The Australian National University keeps making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Vice chancellor Genevieve Bell faced calls to resign, less than a year into her tenure, for having a second job at Intel; she came under pressure over her management of pro-Palestinian protests on campus; then it emerged that Bell’s boss, chancellor Julie Bishop, racked up $150,000 on travel and has been hiring her business partner to write speeches for ANU events.

This is all against the backdrop of the university embarking on deep cost cuts, a program instigated by Bell and designed to save the well-regarded but loss-making institution $250 million a year. It’s deeply unpopular with unions, who say 650 jobs will go.