Will the last academic to leave SCU please turn out the lights? Bear in mind that the nominal 16 redundancies so far do not include the far larger number of casual academics who have just been told their services will no longer be required.

The sad thing is that this didn't have to happen. SCU vice chancellor and chair of the Regional Universities Network Peter Lee has been actively campaigning for greater university deregulation for years. Apparently at no time did it occur to him that the Jesuit-and-sandstone educated Prime Minister and his Jesuit-and-sandstone educated education minister might want to privilege their alma maters over the commercial interests of a handful of crappy vocational distance education colleges. Professor Lee and his colleagues could have been standing shoulder to shoulder with other university administrators demanding a restoration of genuine higher education. Instead they gambled on the professional credential Ponzi scheme running for ever. I expect their six-figure salaries will be some consolation as they proceed with the grim business of winding up their failed commercial ventures.