On Thursday 18 September, after a year-long campaign, the ANU’s interim Vice-Chancellor Rebekah Brown announced an end to forced redundancies under management’s drastic restructuring scheme, Renew ANU.
The end to forced redundancies is a huge victory against management’s cuts. Demography lecturer Liz Allen said, “It’s been a hard slog … I’m so proud of my colleagues, ANU community.” Staff and students should be confident to keep fighting the remaining cuts.
Around 179 staff have accepted voluntary redundancies, but over 100 staff slated for forced redundancy will now keep their jobs—if the university sticks to its word.
The interim Vice-Chancellor also announced that the Australian National Dictionary Centre, the only authoritative source on Australian English, would be preserved for the next two years, along with the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The music specialisation in performance is saved, although the university will “move away from” one-on-one tuition.
It’s no coincidence that these announcements come after months of management turmoil and the open call by five out of six deans of ANU colleges that finally forced the resignation of Renew ANU architect, former Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell.
Campaigning saves jobs
Management backed down from the forced redundancies following opposition on many levels across the ANU.
Both ACT senators, David Pocock and Katie Gallagher, had raised concerns about university leadership. Pocock called for increased financial transparency and government funding for universities. The public scandal forced Education Minister Jason Clare to launch a high level review by the tertiary regulation agency, TEQSA, into ANU governance.
The staff union NTEU had campaigned against the cuts and also lobbied for Bell to resign. In March, 95 per cent of staff supported a vote of no-confidence in Bell’s leadership. In September, 2000 staff, students and community members signed an NTEU petition against the forced redundancies, Renew ANU and cuts to the Dictionary Centre and School of Music.
The day before the forced redundancies were called off, the Guardian reported that 28 staff in the College of Arts and Social Sciences were ceasing work under a Health and Safety order identifying the psycho-social harms of the forced redundancies.
Students also launched a fighting campaign against the Organisational Change Proposals released in July. Four hundred students rallied on 23 July, with music students playing for 12 hours in an overnight protest outside the School of Music.
The following week, 100 students marched into the Marie Reay teaching building, and students from different faculties including linguistics, visual arts, music and English, joined forces to rally for seven-and-a-half hours outside the ANU Chancellery. A thousand students signed a petition calling for Bell to go, to stop the cuts and for the Albanese government to increase funding for universities.
Under increasing pressure, management cracked and became its own worst enemy. Leaks revealed Bell had boasted of her determination to “bend the university to [her] will”. Staff testified to bullying on ANU Council, and the student union president reported Chancellor Julie Bishop prevented a Council vote to pause the Renew ANU restructure.
Associate Professor Nick Cheesman, of the ANU’s Political and Social Change Department, summed up the rebellion for the ABC, “The Vice-Chancellor would not have had to resign but for the increasingly organised revolt against ANU management by thousands of academics and their pupils.”
The fight’s not over
But Renew ANU remains a threat and students and staff need to prepare to fight the remaining cuts. Disestablishing the Biology Teaching Centre; merging political science, international relations and public policy; or removing the Environment Studio in visual arts would affect thousands of students. Management could implement these changes without cutting jobs.
Brown might keep a course here or a research centre there. However, the campaign against the entirety of Renew ANU will have to be a fighting one.
So long as the logic of profit dominates policy-making, any wins risk being eroded. The ANU’s 2025 cuts come just three years after the 2022 cuts, and may be followed by more in the years to come.
Defence Minister Richard Marles’ announcement of $12 billion to build a nuclear submarine port in WA highlights how Labor is prioritising war over education. One forty-eighth of that spending could cover ANU’s supposed deficit.
On the day of Brown’s town hall, students rallied to support staff action and oppose a recruitment event for Israel genocide-supporting Boston Consulting Group. It will take more rank-and-file organising from students and staff to counter the militarism and the relentless profit-drive logic of the corporate university and the capitalist system it serves.
By Finnian Colwell
