ANU staff pass no-confidence vote against chancellor Julie Bishop
Hundreds of Australian National University workers have passed a vote of no confidence against chancellor Julie Bishop over job cuts and leadership issues.
The ANU staff were asked by their union whether they had confidence in the leadership of former foreign affairs minister Bishop and vice chancellor Genevieve Bell, who worked for Intel in the US.
Union members have passed a no-confidence vote in ANU chancellor and former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop.Credit: Oscar Colman
Of the more than 800 employees who took part in the vote, which was open to all National Tertiary Education members, 95 per cent said they didn’t have confidence in their leadership.
The move comes after it was revealed Bishop used the university’s funds to pay her business partner as a consultant, and that Bell held a second job at Intel while in her role.
“It’s not just the very serious conflicts of interest,” the union’s ACT division secretary, Dr Lachlan Clohesy, said. “It’s the culture of fear and intimidation, the financial mismanagement, the job cuts, blaming staff and referring to them as ‘inefficiencies’, the parking fee hike, the childcare closures, and attempting to take away a staff pay increase.”
Professor Genevieve Bell, vice chancellor and president at the Australian National University.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The union’s national president, Alison Barnes, said it was emblematic of a governance crisis across the country.
“The ANU scandals have piled up higher than the Telstra Tower, yet the council continues to back in a vice chancellor and chancellor who have both failed to take any responsibility for terrible mismanagement,” Barnes said.
According to the union, its 2024 budget forecast – which was the basis of job cuts and an attempt to take away a pay rise – overestimated the size of the deficit by more than $60 million.
