A fitness college empire heavily promoted by Biggest Loser star Commando Steve has lost an attempt to stop its legal fight against a regulator's decision to cancel the accreditation of its fitness coaching course from being aired in public.
The Sage Institute of Fitness in September requested a confidentiality order in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, where it is seeking to overturn the Australian Skills Quality Authority's decision to cancel the course accreditation.
The regulator earlier this year said it had determined that Sage's Diploma of Fitness Coaching Course no longer complied with its standards because it had effectively been superseded by another fitness training qualification.
A Sage spokesman said the company requested the confidentiality order to reduce "the prospect for the proceedings to be publicly misrepresented."
The company has repeatedly emphasised its transparency in responses to questions from Fairfax Media.
In refusing Sage's request, AAT senior member Egon Fice said concerns expressed by ASQA over the accreditation of Sage's courses need to be made public.
"In this case the only party to benefit from the confidentiality order would be ACI [Sage]," Mr Fice said.
The AAT also ordered a stay on ASQA's decision pending the final outcome of Sage's appeal.
The seven-campus college has separately been the subject of multiple reports over concerns about its facilities, with students saying they had to build their own facilities with gyprock while wires hung from walls around them.
In September, Fairfax Media revealed that since 2015 the college's "ground breaking, interactive learning" campuses have moved between four office buildings in Sydney alone.
The college charges students up to $18,750 a year in fees – which can be funded through taxpayer funded VET FEE-HELP – for the due-to-be cancelled course.
According to data from the Department of Education, it received more than $12 million in taxpayer funding in 2014. The tribunal heard the college had spent $6 million marketing its Diploma of Fitness Coaching Course alone.
Steve "Commando" Willis is at the centre of its multimillion-dollar marketing operations as the fitness college's "brand ambassador". The former special forces officer has been seen on advertising billboards across Sydney describing the course as "the best qualification I have found, designed by the industry, for the industry".
But students have described the course as "a joke."
"The facilities are absolutely shithouse," James Dixon, a 33-year-old fitness coaching student told Fairfax Media in September.
Mr Willis declined multiple requests for comment. He stood by the college's "excellent reputation" through his talent manager when asked in March.
A spokesman for Sage said $6 million was an appropriate investment to market its course. He said it was proud of its facilities and its standing as a leading training organisation in the community.
As part of its push into the community the company also used Mr Willis as the face of a new partnership between Sage and the Melbourne United basketball club in August
Sage denied any taxpayer money was spent on the Melbourne United arrangement.
Sage, like all other privately-run colleges in the country will have to re-apply for accreditation from July next year after the federal government moved to shut down the VET FEE-HELP scheme through which Sage received millions of dollars in taxpayer funding.
