Talks with Senate crossbenchers and universities are being led by Robert Griew of Nous Group, which won contract to assess ‘stakeholder views’

The Abbott government is spending $150,000 outsourcing its negotiations with crossbench senators and the university sector about the higher education package that has been blocked twice by the upper house.

The talks are being led by Robert Griew, a consultant who was until recently an associate secretary in the federal Department of Education and Training with responsibility for higher education policy.

Griew is now a principal of the Nous Group, a firm that has won a federal government contract to assess “stakeholder views” on higher education, including the Coalition’s push to deregulate university fees.

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The department’s contract with Nous Group was worth $150,000 and would run from 13 July to 5 August, according to the AusTender website, but the government said Griew would be engaged until early September.

The contract notice cited the “need for independent research or assessment”.

Griew has sought meetings with crossbench senators, telling them Pyne wanted to bring the legislation back to the parliament during the spring sittings.

“I have been commissioned by the Department of Education and Training to undertake a consultation of key stakeholders on the reform of higher education funding,” Griew said in one of the emails to senators.

“The product of this consultation will be a description of views canvassed: concerns, priorities and possible ways forward in the thinking of everyone I talk to.”

A spokesman for Jacqui Lambie, an independent senator who firmly opposes deregulation of university fees, said the $150,000 was “a waste of taxpayers’ money”.

“The process was fatally flawed because it is an ambush,” the spokesman said.

“They didn’t got to the people [at the 2013 election] and say ‘vote for us because this is what we’re going to do’.”

Labor’s higher education spokesman, Kim Carr, criticised Pyne’s decision to reach out to consultants, saying the government had already spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars on “a misleading ad campaign”.

“Throwing more money at his defunct package will not see the Senate accept the unacceptable and pass it on the third attempt, after being voted down twice already,” Carr said.

“The Abbott government needs to admit that burdening Australian students with a lifetime of debt has been a bad idea from the very beginning. There will be no third-time-lucky for Mr Pyne’s defunct package.”

A spokesman for Pyne said Griew had served the Department of Education and Training “with distinction and has unparalleled knowledge of higher education and related sectors”.



“Mr Griew is now an independent consultant and has been engaged to test the broad range of ideas currently being put forward by various stakeholders, including senators and members,” he said.

Pyne’s spokesman said the Nous Group was appointed as a consultant by the department after Griew finished in his role as associate secretary in early June and the project “was not discussed with Mr Griew prior to his departure”.

A spokesman for the Nous Group told Guardian Australia: “Definitively, there were no discussions about hiring consultants to conduct stakeholder consultations about higher education reform before Mr Griew left the commonwealth and joined Nous.



“The approach to Mr Griew and Nous to undertake these consultations have happened well after he has left the commonwealth and started with Nous.”

One of Griew’s final commitments before leaving the department was to answer questions at Senate estimates committee hearings.



In a statement read to the committee on 4 June, the department’s secretary, Lisa Paul, said Griew was leaving on 5 June “to pursue a role in the private sector”.

“He will be greatly missed by many, and I wish him well in his new role,” Paul said at the time.