マーガレット・ガードナー

Gardner has a strong academic background in industrial relations. She has written widely on the subject including a 662-page tome: Employment relations : industrial relations and human resource management in Australia.^[15] In 2011 whilst vice-chancellor of RMIT, Gardner overturned the findings of an internal RMIT redundancy review committee (RRC) and unlawfully terminated the employment of social sciences professor Judith Bessant. The RRC found that fair process had not been followed by the university and that there had been a failure of natural justice. Despite these findings, Gardner decided to proceed to make Bessant redundant.

On behalf of Bessant, the National Tertiary Education Union launched an "adverse action" claim against RMIT and Gardner in the Federal Court of Australia. The presiding judge, Justice Gray, was highly critical of Gardner's management of the case, especially given her considerable experience in industrial relations.^[16] In deciding the case, Gray also said he took into consideration the "apparent determination" by Gardner to "ignore her knowledge of Professor Hayward's animosity towards Professor Bessant". He also found that Gardner displayed a lack of contrition for what the court found to be a blatant contravention of workplace laws.

The Federal Court reinstated Bessant and indicated that she would be entitled to approximately $2 million in compensation if she was not reinstated. The court also ordered RMIT to pay a civil penalty of $37,000 for two contraventions of the Fair Work Act 2009 as a warning to employers of the risks of using "sham" redundancies as a means for dismissing difficult employees. The case was reported in the national media in addition to becoming an important case study that is widely discussed on legal websites.^{[17][18][19][20]} Bessant later published a personal account of the case.^[21]

While Gardner was vice-chancellor and president of Australia's largest university, she presided over $8.6 million in underpayments to casual academic staff. Over six years, more than 2000 teachers had their rightful wages and entitlements withheld.^[22][23]

In 2022, Monash University and their lawyers Clayton Utz made an application to the Fair Work Commission to retrospectively rewrite clauses and vary the Monash University Enterprise Agreement.^[24] They did this by trying to clarify use of the term "contemporaneous consultation" with students around lectures and tutorials. The university sought to have the enterprise agreement amended to define contemporaneous as meaning "within a week of the lecture". National Tertiary Education Union president Alison Barnes accused Monash of the "height of employer bastardry". She said that "They negotiated that enterprise bargaining agreement in good faith and to try to alter it is extraordinary."^[25] If this had been successful, it would have resolved some of the university's underpayment liabilities and negated the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) underpayment claim. The Fair Work Commission's deputy president ultimately rejected the application by Monash University, ruling staff were entitled to the enterprise agreement they had agreed to in good faith.^{[26][27][28][29]}

On 23 September 2021, Gardner and the university unreservedly apologised to all staff and their NTEU representatives, later reiterating this apology before the Senate standing committee.^[30]

In 2016, Gardner and her husband, Glyn Davis, the vice chancellor of the University of Melbourne, invested $166,000 in software company Vericus (developers of Cadmus) where their son, Rhys Davis, was chief technical officer.^[31][32] Cadmus was a controversial new anti-cheating software that emerged from a research project in 2015 before being developed and trialled by Vericus at the University of Melbourne. Cadmus received a substantial government grant under the now defunct Accelerating Commercialisation Grant scheme.^[33] The University of Melbourne claimed Davis declared the conflict of interest and “rigorously excluded himself from any discussion of Cadmus matters”. Cadmus was later adopted widely by the university sector including the University of Melbourne.^[34][35]

2023年、モナシュ大学はビクトリア国立美術館でガードナーのために12万7000ドルもの費用をかけた豪華なブラックタイの送別会を開催した。^{[ 36 ]}この詳細が情報公開によって明らかになると、大学の学生や職員から激しい怒りが巻き起こった。^{[ 37 ]}これは、大学がオーストラリア連邦裁判所で非常勤講師と全国高等教育組合から数百万ドルの賃金未払い請求に直面していた時期と重なる。^{[ 38 ]}

モナシュ大学を退職した当時、ガードナーはオーストラリアで最も高給取りの副学長であり、その年収は約160万ドルで、前年より19万ドル増加していた。^{[ 39 ]}

• 2024年11月13日：オーストラリア海軍名誉准将。^{[ 45 ]}

受賞

• 2022年：グリフィス大学名誉博士号^{[ 42 ]}