Broken: Universities, Politics and the Public Good

by Graeme Turner

A strong higher education system is fundamental to civil society. The building of knowledge and the dissemination of information is vital to the proper functioning of our democracy. At the economic level, higher education is in the top three of our export industries; international students have become central to the hospitality, retail and agricultural economies; and the country desperately needs well-trained, knowledgeable citizens to shore up its future.
Yet, in February 2024, a detailed review of higher education in this country concluded that the system is broken and urgently needs fixing. The problems that afflict it are legion, including over-investment in international enrolment, an epidemic of casualisation and the burning out of a generation of academics, culture wars over the content and orientation of university research and teaching, the lack of sectoral coordination around the national interest, and the consequences of decades of funding cuts.
In Broken, Graeme Turner provides a reality check for those who imagine the academic life is one of privilege and leisure, laying bare the enormous challenges and lack of hope experienced by many in academia. He unearths the foundations of this crisis, then explains how the solution lies in an overhaul of the one-size-fits-all approach to university funding, the establishment of genuine full-time career paths, and the formation of an independent body to ensure our university system serves the national interest in both teaching and research, rather than the ferocious competitiveness of the marketplace.
Above all, we need to jettison the current economic focus on education, and re-embrace the idea that higher learning is a fundamental public good – and should be funded as such.

Genres: Nonfiction

77 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 20, 2025

About the author

Graeme Turner is an Australian professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, Federation Fellow, Past President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Director of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, and Convenor of the ARC Cultural Research Network.

He is one of the key figures in the development of cultural and media studies in Australia. His work is used in many disciplines: cultural and media studies, communications, history, literary studies, and film and television studies. Turner's research interests include Australian film and media, issues in Australian Nationalism, popular culture, celebrity, and talkback radio. His current project investigates the role of television in a post-broadcast era increasingly dominated by new media formats such as the Internet.

Reviews

[lucia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but thorough overview into how Australia’s university sector has become what it is today: a mess. Essential reading for all uni students

[Liisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you work in an Australian university, nothing in this book will surprise you—yet that, in itself, is the most damning indictment.

Graeme Turner lays bare the crisis facing the sector: insecure employment, casualisation, obscene executive salaries, wage theft, political interference, skyrocketing student debt, and the relentless corporatisation of institutions once dedicated to the public good. It’s sobering reading, but essential.

What I appreciated most is Turner’s clarity and authority. He traces the current malaise back to the Dawkins reforms of the 1980s, showing how decades of policy decisions have eroded trust, undermined research, and left staff and students adrift in a system that feels less like education and more like business.

Yet, this isn’t just a book of despair. Turner offers potential solutions—structural redesign, planned investment for regional universities, and a more equitable funding model—that, while difficult, are necessary if we are to rebuild a system worthy of its purpose.

This is not a hopeful book, but it is an important one. It captures both the lived experience of those within the sector and the bigger policy picture that has led us here. Anyone interested in higher education, politics, or the future of public institutions should read it.

[MBC · Rating 4 out of 5]

On page 79, Turner begins to conclude his essay by providing a concurring view on the marketisation of Australia’s universities. Quoting Hannah Forsyth, it follows that research funding and economic goals were coupled in the 1970s. Securing money for academic research was less about knowledge production and more about reputation, profit and how institutions could serve a capitalist workforce. Policy then and since has not cared about how universities shape, communicate and expand a national culture, charisma and psyche.

“The tertiary system is no longer regarded as providing a public good that serves the interests of the nation. Rather, it is regarded as delivering a private good that serves the interests of the individual.” (12)

“The responsibility for the protection of that national interest should not be left to our universities. Since their interests have been progressively redefined as commercial rather than public, they are no longer acting as disinterested custodians of our national capacities in teaching and research - either individually or as a sector.” (54)

“An educated civil society has to be more than an aggregation of well-trained employees.” (58)

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of "ohhh" moments for anyone involved in universities, especially academic staff. In clear, direct, almost conversational prose, Turner lays out all the problems with the Australian university system circa 2025.

This is timely because universities are at a crossroads. Forty years after the government functionally abandoned unis and the populace began to disregard their value, the "market" model is clearly not sustainable: unis are incentivised to exploit international students and idealistic junior academics, squeezing both dry and throwing them aside. This leaves domestic students underserved and a shortfall in future academics. Turner steps through all this, drawing on his own experience of many decades in the system, and makes a clear point that it's embarrassing to think has been so readily forgotten by our society: having an educated populace is an intrinsic good for Australia, and learning how to think critically and synthesise new information is going to be instrumental in the turbulent future of A.I., climate disaster, and other horseshit carelessly heaped on the heads of the young by the old.

The main strikes against this slim tome are that it seems fairly low-effort and understructured. The various topics (the problem, the source of the problem, the solution to the problem) are discussed in discrete chunks, but connections between ideas could be better signposted. Perhaps if more care and fuss had been put into the sequence and flow of ideas, it would feel less like something Turner threw together in a week off from teaching. Still, even if it is a scaled-up letter to the editor, the information the book contains is helpful and timely, so these are relatively minor nitpicks.

[Tom Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short read provides a well articulated, insightful overview of the issues that the Australian higher education system is facing.

As someone who has previously worked in the university sector, and in government funded research, I can vouch that Graeme Turner is making good points. The book does not deep dive into any particular issue, and does not offer up detailed solutions, though this is not the point of the text. It should serve as a stimulus though for deeper conversation about the health of our tertiary education system - between policy makers, especially.

[Leo Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for the hacks