Personal emails, ‘amended timelines’: What happened when the vice chancellor was appointed

An electrician was given a plum job at the University of Wollongong by a school friend despite having no expertise, failing to complete a pre-interview task and submitting his application late.

Matthew Dawkins was one of at least two of Alyssa White’s friends from Elderslie High School given jobs on the university’s team, the Independent Commission Against Corruption heard on Thursday afternoon.

The ICAC is examining whether White, who quit as chief governance officer two days before the public inquiry began, helped friends and associates get jobs at the university on at least 10 occasions.

The inquiry heard Dawkins had no experience in governance and had to be told to remove the hiring manager as his reference.

“You have to make it clear we don’t know each other from the start,” White allegedly told Dawkins.

Dawkins said he and school friend Kayla Powell were under the impression “not to seem like we were super friendly with Alyssa”. He said he did not think “it was an issue” that he was using his network to gain employment, the fourth day of public hearings was told.

“I certainly believed I could carry a job like that and learn the governance side,” he said.

Earlier on Thursday, the ICAC heard White asked a subordinate to “amend the timelines” around the appointment of acting vice chancellor John Dewar and the contracting of a consulting firm at which he was a partner to distance the two, the Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard.

University of Wollongong chief governance officer Alyssa White made the request of Stacy Oon, whom White encouraged to join the institution and later promoted to a $200,000 role, mid-last year, the public hearing was told.

Another prong of ICAC’s investigating is whether staff failed to manage a conflict of interest relating to Dewar’s employment as interim vice chancellor (who was paid a salary of $1 million per year in that role) and the university’s concurrent engagement of consultancy firm, KordaMentha, where he was also a business partner.

Counsel assisting the inquiry Emma Bathurst asked Oon on her second tearful day in the witness box whether White asked for the amendments to the two timelines to “seek to distance the processes”.

“She did ask you to amend the timelines so it looked like the panel was unaware of Professor Dewar’s appointment as interim vice chancellor when it appointed KordaMentha as a successful firm?” Bathurst asked.

Oon agreed that was the case but said White’s request was not possible because an announcement had already been made to staff.

Oon told the inquiry the two communicated via Gmail rather than their work email accounts about Dewar’s appointment because it was an “incendiary” time at the university, which had made almost 100 academics redundant and closed courses in an attempt to address its parlous financial position.

“If I had mistakenly written the wrong date it would have been jumped upon and there was every likelihood someone would say, ‘Oh, they’ve fudged the data’,” she said.

“They” referred to the unions or possibly the local media, Oon added.

The ICAC is also further looking at whether White, university chancellor Michael Still or other staff had improperly awarded consulting work worth tens of thousands of dollars to a firm called Aspirall Consulting.

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