. And while some of the Dawkins universities have performed reasonably well even on research and funding criteria, the whole system is still poisoned by the mindless egalitarianism of the advocates of universal statism.

Now that the Howard government faces the prospect of a majority in the Senate another upheaval in the university system is to be expected. Probably it will be even more extensive than the Dawkins changes. The government has identified four fronts, of varying importance, on which it proposes to lay emphasis. These are research and teaching; the federal/state balance; industrial relations; and student unionism.

DR NELSON has not suggested a return to the old binary system - that egg can no longer be unscrambled - but simply the admission that different institutions differ in their performance on research and teaching criteria. It will always make sense to direct research funding to those places with the better records, and to which in any case the better researchers will gravitate as specialist centres gain reputations. Nevertheless the possibility of good research being done anywhere will remain, and so long as funding is not actively denied to any applicants, in whatever institution they happen to be, who can show evidence of capacity there will be no real problem. But it is true that there are many academics who are good and useful teachers but not especially distinguished in their research, and it does make sense for some institutions to concentrate on teaching, allowing their better students to go on to postgraduate research elsewhere.

In particular there can emerge a variety of different models of "the university" ranging from exclusively postgraduate research bodies (such as the Australian National University was originally designed to be) through to tertiary colleges which only accidentally will intersect with the research sector, along with a range of differing financing bases, as well as liberal arts universities of the kind found in the United States. While we do not have to envisage imitating every aspect of the US universities (we can do without the football colleges, in particular) the sheer variety of these is a source of inspiration.

As was envisaged by Opposition Leader Mark Latham in the days when he was thinking seriously about policy, there is every reason why we should have a variety of financing options, from fully government-funded universities charging no fees to purely privately-funded universities deriving their income from fees, endowments and perhaps royalties from licensing of research products. Various mixes of funding including both government and private sources can be envisaged. And of course it is important that academics should be able to move freely between institutions according to their teaching and research abilities and interests, and at different stages of their lives (a useful model from some major overseas universities is to use distinguished figures who are past their research peaks and are good teachers to deliver courses of first-year lectures to stimulate the interest of students and expose them to the best minds available rather than just to the junior postgraduates on whom such duties are commonly devolved). Even some outsourcing is possible - one private sector think-tank a few years ago seriously proposed that a first year could be taught on contract by outside specialists who would handle all administration and marking.

This inevitably leads on to a second front of the Nelson reforms - the problem of federal/state issues. It is clearly unsatisfactory that most of the universities should be subject to state parliaments and law when their government funding is now almost entirely derived from the Commonwealth. The obvious exceptions are those like the ANU which operate under federal acts. This division is becoming even more anomalous now that many universities are operating with interstate, and even international, campuses. A case in point is the proposed medical school of the Fremantle-based Notre Dame University in Sydney. And of course the Australian Catholic University is a hybrid federation of mainly former CAE and teachers' colleges from all over. The main reform proposed by Nelson is that state restrictions on (and responsibility for) commercial and asset operations should be either taken over by the Commonwealth or greatly relaxed. Greater co-ordination of standards and possible transfer of credits are in any case coming from the "colonising" activities of state-based universities.

CLEARLY REFORM of industrial relations in the universities is important. The growth of trade unionism amongst academics has had the same kind of deleterious effects as the teachers' unions in the public sector (and to a lesser extent the private sector). The flexibility and range of salaries have been greatly constricted, with the classic result of there being far too many staff paid more than they are worth and too many being paid less than they are worth. Top academic salaries in Australia for those who are the outstanding performers are far too low, while mediocrities and worse are rewarded beyond their deserts. Equally, the best researchers are starved for research funds and facilities, while in the name of equity research funds are squandered on mediocre wannabe researchers. Tenure is still far too secure for most university staff, especially for those willing to play the game of administration.

While unions do occasionally play a useful role (recently, for example, in taking the side of a non-member against unjust treatment by the University of Wollongong) most of their activity is in the narrow-minded "wages and conditions" mode. And there have been far too many examples of unions protecting members who do not deserve it, while failing to intervene in cases of internal squabbling where particular academics are victimised by alliances of like-minded opponents. Gender politics has, unfortunately, played a role here.

Too often the staff unions have promoted political correctness over any genuine free speech within the universities, and have certainly not defended the independence of thought and analysis of those who do not conform. Our editorial experience at Quadrant has produced a shocking number of examples of people who have something to say which does not conform to the predominant orthodoxy and who request pseudonymy or anonymity as the condition of publishing perfectly rational arguments. (The point is not whether we agree or disagree with them: to require agreement or orthodoxy ahead of interesting arguments and ideas is intellectually stultifying.) And there are many more academics who declare in private communications that they agree with us or with a particular opinion which we publish but would not dare to say so publicly.

In sum the activities of unionists in the universities are far more pernicious than the occasional benefits which they bestow. They are incompatible even with the traditional collegial view of universities, paradoxically because many of the strongest defenders of unionism also think they subscribe to the collegial model. In fact, they are mainly concerned with maintaining the power of themselves and others like them. So few outside the degenerate modern form of collegialism will worry about whatever measures the government initiates to replace unionism with individual workplace agreements for academic staff - the more genuine diversity there is amongst types and funding models for universities the more the free market will correct for abuses by authority.

Student unionism is a different matter altogether, though related to the problem of political correctness. This subject is confused by the diversity of aspects of the phenomenon summarised as student unionism. To take the example of the oldest university in Australia, there are two bodies in question. One is The Union, parallelled by the Women's Union. These are bodies set up primarily as service organisations, providing cafeteria and other facilities. They are modelled on bodies like the Oxford Union, which also have hosted debates and other activities. Originally apolitical, they have over the last forty years or so become increasingly politicised.

Then there is at Sydney University the Students Representative Council, which has always had a much more political role, in addition to the services provided by the Unions. The SRC has traditionally published the student newspaper (at Sydney the Union also publishes the Union Recorder, which as its name implies had a modest brief, mainly confined to information and summaries of the Union debates; this has long been exceeded) which has customarily been the focus of student dissent and activism. The SRC also sees itself as activist on behalf of its own ideas of student interests, and hands out money to various student societies and other causes which appeal to it.

Both the SRC and the Union have been seen as avenues for student careerism and a stepping stone to higher things. While some of these products have in fact gone on to advancement, long experience would suggest treating them as a group with some suspicion - indeed, the student politicians from Sydney maintain a semi-formal network. To complete the picture there is the Sports Union. Other universities have different permutations of the same range of functions, with varying organisational arrangements.

The issue of student unionism is not about the existence of student service organisations, but about the compulsory levy applied by the universities to finance them, and the uses of that money. To take the last-mentioned Union first, there are many students who object to being forced to contribute to the "rugger buggers", that is the sporting teams and sporting facilities of various kinds which cater for a minority of students and in which many (probably the majority) have little or no interest. Perhaps swimming pools and gymnasia enjoy general support - the rest are an irritation. It is certainly objectionable to have compulsory sports unionism.

But the political activities of the student unions raise much more important issues. This is because they have since the sixties become centres of extreme left activism which habitually apply to nefarious causes the funds contributed willy nilly by the mass of students, who do not take much interest in their politics, being too concerned with study and learning, and do not bother to vote in their elections. Opposition to the extremist activities of the university unions grew stronger as their abuses became more egregious. It is perhaps their misfortune that two of the main student politician activists opposed to these abuses are now at the most senior levels of the government - Peter Costello, the Treasurer, and Tony Abbott, the Minister for Health. They are dedicated to the correction of these abuses, and despite his Labor Party political background so it seems is the Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson. Their collective hand will be immeasurably strengthened by the recent revelations concerning the Melbourne University Students Union and its mismanagement. It is becoming clear that most student service provision would be better contracted out under professional management, and student political activity self-financed rather than based on the unwilling levies exacted from non-participants.

The real mystery remains the reluctance of university administrators to face up to the issue. Perhaps it is merely a matter of reluctance to face up to the problems of proper provision of student facilities (which are much more luxurious than is justified), perhaps it is a matter of cowardice in the face of student activism learned in the sixties and seventies. Perhaps it is an attachment to the old image of the sports union. Either way, it is clear that government will have to determine the issue.

By all means let us have free and diverse political activity by students. Too often however in the last forty years this has degenerated into left fascism (and it should never be forgotten that universities have over the last century or more been hotbeds of authoritarianism of all kinds). Although this front is in many respects the least important of those on which the government has to fight the educational reform campaign it will probably be the most controversial and contested - by the students and the ageing veterans of student politicking. No one else will perceive it as a reform worth resisting.