The Australian National University’s 15-member governing body is imploding, with four resignations since chancellor Julie Bishop announced her departure on Thursday.
Bishop loyalists Tanya Hosch, Wayne Martin, Padma Raman and Rob Whitfield have all tendered their resignations, according to senior sources who are not authorised to speak on behalf of the university.
That leaves only two of the seven members appointed by Education Minister Jason Clare. They are CSIRO boss Larry Marshall, also a Bishop loyalist, who stepped up to replace former pro chancellor Alison Kitchen who resigned on April 25, and Andrew Metcalfe, a former senior federal bureaucrat, who only joined the council on July 1 last year.
The ANU council is made up of 15 members; the chancellor, vice chancellor, seven members appointed by the education minister, and six elected members who represent staff and students. Bishop chaired the nominations committee, which made suggestions for new members to the minister.
One elected member of the council, who did not wish to be identified, said the seven appointed members were loyal to both Bishop and former vice chancellor Genevieve Bell, who resigned last year amid a staff and student rebellion over her restructure program Renew ANU.
“The appointed council members never wanted to see Bell go. They backed her in up until the very last minute,” the person said. “They still don’t understand how the ANU community felt last year, and the level of frustration it had with the council and with the VC at the time.
“Every attempt to try and communicate to the council, the VC, the chancellor, senior leadership, and executives that there were real issues at hand and something needed to be done, they just refused to see it.”
Amid the fallout arising from dysfunction in the upper echelons of the institution, university secretary Phillip Tweedie also resigned last week while sources say general counsel Philip Harrison is on extended sick leave.
Harrison was involved in the university’s response to a series of Signal messages, which were leaked to The Saturday Paper.
The messages between then-provost Rebekah Brown and the university’s deans discussed Bell’s alleged failures in the midst of political, regulatory, and staff and student dissatisfaction with her handling of Renew ANU.
In a memo to Bishop, which was uploaded to the council’s online portal, Harrison wrote that Brown’s actions could be interpreted as seeking to advance her own position by replacing Bell as vice chancellor.
Brown subsequently did replace Bell and has been interim vice chancellor. However, there has been an outpouring of support for her from students, staff, unions, and local politicians since the memo and emails were first leaked two weeks ago.
Neither Marshall, as the most senior governance figure left at ANU, nor a university spokeswoman would answer questions in relation to movements in the council and senior staff.
“In my role at the Australian National University, I’m focused on taking care of the university and its people,” Marshall said.
Bishop said her departure from council eight months before her term was due to end was the result of overreach by the higher education regulator, which took the unprecedented step of preventing her and appointed council members from having input in her successor.
“Following unprecedented and coordinated interference, the ANU council is no longer able to charge [sic] its legal and ethical obligations,” Bishop wrote in a statement on Friday morning announcing her resignation. “I fear the collateral from this regulatory overreach will be the next generation of students and staff.”
The council resignations came in the hours after all members were given access to a highly confidential report, which examined allegations against Bishop, Kitchen, and Bell that had been raised during a Senate inquiry last year by people who were either recently or still on council.
The university has been in chaos since the massive Renew ANU $250 million cost-cutting program was announced by Bell in October 2024, including forced redundancies and the loss of up to 650 jobs. That plan was abandoned following Bell’s resignation less than two years into her five-year appointment in September.
Both the regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and the Australian National Audit Office have expressed concerns that the appointed members of council did not fully understand or scrutinise the plan or the financial information provided to them and did not ask if there were alternatives.
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Julie Hare was The Australian Financial Review’s education editor.Connect via X.
