{"id":43319,"date":"2026-07-03T02:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T02:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/43319\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T02:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T02:36:18","slug":"john-dewar-accepts-uow-appointment-would-benefit-kordamentha-icac-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/43319\/","title":{"rendered":"John Dewar accepts UOW appointment would benefit KordaMentha, ICAC hears"},"content":{"rendered":"

A professor has admitted he wanted his appointment as interim vice-chancellor of the University of Wollongong (UOW) to benefit the consulting firm he also worked for, creating a perceived conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

John Dewar gave evidence on day nine of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry into allegations of biased recruitment and conflicts of interest at the university.<\/p>\n

He was appointed interim vice-chancellor in 2024, days before his firm, KordaMentha, secured review work at UOW that later grew to contracts worth $3.8 million.<\/p>\n

The firm was appointed to oversee a controversial restructure that led to redundancies for hundreds of academic and non-academic staff.<\/p>\n

\""Welcome<\/p>\n

John Dewar was appointed interim vice-chancellor in 2024. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n

Dr Dewar was questioned about negotiations surrounding his appointment, which he said he was told would pay $1 million a year, and proposals for KordaMentha to review of the university’s operations.<\/p>\n

The inquiry heard he initially proposed that he would take on the interim vice-chancellor role while KordaMentha conducted a rapid diagnostic review of the university, estimated to cost between $250,000 and $300,000.<\/p>\n

Counsel assisting the commission, Emma Bathurst SC, put to Dr Dewar that he wanted his appointment to provide a benefit to the consulting firm.<\/p>\n

“What you wanted was your appointment as interim vice-chancellor to provide some benefit to KordaMentha as well,” Ms Bathurst said.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” Dr Dewar replied.<\/p>\n

He said he believed he would need support from KordaMentha’s education team to help deliver the changes sought by the chancellor, Michael Still.<\/p>\n

Ms Bathurst suggested he wanted “a benefit to accrue” to KordaMentha from the arrangement, which Dr Dewar accepted.<\/p>\n

She further suggested that desire risked a divergence between his professional and statutory obligations to the university.<\/p>\n

Dr Dewar agreed there was at least a perception issue.<\/p>\n

“I can see, yes, I understand that there was potential for, if not actual, then certainly perceived conflicts of interest,” he said.<\/p>\n

VC’s firm ‘very likely’ to secure contract<\/p>\n

The inquiry then turned to a conversation Dr Dewar recorded in an email after speaking with Mr Still on 21 May 2024 as he negotiated his appointment and its terms.<\/p>\n

According to the email, Dr Dewar told KordaMentha colleagues that the chancellor had said the university needed to run a procurement process “to avoid any probity concerns” but was conducting it in a way that made it “very likely” KordaMentha would secure the work.<\/p>\n

The email said Mr Still had indicated the field would include a big four consulting firm “who won’t get it”.<\/p>\n

“He told you that it was very likely that KordaMentha would win it, correct?” Ms Bathurst said.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” Dr Dewar answered.<\/p>\n

“And effectively what he was saying to you was that the procurement process was just a front to avoid probity concerns. You’d agree with me?<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s quite that straightforward,” Professor Dewar said, adding that he did not believe it was a “cast-iron” guarantee.<\/p>\n

“Whether or not it was a cast-iron guarantee, he was telling you that the procurement process was going to be designed in a way that KordaMentha would win the work?” Ms Bathurst said.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” Dr Dewar replied.<\/p>\n

He will continue to give evidence on Friday.<\/p>\n

Data shared during tender process<\/p>\n

Earlier the inquiry heard that internal financial UOW data was shared with Dr Dewar before he took on the role as interim vice-chancellor, while KordaMentha prepared the bid for the university work.<\/p>\n

\"Four<\/p>\n

Matthew Wright giving evidence at the ICAC’s Operation Scandi inquiry. (Supplied: NSW ICAC)<\/p>\n

Chief financial officer Matthew Wright was asked about a Zoom call he had with Dr Dewar, who had been announced as the university’s incoming interim vice-chancellor but was still communicating through a KordaMentha email account.<\/p>\n

At the time, KordaMentha had already been invited to tender for the university’s review.<\/p>\n

The inquiry heard Dr Dewar showed Mr Wright a series of slides prepared by KordaMentha that analysed the university’s financial performance and challenges.<\/p>\n

Mr Wright told the inquiry he reviewed the material, added comments and corrections, and sent back additional information drawn from the university’s internal systems.<\/p>\n

The spreadsheet contained academic and professional staff numbers, EFTSL (equivalent full-time student load) figures, and calculations showing student loads per staff member.<\/p>\n

Ms Bathurst suggested the information was directly relevant to the work KordaMentha was preparing and would have assisted its response if it was provded to the firm.<\/p>\n

“Yes, it could have been,” Mr Wright said.<\/p>\n

But he said he believed he was engaging with Dr Dewar as the incoming vice-chancellor and not as a partner at KordaMentha.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Lakatos during the public hearing into governance and recruitment allegations at the University of Wollongong. (Supplied: NSW ICAC)<\/p>\n

Commissioner Paul Lakatos SC suggested Mr Wright should have considered the risk that information provided to Dr Dewar could reach KordaMentha’s bid team.<\/p>\n

Mr Wright replied, “Yes, perhaps I should have”, and agreed it could have undermined the probity of the tender process.<\/p>\n

Mr Wright also told the inquiry the consultancy work conducted by Aspirall funded by the chancellor’s $2 million discretionary fund did not follow UOW procurement policy.<\/p>\n

He said he thought it was “unusual” that Mr Still involved himself in salary negotiations for a member of the governance team.<\/p>\n

Mr Wright also told the inquiry that despite correspondence to staff that UOW was going through a “hiring freeze”, it was only a “colloquial freeze”, because there were “recruitment controls” and staff being hired the whole time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A professor has admitted he wanted his appointment as interim vice-chancellor of the University of Wollongong (UOW) to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,8137,10360,21888,33627,30818,30819],"class_list":["post-43319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-icac","tag-independent-commission-against-corruption","tag-john-dewar","tag-michaael-still","tag-university-of-wollongong","tag-uow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}