On  Thursday 15 August, ANU students attended two Special General Meetings (SGM) to address the University’s current connections to weapons companies associated with the Israeli Defense Force. 

This meeting comes after Students for Palestine delivered a petition signed by 400 students to ANUSA urging them to convene. The meeting was open to all enrolled ANU students who wished to debate and vote on the presented motions. Around 200 students attended the meetings on zoom and in-person. 

The first motion, moved by a student of Students for Palestine Canberra, stated,  “ANUSA calls on the ANU to disclose and cut all ties with weapons companies involved in the development and manufacture of weapons used by the Israeli Defence Force – including divesting from stocks in those companies, ending any research partnerships and ceasing all other relationships.” 

The second motion, moved by Students and Staff Against War, stated, “We demand the ANU to cut all ties with Israeli universities, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, that help Israel oppress Palestinians and commit its genocide in Gaza.” 

“We demand the ANU cut all ties with the Australian Signals Directorate which is involved in running the U.S. Pine Gap Spy base that provides intelligence used in Israel’s genocide.”

“We pledge to disrupt business as usual at ANU while our university is complicit in genocide and has not agreed to our demands to cut ties with Israel. This SGM commits to using actions like walk-offs, sit-ins, mass rallies, student encampments and strikes to force our university to cut ties with Israel.” 

 While both motions passed successfully, the second motion attracted debate and disagreement, particularly on the topic of cutting ties with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

Students for Palestine, the student group which primarily led the initiative for these meetings, said in its press release that it “will be mobilising hundreds of students to attend and vote.” The group had also invited Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell to attend the meeting to answer students’ concerns directly. 

Genevieve Bell did not attend the meeting and the University has not made any public comments on the SGM.  

Nick Reich, a leading member of Students for Palestine, explained, “A Special General Meeting is the perfect expression of mass, participatory student democracy. Students turning up to debate and vote on this motion is something that the University can’t ignore or shrug off.” 

Successful motions at SGMs become entrenched as ANUSA policy. This means ANUSA must act in accordance with both the motions. 

The Special General Meetings came as part of a larger movement across Australian universities students from both University of Queensland and the University of Sydney held similar meetings, with 1500 and 800 students attending respectively, to vote for pro-Palestine motions. The ANU meeting also occurred within the context of ANU’s ongoing Gaza Solidarity encampment and the University’s lack of response to previous student demands.

These meetings have been largely effective at eliciting responses across aforementioned universities. 

The Guardian reported that this action “followed an announcement by the University of Sydney to hold a similar review after weeks of lobbying from pro-Palestine student encampments.” University of Queensland has yet to commit to a review process however did release a Statement of Commitment between The University of Queensland, UQ Muslim Students for Palestine and The University of Queensland Union (UQU) a few months after its meeting. This statement largely outlined a commitment to greater transparency of funding, investments and grants “subject to the Muslim Students for Palestine Encampment meeting its commitments.”