Australia's top universities have aligned themselves with oil and gas producers, miners and developers on a a key piece of environment legislation, drawing the ire of dozens of academics.
The Group of Eight (Go8) Australia, which represents the nation's leading universities, was among 26 industry groups that wrote a letter to the federal government last month, seeking to weaken environmental protections in a bill currently before parliament.
Other signatories included the Minerals Council of Australia, Australian Energy Producers, the Property Council of Australia and the Business Council of Australia.
Australia's environmental protection act has been criticised by all sides of politics for not being effective at safeguarding the environment or streamlining the approval of major projects.
A revamped bill is about to be voted on in parliament.
The letter from the industry group implored environment minister Murray Watt, and the federal opposition, to make amendments to the current bill or risk creating an environmental planning system that does not provide certainty for investment.
Watering down the powers of a new Environmental Protection Agency and guaranteeing faster and more certain approvals were among the changes the industry alliance was seeking.
The Go8 is comprised of leading universities across the country which include the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, the University of Sydney and the University of Queensland.
Letter undermines the concept of academic freedom, say dozens of staff
However 90 academics — who work across biodiversity, climate, economic and environmental law — at the Go8 universities have reacted angrily to the stance, releasing a statement condemning the letter.
They say the Go8 was seeking to "weaken the act's protection for the environment".
"If the bill as recommended by the Go8 is passed it will certainly undermine the efforts of many hundreds of people in universities working on the environment in all sorts of ways."
Professor Justine Bell-James, from the School of Law at the University of Queensland, said the Go8's stance also threatened the independence of universities.
"We're institutions that have a really broad range of expertise and interests and that's really the cornerstone of how universities operate: that fundamental concept of academic freedom," she said.
"So for a group like this to take a position that is counter to the interests of potentially thousands of researchers across Australia … it's really disappointing."
Professor John Quiggin, of the University of Queensland's School of Economics, agreed, saying it was "atrocious" and threatened the social licence of universities.
"It's inappropriate in my view for a body representing universities to take a position on things like this," he said.
Go8 wants to simplify university building projects
In a statement provided to the ABC, the Go8 said it was "absolutely" committed to protecting and restoring the environment, but also wanted to simplify projects at universities.
"The Environment Protection Reform Bill is a complex piece of legislation and the Go8's key focus is to ensure the new regulatory framework does not lead to over-regulation or create unnecessary regulatory complexity for the sector," it said.
"The Go8 is advocating for changes to the (law) that simplify rather than complicate research and infrastructure projects undertaken at universities."
But Brad Jessup, a senior lecturer in Melbourne University's Faculty of Law who has studied environmental law for more than 20 years, said it would be a rare scenario where the universities would come up against the act.
"These laws are directed towards protecting our valuable and threatened places, our valued and highly cherished places, and to take a close look at quite expansive, aggressive industrial development," Dr Jessup said.
"These Group of Eight universities are all based in the centre of the cities in which they are placed. The kinds of activities that they're involved in would never trigger these laws.
"These laws do not in any way affect research. That's not what they're directed towards."
Mr Jessup said the letter showed that the Go8 were more interested in corporate interests, than representing its staff and students.
Government hopes to pass legislation this week
The Group of Eight did not respond to questions from the ABC asking if they were receiving any financial incentives from fellow group members.
The Alliance of Industry Associations, which the Go8 is part of, was formed in May when it met to discuss how to improve productivity as part of the government's push to grow the economy.
While another university peak body, Universities Australia, was a part of the group, it excluded itself from the letter penned to the government regarding the environmental laws because it had no "direct advocacy mandate," a spokesperson told the ABC.
The environmental planning reforms have taken up a large part of the final parliamentary sitting week of the year, with both the Coalition and the Greens keen to amend the proposed bill before it is voted on.
Minister Watt has said he was willing to make some amendments the Coalition was pushing for, which echo some of the wishlist of the industry group.
They included watering down the powers of the new environmental agency and clarifying the minister's power to refuse applications with "unacceptable" environmental harms.
