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Professor Gillespie, you mentioned earlier that the decision to leave the university was made over the course of a weekend, in effect, with discussions between you and the then chair of court. In those discussions, which led to your decision to leave, did you at any point discuss with the then chair of court potential candidates for the interim principal position or who would take on your responsibilities, given that you were leaving immediately, without notice?

Did you feel that attempts were made to reduce the participation of the wider executive group at the court and that that perhaps resulted in a lack of effective scrutiny, because the right people were not in the room? One issue appears to have been that it caused two bottlenecks: one through the chair of court—which you have presented—and another through you. If a wider group of executive members had been present at court, court members would perhaps have felt more able to direct specific questions and effective lines of scrutiny. Did you feel uncomfortable about any attempts to reduce the wider executive group’s participation at court?

Were you provided with reassurances, either formally or informally—for example, by other members of the executive group—that he was not so implicated in the crisis that he would have been an inappropriate appointment?

Was the incident group that was set up by the executive group—I think that it was called the executive group’s incident group—approved by the court? Did the executive come to the court and say, “There is a crisis, and we want to deal with it through this structure, which is this incident group that will respond,” or were you informed after the fact that, “This is what we are doing—we have set up this group and we are coming up with a recovery plan”?

Sorry to press the question, but that is about the process. I understand that it was appropriate to make sure that the legal team confirmed that you were following the correct process. However, in relation to the process for individual candidates, information about them, who to appoint—I do not know whether anyone else was even in the frame for the position—and how suitable they would be, who provided you with the information that Shane O’Neill was suitable to appoint? Where did you get that information from?

What I have in front of me is that you sent an email in December to all staff members informing them that a court resilience group would be set up with lay members, staff members, students and the executive group on it. Separate to that is the executive group’s incident group. What has been suggested to me is that the group that was set up under the auspices of the court was never intended to function and that the executive group had every intention of dealing with the situation through its own incident group. Reflecting on it now, do you think that there was ever an intention from the executive group to allow this court-appointed group—the resilience group—to do the job that you had said in the email to all the staff that it would do?

In that case, I pass the question to Dr McGeorge. I am going on information that has been passed to me, and I am perhaps not using the right term for the group. My understanding is that the executive group set up the incident group in order to respond to the situation and come up with a recovery plan. Can you clarify what that group was and how it came into being? From your understanding, was the court ever asked to approve the group?

I start by asking Amanda Millar to reflect in particular on some of the evidence that we have heard this morning, which I could perhaps characterise as individuals saying, “I was working in my lane and the issue here was that information just was not being shared with me by others.” Dr McGeorge, that seems to be the line of evidence that you in particular are trying to push.

Amanda, do you feel, on reflection, that your ability to discharge your duties as chair of court was being hindered by the executive group? If so, was that deliberate?

On exactly that point, you talk about creating an environment of challenge. I am interested in hearing your reflections on whether you could have done more to create such an environment, but I am particularly interested in the role of the executive management team. Were efforts made on the management team’s part, in one way or another, to ensure that it was not challenged—for example, by omitting information that would almost certainly have resulted in robust challenge from court if that had been provided to it?

I am ultimately trying to get to the bottom of the difference between full and frank information not being provided to court as a misstep or incompetence versus a deliberate attempt to withhold the information from court by those in senior management positions, who knew that if they were challenged on that, it would reflect badly on them.

Thank you very much—that was useful in how candid it was.

I am interested in delving into one decision in particular, and that is the appointment of Shane O’Neill as the interim principal. How did you satisfy yourself on that? I presume that, at the point at which he was appointed, you felt that that was appropriate. The obvious litmus test for whether it was appropriate is that you believed at the time that he was not seriously implicated in the matter. As it turns out, he was. Mr O’Neill is not here to speak for himself, but he clearly was implicated, and that is what resulted in his departure. Could you outline how you came to the conclusion at the time that his appointment was appropriate? Were you given any reassurances, either formally or informally, that he was not sufficiently implicated in the crisis?