Here it is, Andrew, in plain English. Academic freedom is the right of academics to debate ideas. In public.

Academics don't have to suck up to their employers. We are not being monitored on social media. We are not employed by the Australian Public Service, where employees are not allowed to criticise the government in their private lives. Academics have to abide by the employer's code of conduct, but our employer doesn't tell us how to think.

So, never heard of Andrew Nikolic? He is the whip in the failing Abbott government.

He has also been described as the new enforcer in parliament and a disciplinarian in the party room. He was trained in the military where it's blind obedience. So you can imagine, can't you, the kind of behaviour he thinks is appropriate.

And whom does he represent? The voters of Bass, an electorate in Tasmania's north-east with high levels of unemployment and in the epicentre of structural change. So you'd think the local member would be doing serious work to support his community.

But no, too busy demanding that blind obedience.

Here's how this unfolded. University lecturer Michael Powell wrote a letter to his local paper, the Launceston Examiner, complaining about devastating cuts to tertiary education. Powell, who works at the University of Tasmania, has some sympathy for his students in this uncertain environment. He expressed his concerns about the federal government's proposed changes in the uncontroversial environment of Letters to the Editor.

I don't know a single tertiary student who thinks those cuts are a good idea and feel extremely sorry for students who don't know what they will have to pay for their degrees. I don't know a single academic who thinks the cuts are a good idea – even among those who support the associated proposals of deregulation. That's on top of all the other people who understand the way the Pyne proposition will change higher education forever. Pyne's decision on Monday to separate science funding from deregulation won't save the government from the utter contempt in which it is held by the people of Australia

Now, Nikolic decided to complain about Powell's letter and contacted the vice-chancellor, Peter Rathjen, at the University of Tasmania, where the history academic works, to complain about the letter and to ask if it in any way breached university protocol.

What is academic freedom? Andrew, are you listening?

Well, as it happens, I know a little bit about it as an employee of a university and a columnist for Fairfax. Well-connected people occasionally write to my boss and suggest I should be sacked for things I've said or written in public. And my employer, the University of Technology Sydney, has always been amazingly steadfast. I figured that since I have had direct experience with an employer who supports the concept, I should ask my boss, Attila Brungs, to articulate what academic freedom means.

He said: "Academics have a role – no, a responsibility – to make a significant contribution to society by drawing on their considerable knowledge and discipline expertise to support public discussion based on evidence, and on reasoned arguments."

In other words, one of the most important roles that universities play in society is to promote debate. It must surprise Nikolic to discover we are not all in the army.

University lecturers are paid to think, critique and discuss, to teach, to research, to make arguments. And there is no more important time to make those critiques right now because the federal government is leading the charge to divide students and universities, the rich from the poor.

Now, Michael Powell is 65 and, last century, he stood as a Labor candidate. Nikolic has regurgitated this ancient connection to explain Powell's opposition to the "reforms" and to imply that the academic's motives are suspect. But as Powell told me on Monday, he was discussing this with Rathjen at a social event at the end of last year to explain his political involvement was 35 years ago. "I've gotten over it." The University of Tasmania vice-chancellor hasn't come out blaring in support of Powell, but he's certainly made it clear that he supports academic freedom.

I couldn't get a decent response from Universities Australia or from the Group of Eight about academic freedom, which was a little disappointing since academic freedom is a key tenet of the tertiary sector. Instead their PR people rang to say they had no comment. Which is surprising but clearly an effect of the way this government operates – the bullying and the blackmail is apparent in everything they do and affects those within its view.

In the meantime, I think it's really useful to write to people's bosses if they are not doing their jobs well.

I urge you to write to Tony Abbott https://www.pm.gov.au/contact-your-pm and tell him that Andrew Nikolic is not doing the job for which he was hired – representing the voters of north-east Tasmania.

Twitter @jennaprice or email jenna_p@bigpond.net.au

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story referred to Government whip Andrew Nikolic's "contact with employers" as being in line with [Christopher] Pyne's threat to cut funding for research unless universities fall in line. The Canberra Times accepts that there is no evidence that Mr Nikolic made contact with employers. The article also correctly described Mr Nikolic's electorate of Bass as being located in Tasmania's north-east, but then erroneously described it as being in Tasmania's south-east in the final paragraph.