References Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future (2003), Commonwealth

There has been much critical comment in recent years about the tensions between the regulation imposed on public uni-versities and the flexibility needed to compete effectively in international and national markets for students and funding. In the partisan world of politics each side points the finger at the other as the author of “too much ” regulation. And yet there is a shared set of underlying assumptions about the interplay between regulation and markets that has led to more regulation without necessarily improving the outcomes for or from universities. What are these assumptions about the relationship between universities and government? First and fundamentally, there is consensus that government has the right and the respon-sibility to determine the outcomes it seeks for the funding it provides. Second – and related to the first – it is expecte