Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell has vowed to stay the course. Photo: Andrew Mears/ANU.
ANU staff have overwhelmingly supported a union vote of no confidence in the university leadership of Chancellor Julie Bishop and Vice-Chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell.
More than 800 ANU staff participated in the vote, which was open to all National Tertiary Education Union members. Of those, more than 95 per cent voted ‘No’ to the question “Do you have confidence in the leadership of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor?”
The vote comes after revelations last week that the ANU had overestimated the 2024 deficit by $60 million, leading to claims that it has catastrophised the university’s financial position to justify a planned $100 million in job cuts and the failed attempt to defer a pay rise.
An open letter from 450 staff has also called on the ANU to provide full disclosure of its financial position, the number of jobs it proposes to axe, extend consultation for another month and pause the change process.
It said the budget cuts and organisational changes had been rushed, opaque and based on questionable financial data.
“The past 12 months of institutional limbo have already caused incalculable damage to our institution and ongoing harm to staff well-being,” the letter said.
NTEU ACT secretary Dr Lachlan Clohesy defended the number of people who participated in the no-confidence vote, given that the ANU has about 4000 staff.
“We think that’s the most significant vote of no confidence in an Australian university on university leadership,” he said.
“It’s reinforcing the numbers of people that voted against, for example, the pay cut, and what ANU would be getting in their own internal views on staff sentiment.
Dr Clohesy said the University Council meeting today (28 March) would need to decide whether the positions of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor were tenable.
“It will need to consider, not just the loss of confidence of staff in ANU leadership, but the significance of the $60 million financial mistake that’s led to job losses and an attempt to remove a pay rise at ANU,” he said.
“They’ll need to consider the serious conflicts of interest that have been raised and many of the other scandals that have plagued ANU over the last year or so.”
But Professor Bell has vowed to stay the course, telling the ABC that getting the university’s financial house in order was vital to its future, and even blaming sexism for the level of attacks on her.
In ANU town hall meetings last week, staff were told the projected $200 million deficit for 2024 had been revised down to $140 million.
Dr Clohesy said there were only two plausible explanations for the financial mistake – a cock-up or conspiracy.
“So either they’ve catastrophised it to make it look worse than it is to justify job cuts and other broad sweeping changes at the university, or they’ve stuffed it up, which calls into question the competence of leadership,” he said.
Dr Clohesy said the justification for the ANU cost-cutting had now been exposed as flawed, and there was no reason to continue with further job cuts.
“So what we now know is there’s a $60 million favorable variance in the budget,” he said.
“We now also know that they’d already achieved $30 million worth of savings through reductions to staffing in the first nine months of 2024.
“We know that they’ve achieved a $13 million reduction in staff expenditure based on job cuts at the end of 2024, and we’re anticipating a reduction in staff expenditure in excess of $20 million based on the voluntary separation scheme that’s going on at the moment.
“So if you put all those together, that’s at least $123 million.”
If there was no change from the council, the union might go above it and seek ministerial intervention.
“There are other avenues we’re looking at as well, but we’re hopeful that council will act,” Dr Clohessy said.
The union has calculated the ANU would need to axe about 600 jobs to achieve its goals, but Professor Bell has refused to give a clear figure.
All up, the ANU plans to reduce its annual recurrent spending by $250 million by the end of the year, with the hope that the university’s budget would return to a surplus in late 2026 or 2027.
The conflict of interest claims relate to Professor Bell’s work for a US tech firm last year, which netted her $70,000, and the ANU awarded contracts to a former staffer of Ms Bishop.
An ANU spokesperson said the letter showed that staff care about the important issues being discussed as part of the change process.
The $60m difference in the operational deficit forecast was testament to the hard work and sacrifices made across the University, the spokesperson said.
“Savings came from a range of measures including reducing our leave balances, introducing hiring controls, lowering our travel expenses, and reducing our technology and research spend,” the spokesperson said.
“Our community is to be commended on these concerted efforts. But there is still work to do. The $140m deficit is higher than last year’s and significantly higher than our original budgeted deficit of $60m.
“Our goal hasn’t changed. Rather, we’ve made progress towards our goal of having our expenses equal our revenue by 2026.
“We look forward to continuing to work with our community in the coming months on how we can reach our financial sustainability goals.”
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