Former head of the ANU School of Music, Professor Peter Tregear. Photo: University of Melbourne.
A former head of the ANU School of Music has blasted the Commonwealth Ombudsman for failing to investigate complaints of maladministration and poor governance at the university, and called into question the adequacy of the tertiary sector oversight body.
In a published submission to the Senate Education and Employment Committee examining governance issues at the ANU, Professor Peter Tregear urged that the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency face regular performance audits to ensure it was doing its job properly.
Professor Tregear resigned in 2015, before his contract was due to expire, citing a toxic workplace and issues with accessing the school’s funding.
He made a complaint against the ANU under public interest disclosure laws, alleging a possible conflict of interest, nepotism and misuse of public funds, which the university denied.
In 2017, the Commonwealth Ombudsman agreed to investigate the matter after Professor Tregear objected to the way the ANU had handled his complaint.
However, in 2020, the Ombudsman’s officer ended the investigation due to a lack of information from the ANU.
On 12 August 2025, Professor Tregear appeared before the Senate Education and Employment Committee examining governance issues at the ANU.
In his submission to the committee, Professor Tregear sought to draw the committee’s attention to “both the contempt that the ANU’s management had and, I suspect, still has for the Commonwealth’s oversight bodies, and the fecklessness of those oversight bodies when dealing with the management of the ANU”.
He warned that without sufficient powers or the will to use them, oversight bodies such as TEQSA and the Ombudsman would be unable to fulfil their duties.
Central to Professor Tregear’s complaint to the Ombudsman was that the ANU had denied him procedural fairness.
Professor Tregear informed the committee that the external investigator hired to investigate his concerns had made derogatory remarks about him, which he was not given an opportunity to rebut.
These included that he was “untrainable” and “a liar [and] a manipulator”.
The report was handed to the Ombudsman, who requested more information from the ANU several times in 2020, to no avail.
The Ombudsman decided, in any case, to proceed with the investigation but terminated it due to a lack of information.
The officer said in a letter to Professor Tregear that they “did not think that further investigation would be likely to result in a different outcome for [me]”.
Professor Tregear criticised the Ombudsman for not exercising its powers, including the authority to compel the ANU to provide information.
“It beggars belief that, in the face of such shameless disdain for the authority of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the Ombudsman’s delegate did not, following the refusal to comply with the request for information, compel the production of the information,” he told the committee.
Professor Tregear compared his view to that of Catherine Holmes’ criticisms of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman in her report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, which also took aim at the Ombudsman for not using its powers of compulsion.
He said the ANU’s lack of response warranted the use of the section 9 powers in the Ombudsman Act, particularly the associated power to examine on oath, to compel answers as to why the obvious inconsistencies and deficiencies in the production of information were occurring and to require the production of documents.
“What is noted in this document provides a glimpse into an instance of the haughtiness of the management of the ANU when dealing with individuals, including an investigator at the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman,” he said.
“It also provides a glimpse into the weakness of oversight bodies, which, in this instance, was a Commonwealth integrity agency.”
Professor Tregear said this and other evidence pointed to a management culture that permits a “remarkable tolerance for poor behaviour and bullying” because “at ANU, poor behaviour doesn’t lead to negative consequences”, quoting from the Nixon Review of gender and culture.
He said that without proper parliamentary or judicial oversight, regulatory bodies had an incentive to “fold” in the face of the contempt of the mighty.
In response to the committee, the Ombudsman stated that it could not comment on the specifics of the investigation.
“We take complainant feedback about the quality of our services seriously and responded directly to Professor Tregear at that time,” Acting Commonwealth Ombudsman Sarah Bendall said.
“We were unaware that Professor Tregear continues to hold these concerns. It is disappointing to learn that we have not met his expectations, and we appreciate the opportunity this provides to consider how we can improve.”
