Newington under investigation
Uniting Church (UC) appoints a representative to review governance issues at Newington
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Newington College is a Uniting Church school. For several years, the UC has resisted attempts by Newington stakeholders, particularly the Group of Past College Councillors and more recently by the Save Newington College group, to bring to its attention concerns over the governance standards at the College, particularly in relation to the issue of its proposed transition to co-education.
Now all that has changed. It appears that the Church has decided it can no longer ignore the advice it has been receiving for so long from stakeholders.
At last, the UC has begun to pay attention to governance issues at the College, and from late in 2024, through August 2025, the Church appointed a prescribed representative to conduct an extensive investigation into certain matters, as it is entitled to do under the Newington College Council Act of 1922 (the ’Act’).
The SNC believes that this is the first and only time that such a representative (referred to as ‘Visitor’ in the Act) has been formally appointed to conduct such a review in over 100 years, since the Act was passed by the Parliament of NSW early last century. It is gratifying to the SNC group that the Church is now taking these concerns seriously.
After several formal exchanges of information pertaining to the appointment of the Visitor, lawyers for the Plaintiffs (in the related Supreme Court matter of May 2025) received a summary response from the UC on 15 August 2025 and this is attached for your reference.
The Visitor was given responsibility for inquiring into the following matters:
the process by which members of the Newington College Council (the ‘Council’) were nominated, and in turn ‘elected’ and appointed by the UC Synod over the last 15 years, and;
the validity of the resolutions passed by the Council, including but not limited to the controversial proposed transition of the College from single-sex to coeducation.
The findings of the Visitor were telling. Various and repeated omissions within Council processes for election and re-election of members, and the failure to meet requirements for constituent groups as mandated by the Act were identified, which taken together, falls well short of required governance standards.
Surprisingly, rather than recommend improvements to governance standards within the College Council, the Visitor recommended that the Act itself be amended to accommodate a greater degree of flexibility for the process of appointment (not election) of Councillors, which had clearly not been adhered to over the period under review.
Of greatest concern is that despite these fundamental governance failings at the Council level, the Visitor concluded that decisions of the Council were not invalidated as a result.
We are unsure of the professional qualifications of the Visitor that qualify them to make such a determination, as the Plaintiff’s lawyers have quite rightly pointed out in their following response:
The Plaintiffs’ lawyers have responded to the above UC advice on 5 September 2025 (also attached), highlighting these apparent failings, and noting:
the absence of elections for Councillors, thus creating de facto Councillors, and;
that de facto Councillors in attendance at meetings have been included in numbers making up the required quorum, and;
as a consequence resolutions of the purported Council are invalid, including the decision of the purported Council to transition to co-education, and;
whether the purported Council had, or has, the authority to defend legal proceedings and to expend funds vested in the Council to defend the proceedings or seek judicial advice.
These remain important questions to be asked and answered.