The Independent Commission Against Corruption has spent the past 15 days examining allegations involving recruitment practices, consultancy contracts, governance reforms and conflicts of interest during a period that would ultimately lead to a major university restructure and hundreds of job losses.<\/p>\n
Former chief governance officer Alyssa White, who left the university before becoming a central figure in the inquiry, concluded three days of evidence on Friday.<\/p>\n
In the final minutes of the public hearing, Commissioner Paul Lakatos stepped away from individual appointments and instead summarised what he said Ms White’s conduct had amounted to.<\/p>\n
He put to her that she had helped friends and former colleagues through recruitment processes, provided assistance that was not available to other applicants and effectively influenced outcomes.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Lakatos suggested the processes had become “unfair and opaque rather than transparent”, to which she replied, “Yes, Commissioner.”<\/p>\n
He then suggested she had effectively placed her “finger on the scales” in favour of preferred candidates.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Paul Lakatos during the final day of public hearings. (Supplied: NSW ICAC)<\/p>\n
“With your extensive experience in governance at tertiary institutions, you must have known that if your actions in these recruitments came to light, or even if there was a perception of what you did coming to light, that would corrode rather than improve the culture?” he asked.<\/p>\n
The most emotional exchange came Commissioner Lakatos asked, “Can you tell me why you did it?”<\/p>\n
“I was desperate,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
she said.<\/p>\n
“Very desperate to not only secure staff, but staff that would be able to work well together and staff that would be able to work in the environment that I could see that was in place at the university, particularly in the governance and policy space.<\/p>\n
“It’s a difficult space to work in \u2026 I did not do the right thing, but I didn’t want someone to end up in that environment without knowing what they were signing up for.”<\/p>\n
The $400,000 job<\/p>\n
Earlier on Friday, Ms White was questioned about a proposed $400,000 position she expected to occupy.<\/p>\n
Ms White accepted she drafted a paper advocating for her direct appointment and repeatedly referred to the position as “my role”.<\/p>\n
She told the inquiry conversations with incoming vice-chancellor Max Lu and then-chancellor Michael Still had led her to believe “it would be the role for me”.<\/p>\n
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Alyssa White fronts ICAC. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Ms White agreed she understood she was in a conflict-of-interest position but resisted suggestions she should have removed herself from drafting the proposal.<\/p>\n
The inquiry also heard Ms White remained in contact with Mr Still about the role after concerns were raised and while discussions were underway about whether there should be a recruitment process.<\/p>\n
In one exchange, Ms White became emotional while discussing the prospect of the new position replacing her existing role.<\/p>\n
“If I didn’t take this role, then I didn’t have a job,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
she said.<\/p>\n
The inquiry has concluded its public hearings.<\/p>\n
Counsel Assisting Emma Bathurst has until August 7 to file final submissions, with parties including Alyssa White, Michael Still and John Dewar then given an opportunity to respond before Commissioner Paul Lakatos prepares his findings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three weeks of probing by the NSW corruption watchdog has ended in tears. The Independent Commission Against Corruption…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":925705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,203177,407,373480,59597,59599,50,373479,289495,366431],"class_list":["post-925704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-australia","tag-consultants","tag-education","tag-governance-officer","tag-icac","tag-independent-commission-against-corruption","tag-news","tag-tears","tag-university-of-wollongong","tag-uow"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116896269146203685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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