Professor erupts amid Australian National University’s $250m cuts
Staff are being “worked to the bone” at the nation’s most prestigious university, as one professor tees off on executives.
A senior academic has opened up about the staff crisis gripping Australia’s premier university as it works through plans to cut $250 million from its budget by next year.
Morale is “incredibly low” among Australian National University (ANU) employees who are being “worked to the bone” due to recent cuts, with further job losses flagged by management.
That’s according to Liz Allen, who accused ANU executives of running a “slash and burn approach” to budget repair and having “no insight into to the reality” of day-to-day work.
“Staff simply don’t have the resources to do their job and that means that education is being impacted,” she told news.com.au.
“Research is being stifled, and staff are being worked to the bone … it’s the worst it’s ever been.”
The Commonwealth-funded university announced in October its Renew ANU plan, led by vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell, saying it “must reform to put us on a financially sustainable footing”.
It followed a cap on international students imposed by the federal government, with the Canberra institution losing 400 spaces compared to 2024 enrolments.
ANU announced 41 redundancies for staff in June, from its Information Technology Services, Information Security Office, and Planning and Service Performance division.
This month, it revealed another 59 jobs were in line to be cut from the colleges of Science and Medicine, Arts and Social Sciences and the Research and Innovation Portfolio.
Chief operating officer Jonathan Churchill told staff at a recent town hall that ANU had “recorded significant financial deficits since 2020”.
“Last year our operating result was a $140 million deficit,” he said on June 5.
“We know we need to get to a break-even operating result in 2026, and to do that we need to make really significant adjustments to the university cost base.
“We’re looking for a $250 million reduction in costs overall – including $100m of salary cost reductions across (20)25 and (20)26.”
Mr Churchill said the university was “a bit over halfway” toward that target “but obviously there is still more to do”.
He said ANU had introduced significant hiring controls and reduced the number of academic colleges from seven to six as part of cost-cutting measures.
Dr Allen said enrolments in her classes had increased 72 per cent since 2024, from 134 to more than 225 students.
Despite this spike, she said she had no contracted teaching support as she prepared to teach her first class on Monday. Last year she had two support staff.
“I’m exhausted,” Dr Allen said, revealing she spent her weekend working unpaid ahead of the first day of semester.
“I don’t have anyone currently contracted to help me teach upwards of 11 tutorials, two lectures, do all the marking, (and) maintain the integrity of that learning environment to ensure … that ANU certificate of educational attainment is worth the paper it’s printed on.”
She said colleagues were anxious about losing their jobs and were “taking sick leave at unprecedented levels”.
Dr Allen said staff were also unconvinced by the numbers ANU has put foward to justify the cuts, saying they had already been revised down: “even by their own account, they don’t appear to know what the figures are”.
She resigned from the university’s governance council in April after 95 per cent of respondents to a union poll said they had no confidence in the Chancellor – former federal minister Julie Bishop – and Dr Bell.
The vice-chancellor, Dr Bell has previously acknowledged the “hard time for our community” but that “we are going to keep having to make hard choices”.
“I am really hopeful by the end of the year that we are in a much better place than we are now,” she told ABC last month.
A spokesperson for ANU said in a statement to news.com.au it was “on a journey to achieve long term financial sustainability”.
“Our current operating model is inefficient and places bureaucratic obstacles in the way of our staff doing good work,” they said.
“That’s why we’ll be redesigning services to work in more contemporary ways.”
Federal Senator David Pocock has been a fierce critic of ANU’s handling of its restructure, claiming it had “misled” him on consultancy expenditure during senate estimates.
He revealed ANU had spent more than $1.1 million on one firm alone, and had engaged three others regarding its renewal project.
Staff were sent guidance this week on how to “respond to disruptions … in relation to the current tensions surrounding” plans for change at the university.
It follows protests over the planned cuts involving staff and students in recent weeks.
A report by the Australian Financial Review this month stated 175 people had accepted voluntary redundancies on top of the 100 job cuts announced in June and July.
The National Tertiary Education Union has estimated that up to 650 staff could go to meet the stated $100 million savings from salaries.
The university has refuted data from Workplace Gender Equality which appeared to show its headcount dropped by 797 in the 12 months to March, saying the agency only offered a “snapshot” and counted casual staff as full-time workers.
The union’s ACT division branch secretary Lachlan Clohesy has said there was “no continuing financial rationale for job cuts at ANU”.
“Our view based on the cuts that they have already made is that they have already achieved the target and there is no financial justification for further cuts,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
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