In an all staff email sent on Tuesday October 15, Vice Chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell pleaded with staff for their help to reduce the estimated $250 million black hole on the University’s balance sheet, which the ANU Council says must be filled by the end of 2025.

In its Renew ANU plan announced earlier this month, the University explained that $100 million of this deficit would be met by cutting the university’s salary-related  expenditure.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) estimated shortly after the announcement that this cut would result in the equivalent of 638 full-time staff being made redundant.

On Thursday Oct 18, the University announced a further cut of 108 positions from the Facilities and Services division and the Academic and Research Innovation division. 

Taking leave would “save jobs”

Bell’s email urges staff to consider going on leave in the near future and to work to delay an upcoming pay rise. In it, Bell argued that the university’s leave contingencies, which currently sit at around $163 million, have become too large to effectively manage.

The university has to keep this contingency on its balance sheet, even though it is unlikely to need the entire amount all at once.

Bell stressed that taking leave would “save jobs” as it would slow down the growth of this liability. On its Renew ANU website, the university said that if every staff member took one day of leave it would immediately reduce the contingency by over $2.7 million.

If a staff member goes on leave, the university doesn’t have to pay them their salary for that period (because they would pay the leave entitlement instead) and can reduce the amount credited to its leave contingency account, thus reducing the apparent deficit.

Forgo a pay rise, just this once 

Perhaps even more contentiously, Bell is requesting that staff vote to forgo the upcoming 2.5% automatic pay rise implemented by the recently agreed enterprise bargaining agreement.

The professor said this move would save the university up to $15 million. This includes an estimated $1.2 million that would be saved if those on performance-based contracts, mostly senior executives, also forwent the pay rise.

Bell sought to stress that the pay rise agreed earlier this year would still be high even without the December pay rise, saying that “staff would still receive a 16 per cent pay increase over the life of the current Enterprise Agreement”. The EBA nominally expires in June 2026, with in-built 2.5% increases every six months until that expiry.

The move would cancel the first of the 2.5% pay rises, but would leave the remaining pay rises intact.

An ANU spokesperson told Woroni that 16 percent, as opposed to the 18.5 per cent pay increase that would occur without change, “compares favourably to the 11.2 per cent increase for [Australian public servants] over the same period”.

The proposed variance of the pay schedule would only go into effect if a majority of staff vote in favour of the change.

The spokesperson did not answer Woroni’s questions about whether the pay rise would be offered in a future EBA or administrative pay rise.

NTEU firmly against “staggering” cuts

The NTEU has recommended that its members vote No on any ballot that would permit this pay freeze to go ahead, telling members that the university’s problems were caused by ANU executives having “mismanaged themselves into a financial crisis”.

In a press statement, NTEU ACT branch secretary Dr Lachlan Clohsey, said that the ballot shouldn’t even go ahead and that “[Professor Bell] should instead listen to ANU staff”, adding that ‘if it does go to ballot, we’ll campaign strongly for ANU staff to send a resounding message by voting no.”

The union held a protest rally on Wednesday October 16th in Kambri to protest the proposed restructure.

Clohsey, told Woroni at the rally that a previous pay freeze narrowly agreed to in 2020 did not save jobs.

“Last time in 2020, the then Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt asked staff to defer pay rises to save jobs. Months later, they turned around and announced the ANU recovery plan with 465 redundancies.”

Late last year Schmidt told Woroni that the 2020 deferral allowed the university to cut 90 fewer jobs than they otherwise would have. 

In the earlier statement, Closhey said that he found it “staggering that a Vice Chancellor thinks they can convince staff that giving up their pay will save jobs, while at the same time announcing further job cuts.”

Bishop criticised for “inefficiency” comments

Later, on Monday 21 Oct, ANU Chancellor, the Hon Julie Bishop, made comments to the Canberra Times  responding to NTEU claims of financial mismanagement.

The Chancellor told Times political reporter Dana Daniels in an exclusive interview published on Tuesday that the government’s international student caps were primarily to blame for cuts. 

“[We were] hoping that we would continue to draw on student fees, particularly from international students”.

Asked whether the proposed change to pay rises was fair, Bishop said “[i]t depends to whom you refer, because many members of staff have been part of the inefficiencies that the university is now seeking to address”.

The NTEU criticised the comment as “shocking” and “disgraceful”, saying that Bishop should resign. NTEU national president Alison Barnes said “These disgraceful comments blaming staff when it’s clear there’s been managerial incompetence are simply staggering.”

Over the first three years of Bishop’s term, the University spent a touch under $800 thousand to lease and furnish an office in Perth, primarily for use by the WA-based former member of parliament and her support staff.

The university defended the spending at the time by pointing out that it also maintains an office in Melbourne, previously used by Bishop’s predecessor Gareth Evans AC, in a building purchased as an investment in 1999 and sold to developers in 2015.

Bell cutting own pay, though still paid more than Brian

When she took office as Vice Chancellor earlier this year, Professor Bell opted to take on the default salary of the office: a package estimated at over $1.15 million including superannuation.

She also urged other staff on performance-based contracts, mostly senior executives, to consider negotiating a cut to their own packages.

In Tuesday’s email, Bell announced that she would be cutting her pay by 10 per cent, effective immediately, for a total package of $1.035 million per year

Her pay is still considerably more than that of her predecessor, Brian Schmidt AC. The Saturday Paper reported in September that, upon taking office in 2016, Schmidt negotiated a pay cut of over $300,000 from his predecessor’s 1-million-plus salary to $617,500. 

Over his second term as VC from 2019 to 2023, motivated by the losses caused by the pandemic, the Financial Review reported Schmidt negotiated his total package further down to a package of $484,000 in 2021.

He told Woroni in his final interview last year that he took the pay cuts “for the University” and saw his default package as a “disequilibrium” with his subordinates who are paid much less.

Chancellor Julie Bishop and Pro-Chancellor Alison Kitchen said in a joint statement that the salary Professor Bell initially accepted “is what was offered to her by the Council and reflects guidance we sought from the Remuneration Tribunal.”

“It was informed by the salaries of university vice-chancellors and leaders of government corporate entities and is appropriate for the unique requirements of ANU as the national university”, they continued.

Bell took the pay cut of her own accord, which Bishop and Kitchen described as a “personal sacrifice”.

A spokesperson told Woroni that Bell’s pay cut would make her package the lowest for any Vice Chancellor in the Group of Eight.

ANU not alone: 200 jobs to go at UC

Canberra’s other university – the University of Canberra – is also going through tough financial times and a harsh restructure with the UC Council setting a target to cut $50 million by the end of 2025.

On Monday, October 21st, the University’s interim Vice Chancellor Stephen Parker announced that a restructure would see “at least” 200 staff made redundant. One who has already left is Professor Parker’s deputy vice chancellor for research and enterprise, Professor Lucy Johnston, who was made redundant on Friday Oct 18.

By way of contrast with the ANU, UC has not requested that staff forgo scheduled pay rises. UC’s Enterprise Agreement, entered into during the same wave of bargaining as ANU’s last year, provides for a smaller 12.25% pay rise over 4 years. 

Two of the pay rises have already occurred. The next, a rise of 3.5%, is scheduled for January 1st 2025.

The last, due shortly after the Council’s budgeting target in January 2026, will be between 1.75% and 3.5% depending on what CPI look like in December 2025.

Both ACT Labor and the ACT Greens, who will likely form a fourth Andrew Barr-led ministry in coming days, promised to appoint reviewers to make recommendations on UC’s governance during last week’s Territory election.

The review was a demand of the NTEU who are also seeking a federal parliamentary inquiry into university governance.