Protesters make their feelings known about proposed ANU job cuts. Photo: James Coleman.
The ACT Greens are calling on the federal and ACT governments to step up and save Canberra as “the arts capital of Australia”.
ACT Greens MLA Laura Nuttall addressed a rally at the Kambri precinct at the Australian National University (ANU) today, formed in response to the latest round of proposed job cuts from the university’s management.
“The fundamental issue is that universities around Australia are putting profit before the wellbeing of their students and staff,” she said.
“But the real problem here is the government is not giving universities the funding they need to be able to focus on education instead of balancing the books.
“In a world where priorities are far more sensible than they currently are, university administration does not need to worry about turning a profit. They shouldn’t need to worry about making money any more than a public high school does.”
The proposed changes would merge the School of Music, School of Art and Design and the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, and cut 57 jobs in the process.
But protesters argue this will lead to “less staff, larger classes, and less one-on-one teaching time for all students, regardless of your major”.
“The effect this is having on students is that ultimately there’s less choice in our education and the quality of our education is going down,” museum studies student and ‘No Cuts at ANU’ co-convenor Lucy Chapman-Kelly told Region.
“I know people, for instance from Serbia, who have travelled all the way to Australia in order to study music here at the ANU.
“For these students, it means that they won’t be able to get the education that they came all this way for; they won’t be able to get the same quality of education, or in some instances that education at all.”
The proposed changes are the latest attempt by the university to get its budget back in the black.
The ANU is currently funded through a combination of sources, primarily the Australian Government’s ‘National Institutes Grant’ and student fees, but with additional income from research grants, philanthropic gifts, investment returns, and Services and Amenities Fee (SAF) contributions from students.
But after running years of deficits, the university is seeking to make $250 million in savings by the end of this year – with $100 million to come from salaries.
In a newsletter sent to all staff on 8 July, the university claimed it had “reached over halfway towards the $100 million salary goal before the release of last month’s change proposals”.
“The savings of $50.5 million came through a combination of change plans, vacancy and leave management, and the Voluntary Separation Scheme,” it read.
ANU Museum Studies student and No Cuts at ANU co-convenor Lucy Chapman-Kelly. Photo: James Coleman.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) claims the university’s staff has dropped by 797 people in the 12 months to 31 March 2025 and, since then, there have been an additional 175 volunteer redundancies, 57 roles “disestablished”, and 41 roles “proposed to be disestablished”.
Of the 57 job cuts in the latest proposal, four are from within the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), 17 from the College of Science & Medicine, and 36 from the College of Arts & Social Sciences.
“If implemented, this week’s proposed cuts will mean that ANU will have lost more than 1000 people under this Vice-Chancellor,” NTEU ACT Division secretary Dr Lachlan Clohesy said.
“That is more than 1000 people in net terms, but the cost goes beyond them to other staff, students, and the broader community.”
In response, Ms Nuttall has written to Federal Minister for Education Jason Clare, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, and ACT Minister for Arts Michael Pettersson, “calling for advocacy to save the ANU from destructive cuts”.
“This week, we learned the university is gutting the School of Music, a decades-old institution that serves thousands of students and is a cornerstone of life at the university for many working in the arts sector,” she said.
“This is despite the fact that in 2021, the ACT Government announced that they wanted Canberra to become ‘the arts capital of Australia’. There’s not much about this that screams ‘arts capital of Australia’ to me.”
The Greens MLA said the cuts “hit particularly close to home”, as she not only played violin in the School of Music’s ‘Pre-Tertiary Chamber Music’ during high school, but her father was also an oboe teacher and associate professor within the School of Music before being made redundant in 2005.
“Luckily, [dad] was snapped up by Tassie and had a very successful career there,” she said.
“I didn’t get to see my dad, who I loved dearly, nearly as much as I would have wanted to, because of cuts like the ones ANU have been making over the last few years, and are proposing to do even more of. And I don’t think I’ll quite ever forgive them for that.”
Consultation on the proposed changes for the College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS) and College of Science and Medicine (CoSM) close 24 July.
