00:00At the ANU's Bush campus in Canberra, anxiety is brewing.
00:10One in eight staff members is facing the prospect of being made redundant as the university
00:15confronts a $200 million deficit.
00:19A learning and teaching manager, Will called Sam, was told his job was on the line via
00:24an online town hall meeting.
00:27This of course has implications for war at the university.
00:33He's too scared to be identified in case it risks his future employment.
00:38We just felt absolutely devastated.
00:40We've put effort into long term strategies and to see years of work for some people just
00:46get kind of thrown aside, it feels shocking.
00:49Town halls are meant to give staff the chance to ask questions, but Sam says many were ignored
00:55or even deleted from the online chat.
00:58The university had offered two weeks of consultation before their proposal became reality.
01:04But Sam told me he didn't think the university listened to any of the feedback from his team.
01:10He said it felt like the ANU was just paying lip service to the process.
01:15Over at the University of Canberra, the new ACT government has committed to a governance
01:20review to probe how the uni fell into a $36 million financial black hole.
01:27Staff have now been told more than 200 positions will be cut before Christmas.
01:33It feels like decisions have already been made, so even though we have an opportunity
01:39to be consulted, I don't know how empowered we feel about those consultations.
01:46This is genuine consultation.
01:49I'm sorry to hear if some staff apparently feel intimidated, but that's definitely not
01:54the purpose of this exercise.
01:56This is about removing positions, it's not about targeting particular people.
02:02Staff are concerned about a shrinking cohort of professional support.
02:07They cut staff, but the workload doesn't get any less.
02:11We have to make changes because the sector's changing, funding's changing, and no organisation
02:16can stand still and ignore the outside world.
02:19It's really clear that the ANU and the University of Canberra are not alone, and we're going
02:25to see far more staff savings.
02:27So far, seven universities have announced significant restructures that could amount
02:32to more than 1,200 jobs lost.
02:35The underlying issues are a change to the funding for domestic undergraduate students.
02:42And now, the looming prospect of caps on high-paying international students.
02:47You take that out of the economy, that has a significant impact, particularly for our
02:51small business, our tourism sector, because families come and visit, so the knock-on effect
02:57is significant.
02:58Which could spell trouble in the ACT, where international education is one of the most
03:03lucrative exports, worth more than a billion dollars a year.
03:08The ANU seems to be pulling every lever to try and tighten its belt.
03:12It's just put this prime block of land here in Weston on the market.
03:18But the university says it has no plans to offload other assets like this car park in
03:23Canberra's city centre.
03:25It was purchased for nearly $17 million last year for the College of Health and Medicine,
03:31which has now been disestablished.
03:33Although these are difficult and painful cuts, they are not reducing the overall contribution
03:41that both institutions make to Canberra.
03:45Testing times for the knowledge capital of the country.
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