How did other (non-Greenwich) unis in Australia get accredited?

The following was sent me by John Walsh of Brannagh of Greenwich University, who is still blocked from accessing this news group (why???). He asked me to post it, and I am glad to do so.
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From John Walsh of Brannagh to DegreeInfo.com:

I received an interesting telephone call late today, which I think would make for an
interesting question for DegreeInfo.
The question was "How did the other universities in Australia get
accredited"?
What happened was that my caller, from New South Wales,
after reading all the stuff about Greenwich in the Australian, asked his alma mater (University of
Sydney) about their accreditation.
Apparently they stated they were accredited under an Act of Parliament. He
then apparently referred to the Protocols and the AQF etc, but the
university appeared not to know anything about these (perhaps you can do a
national protocol review without knowing it!). So he contacted the AQF who
told him they did not accredit the Un. of Sydney and in fact they did not
accredit anybody. So he contacted the Department of Education in Sydney,
who said there was no such thing as national accreditation.
So he then contacted the federal Department of Education (and Science and
Training) and asked them. He said they mumbled about and mentioned some
national protocol, but said no university had yet been evaluated, and they
relied on the state or territory accreditation. So he asked about the
Northern territory University, and yes this he was told was accredited by
the Northern Territory Government. So he asked about Norfolk Island and
was told Norfolk was not part of Australia, so he then asked how the
national protocols (which no one had yet met) could be applied to Norfolk
Island if it was not part of Australia. His respondent then suggested he
consult a lawyer as the Department did not give legal advice. So the
caller said he wanted to know if the University of Sydney was accredited or
if meant no university was accredited, or if all universities established
under an Act of Parliament were accredited. An interesting question.
Perhaps degree info readers can ascertain (from the federal minister!) by
open questions as to how all the other Australian universities are
accredited. Perhaps a prize for anyone who can find the accreditation team
report on, say, the University of Sydney or the University of Melbourne (my
alma mater) or the Australian National University (in Canberra).
John W.B.

 

My understanding of the accreditation issue is that an accreditation team was set up to fail Greenwich and has not looked at any other university before or since. There has to be a really interesting lawsuit about to happen soon.

 

TOPSY: "Never was born. 'Spec I just growed."

 

Bond, as a private university, is a better model than Sydney, Melbourne, ANU.

The legislation governing accreditation of Bond is as follows:

Higher Education (General Provisions) Act
Higher Education (General Provisions) Regulation

(Bond is in Qld, and these are Qld documents.)

 

That's certainly an artfully worded little essay. I'm not sure what it's intended to accomplish.

My understanding is that the various Australian states enforce rather demanding criteria before a new university can be established. Unfortunately nobody seems able (or willing) to inform Degreeinfo about what quality assurance procedures were (or weren't) applied by Norfolk Island to Greenwich. Nobody is even able to tell us who on NI was qualified to assess a university. But that's the essence of what accreditation is, and without it any claim by a university to be 'accredited' is simply a sham.

I may be entirely wrong in this judgement, but somebody needs to put up a coherent defense of what Greenwich was doing before I stand any chance of being convinced. To me this whole fiasco seems like the grossest mismanagement, and my sympathies are firmly with the Australian government.

 

It will accomplish nothing. Dr Walsh should have done this homework a loooooong time ago. Too late now.

Cheers,

George