Australian Public Universities and the Destruction of the Academic Community*

The article investigates the destruction of the academic community at Australian public universities. It does so by analysing the nature of the academic community and academic work, in particular `the gift of the academic community', and the forces, which work against its values and principles, in particular commodification and managerialism. Based on data from various sources as well as our original research about the major and unprecedented Australian university crisis in 2020/21, we show that deeply ingrained and exceptionally widespread managerialism operates in ways which are by design strategically and explicitly destroying the Australian academic community and the publicness of the university. We conclude by showing three main managerialist extractive strategies: a) outsourcing and consultancies, b) cooptation of academic culture by managerialism and c) branding.