On Wednesday 26 March, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) closed and announced the result of its vote of no-confidence in the leadership of the Vice Chancellor and Chancellor of the Australian National University, returning a resounding 95 percent no confidence vote. The vote is not binding on the university’s governance, but it demonstrates to the ANU Council that many of the institution’s educators do not view their leaders as fit to continue in their current positions. 

Despite the vote, ANU leadership has attempted to disregard the concerns of the NTEU, and has gone further to discredit the supporters of this motion, with Vice Chancellor Genevive Bell publicly accusing critics of sexism in an interview with the ABC published the same day.

The Union revealed that over 800 union-member staff had voted in total, with over 95% of their votes being against the administration. The ANU employs over 4000 staff members in total. 

Dr Lachlan Clohesy, the NTEU ACT Division Secretary, has commented on the governance issues that have been affecting the University, and contributed to a loss of staff confidence, stating that the “ANU leadership overestimated the size of the 2024 deficit by more than $60 million. They then disestablished the College of Health and Medicine, attempted to take away a staff pay increase, and cut jobs and courses based on their erroneous budgeting. ANU staff demand accountability.”

Clohesy points also  to the employment culture at the ANU, explaining, “It’s not just the very serious conflicts of interest. 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.”

NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes also stated that this is not solely an ANU problem, but rather “emblematic of the deep governance crisis we are seeing right across the country.” According to Barnes, “We need real reform to stop the conflicts of interest and cultural decay of our public universities.”

This vote seems to, as of this moment, had a similar effect (or lack thereof) to a series of similar occurrences in other tertiary institutions worldwide, where the will of university staff has been increasingly ignored by university councils. This has been seen in the United States, with institutions like Indiana University having similar votes in 2024, and Bellarmine University and West Texas A&M in 2023 enduring similar course cuts and financial issues to the ANU. All retained their university head despite successful no confidence votes against them. However, the margins weren’t as significant in any of these cases as it was from the ANU’s NTEU vote. 

The ANU’s official statement claims that the survey lacks “credibility”, and insists that they will continue to “deliver our change program” in a “respectful and transparent way”. The statement doubles down on the sexism allegations made by Vice-Chancellor Bell, stating that “women in such leadership positions are often subject to more intense scrutiny than their male counterparts, with a tendency for others to downplay the challenging circumstances.” It nevertheless still attempts to state that “not every criticism of our leaders necessarily tracks back to sexism but these phenomena are an important backdrop to consider”. 

In his response to the vote, ANU COO Jonathon Churchill emphasised his objection “to activities which deliberately seek to destabilise and misinform.” Continuing, “Which brings me to the NTEU’s upcoming ‘vote of no confidence’ in our Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor.”

Churchill emphasised that “The NTEU is not able to choose the leadership of our Council or the University.” But expressed concerns about the union using information “selectively” to create “white noise of confusion and angst” in the community, while ignoring the yearly auditing of the ANU’s finances, the university’s commitment to quarterly community financial updates and the ongoing, “slowly built up” nature of the ANU’s financial challenges.

Dr Clohesy has emphasised who will decide the next step, stating that “It is now up to ANU Council to deliberate on whether they believe the positions of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor are still tenable.” 

In December, when the vote was announced, the ANU had criticised the NTEU for engaging in “cheap stunts”, and made assurances as to the continued support of the Council for the Vice-Chancellor.

As of 28 March, the ANU Council has committed to fully supporting the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor to stay in power, stating that the two will be maintaining their positions as they are “committed to securing financial sustainability for the ANU.”

Since the vote, the ANU Council continues to be placed under pressure to act on the escalating governance issues. ACT independent senator, David Pocock, announced on 3 April that he would demanded an inquiry into a senate hearing from 7 November of last year, and has accused ANU of providing falsified financial statistics in claiming that only $50,000 was paid to financial consultants Nous Group, despite the figure being later revealed to have exceeded $1 million.  

An ANU spokesperson insisted to the Australian Financial Review that the records that were presented were “factually accurate”.