Margaret Elaine Gardner AC FASSA (born 19 January 1954[1][2]) is an Australian academic, economist and university executive serving as the 30th and current governor of Victoria since August 2023.
Gardner earned a Bachelor of Economics degree with first class honours from the University of Sydney and later a PhD with a thesis on Australian industrial relations.
[5] Gardner has authored, co-authored and edited a number of texts in the fields of industrial relations and human resource management.
[citation needed] On behalf of Bessant, the National Tertiary Education Union launched an "adverse action" claim against RMIT and Gardner in the Federal Court of Australia.
The presiding judge, Justice Gray, was highly critical of Gardner's management of the case, especially given her considerable experience in industrial relations.
The court also ordered RMIT to pay a civil penalty of $37,000 for two contraventions of the Fair Work Act 2009 as a warning to employers of the risks of using "sham" redundancies as a means for dismissing difficult employees.
The Fair Work Commission's deputy president ultimately rejected the application by Monash University, ruling staff were entitled to the enterprise agreement they had agreed to in good faith.
[26][27][28][29] On 23 September 2021, Gardner and the university unreservedly apologised to all staff and their NTEU representatives, later reiterating this apology before the Senate standing committee.
[31][32] Cadmus was a controversial new anti-cheating software that emerged from a research project in 2015 before being developed and trialled by Vericus at the University of Melbourne.
[37] This took place at the same time as the university was facing a multimillion-dollar wage theft claim from casual academics and the National Tertiary Education Union in the Federal Court of Australia.
[39] Gardner is married to Glyn Davis who is the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in the Albanese government and was previously vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne.