The university had net assets of more than $1.8 billion at the end of 2024. That is an increase of more than $150 million from the previous year.
This strong increase in the value of its assets is due in part to the strong surplus of $61.3 million shown in the audited accounts.
"The University of Newcastle is not experiencing any form of financial crisis," said Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO of The Australia Institute.
"To suggest that there is something 'unsustainable' about the financial performance of an organisation whose net assets have grown by nearly $600 million and whose retained earnings have grown by more than $400 million over the past 10 years is just silly.
"It is important to realise that claims the university ran an 'underlying deficit' last year are not based on the university's audited results.
"The so-called 'adjusted operating result' is calculated by management by removing some forms of revenue described as 'one-off', but there is no similar effort to remove one-off items of expenditure.
"Organisations get their accounts audited for a reason. If the management of the University of Newcastle really want their staff, students, and the NSW Parliament to ignore the strong financial results in the audited accounts and focus on some unaudited 'adjustments', then they need to be able to explain why an organisation that is spending 'unsustainably' has seen its retained earnings and net assets grow so significantly."
