- by EJ
- The Guardian
- Issue #2190
Julie Bishop recently resigned as Australian National University (ANU) Chancellor. Bishop is a former politician, Foreign Minister, Deputy Liberal Leader, and former lead lawyer for CSR when that company was opposing compensation claims from workers dying of asbestos diseases. As ANU Chancellor Bishop has played a long term leading role in Australia’s national university.
ANU National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members have persistently called for Julie Bishop’s resignation, including in a vote of no confidence against Bishop and then vice-chancellor Geniveve Bell last year, at the height of “Renew ANU”: a vast, chaotic and reputationally damaging university restructure with punishing job cuts, supported by Bishop and implemented by Bell.
Commenting on Bishop’s resignation, President of the ACT NTEU Division, Dr Lachlan Clohesy said, “The former chancellor has made two significant decisions which I support: the first was to accept the resignation of the former vice-chancellor, Genevieve Bell. The second was today.”
In the Senate Inquiry into University Governance last year, serious accusations were made against Bishop using parliamentary privilege. Bishop’s resignation comes shortly after the release of the Thom Report, an internal investigation by ANU of the allegations raised in the Senate, to members of ANU Council, the highest governing body of the university. In an all-staff email sent on 8 May, ANU Council stated: “the Thom ANU Report made five adverse findings in relation to former Council members in respect of their conduct as Council members.” At an ANU Community Meeting, former Chancellor Bishop was identified as one of those Council members.
In the context of Australia’s university sector, where corruption is rife and institutions are captured by the private interests of mining and bank CEOs, former politicians and consultants, all opposed to the interests of workers and students, the ongoing overhaul of ANU Council is welcome, and comes in the wake of hard campaigning by NTEU members to push for a more democratic sector.
Further state scrutiny into university governance, represented by the upcoming TEQSA (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency) and ANAO (Australian National Audit Office) reports into ANU will bring further urgently needed transparency and accountability. The broken, corrupt, undemocratic, corporatised, anarchic management of Australian universities needs to be overhauled. Universities need to be run by workers and students.
