The adoption of more corporate models of governance is a contemporary trend in higher education. In the early 2000s, the Australian Government legislated national governance protocols for universities, using the policy lever of financial sanctions. These more corporate-style governance protocols followed similar changes in the UK, consistent with a historical pattern of Australia borrowing policy "on trust" from its former colonial ruler. However, the Australian approach represented much tighter government regulation than in the UK. This article employs a conceptual lens of trust to analyse changing policy on governance in Australian higher education. Analysis reveals that national governance protocols contributed to a culture of mistrust across the sector, although the dynamics of trust-mistrust relationships were complex and included apparent trust "settlements" between particular stakeholder groups. This analysis offers another step in nascent investigations into trust and the governance of higher education.