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  • 16 hours ago
The new chancellor of the ANU talks of his love for the university and what that means for it.

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00:00I use that language of love of the university for a purpose, for a reason,
00:04and it's to show that, frankly, it's my genuine thinking and my feelings towards the university.
00:11I have spent my whole professional life and beyond thinking about the value of public institutions,
00:19understanding that, and making a difference and doing something about it.
00:23And that talking of, okay, these things are important, is quite sterile language.
00:30Talking about this really matters to me and, frankly, I love these institutions
00:34because they're with people and they do things that are really important.
00:39But the arithmetic remains the same and fine words but are no parsnips.
00:44Yeah, I thought the finances are not as bad.
00:50I mean, they're still deficit, so they are different, they're materially different.
00:54I think where we are is, this is the consideration for council on the material that comes from the executive,
01:03is that there are options and you work through the options.
01:08And the criticism from the audit office was that that's not how the previous work was done.
01:13The options go back to based on the purpose of the mission and the strategy for the university.
01:19What are its priorities? What are the sources of revenue?
01:24And how do you grow revenue? As well as how are you efficient on the cost side?
01:29So I think we're in a different world. Being warm and being honest about people
01:36and being honest about actually what the, how do we achieve our purpose, I think that's fine.
01:42And I don't see them as being in any way in conflict.
01:45You've talked about a different world. I mean, it seems to me anyway that there is a culture shift
01:52from Julie Bishop's business orientated mentality and your public service mentality.
02:00Is that so? And can you elaborate on that?
02:04Yeah, I don't want to personalise things. I think there are different approaches and you understand
02:12what the pros and cons are of those different approaches. And you test that amongst a wide group
02:18of people. I'd say I come to this with my experience. And that is to say we can financial
02:24management really matters. I mean, I've done that. I know that transformation of an institution matters
02:30for a purpose. But ultimately, public institutions exist for a public purpose. And the purpose of the
02:37university of ANU is knowledge. And that's both in teaching and research. And knowledge is at a premium
02:45in our world. We have big technology changes, including AI. We have questions around trust of
02:52institutions. And we have a world in geopolitics and economics that's confused and dangerous.
03:00And knowledge is really valuable in that.
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