A message from ACTU Secretary @sallymcmanus.bsky.social for NTEU members at MQ! We support all union activists and will advocate against these redundancies. Join us to fight for what’s right: nteu.au/join @damiencahill.bsky.social

✅ The independent Australian Census on Staff Wellbeing is now live. This survey is: 🟣 Independent 🟣 Confidential 🟣 Takes 5-6 mins This is for all university staff - help make our workplaces safer today: nteu.info/census

While Twitter might still drive policy in the US, it doesn't in Australia. But neither's Bluesky or LinkedIn. We've lost a social platform that drives discourse, brings new thinkers to public prominance and connects policymakers and journalists with people with ideas outside our stale institutions.

I wrote to Tony Burke about the closure of Meanjin, and finally received a reply from the office of Jason Clare, who had been forwarded the message because it was an issue for higher education, rather than the arts (!). This is a wholly embarrassing and inadequate buck pass and response.

Gold. “put every university decision-maker responsible for the ongoing, farcical fatcattery in Australian higher education to the figurative sword. It’s in the national interest for the sector to be reformed, and heads to roll”

Australian universities are a shit show and university managements who listen to corporate consultancy grifters are to blame. My latest in the @theguardian.com. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“ACU’s vice-chancellor was handed a $60,000 pay rise last year, taking his salary to $1.1 million. So while he is happy to pocket a 5.8 per cent pay rise, staff are being offered 2.5 per cent.” -NTEU General Secretary Dr Damien Cahill @damiencahill.bsky.social Read more: nteu.info/acustrike

New #book by TASA member Benjamin Hanckel et al. Researching with Young People: An Introduction to Youth-Centred Research Methods www.bloomsbury.com/uk/researchi...

**2 PhD Opps.** Led by TASA members Anita Harris and Loretta Baldassar Transnationally mobile youth and their transitions to adulthood Apps close October 24th For details, visit www.deakin.edu.au/study/fees-a...

Please sign. Help us get to 3000 signatures

📰BREAKING📰 SafeWork NSW has stepped in to force Macquarie University to make work health and safety improvements to their consultation on proposed workplace changes. Thanks to NTEU members at MQ who spoke out about the harm of workplace changes to staff mental health and wellbeing.

Finally, if you work, study or care about the university sector, write to the Minister Jason Clare, write to chair of the Inquiry Senator Marielle Smith and urge them to act. www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and...

open.spotify.com/episode/1OPE... In this week's DS episode @jennaprice.bsky.social, Sinclair Davidson, Mark and I discuss the governance crisis in the Australian University sector. It is telling when folk from across the political spectrum agree on the problem and most of the solution A thread🧵

✨️Restructures!✨️

University restructures often follow a similar playbook. If restructures are based on UniForum data, then its blind spots and biases may be hardwiring a flawed, one-size-fits-all model of governance across the sector — a model that undermines educational quality and institutional diversity.

this is a very sharp piece on why it makes no sense to run universities as if they are businesses. They're not businesses. www.afr.com/work-and-car...

‘The philosopher Judith Butler and the Middle East historian Ussama Makdisi are perhaps the only two notified people who have spoken publicly about the email they received. Butler sees the silence of the others as a sign of fear.’ @mashagessen.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...

Private consultants are taking control of how public universities are evaluated and run. My submission to the Senate university governance inquiry raises concerns about the impact of Nous Group and their dodgy UniForum data on our universities. www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStor... A thread

Schubert's Productivity - remastered from an old joke bsky.app/profile/prof...

The next part in my series on the hideous mess in Australian universities. I'm in despair. www.smh.com.au/national/uni...

I interviewed historian @emmashortis.bsky.social on the particulars of American fascism, comparisons with Nazism, the global crisis of democracy, and Australia's options. None of this is particularly cheery stuff, but you might find some clarity in it. youtu.be/MM6cXjTBJ0U?...

More top #highered reporting ⁦‪from Julie Hare AFR. www.afr.com/policy/healt...

1/At Macquarie Uni we are losing 50% of our units in my faculty. This is on top of cuts in 2020. We estimate by next year my faculty will be teaching 80% fewer subjects than pre Covid. Disciplines being cut do not have declining enrolments. @jennaprice.bsky.social @michaelwestbiz.bsky.social

'Opaque, conflicted, overpaid' uni governance' is way too polite.

@jennaprice.bsky.social is on the money with this article On rife bullying in our universities: “This has led to a climate of fear where academics see terrible decisions being made to curriculum but have no power to speak up for fear of reprisals.” www.smh.com.au/national/uni...

There is still much to be done to fix university governance but nonetheless a huge win for the thousands of NTEU members who have campaigned tirelessly to build better unis. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

Here's our latest statement on the German Sociological Association's (@dgsoziologie.bsky.social) objection to the suspension of Israeli Sociological Society’s (ISS) membership in the International Sociological Association (ISA) drive.proton.me/urls/WCCB71P...

Please help us save the discipline of sociology at Macquarie University www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/sa...

Slovenia becomes the first EU country to ban all arms trade with Israel, calling it a “duty” to respond to the denial of aid into Gaza and pledging further measures against Israel in the coming weeks. 🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/jaafpx

Sign this petition to demand the NSW govt Allow the March for Humanity over Sydney Harbour Bridge to go ahead : www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/al...

Thank you TASA for your solidarity. I cannot comprehend this act of vandalism. Sociology was one of the founding disciplines at Macquarie. Imagine a BA without a Sociology major? We teach and research across the most pressing social issues of our time. Our enrolments tripled this year.

APSA is deeply concerned about the proposed cuts to Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University. Our letter to university leadership outlines the discipline’s outstanding research, strong teaching record, and impact. 📄 Read the full letter here: auspsa.org.au/job-alert/ap....

Macquarie University is planning to make 50-60 academic staff redundant across Arts + Science & Engineering in coming months. Justification? It can't be money. The University just reported a tiny deficit (literally a rounding error) and strong cash flows See here: www.mq.edu.au/about/about-...

Record union meeting at Macquarie today - currently 336 staff in the meeting and rising. NTEU Branch President, Nick Harrigan speaking - "staff have to save this University from its own Management"

Solidarity to our colleagues & friends at ANU from Macquarie! Your fight is our fight. Australian National University announces first round of job cuts as part of effort to turn around financial issues - ABC News www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06...

University of Technology Sydney asked KPMG to analyse researchers by income generated and produce a master Excel list of productivity at the individual level as part of its $360m restructure. The EBA might have something to say about that. Revealing docs. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/educati...

You may remember this (extraordinary) story I reported back in February. The ANAO audit has just been tabled and it is scathing of Health department. Procurement rules were not followed. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/2025/02...

The Australian National University says it will refer VC Genevieve Bell's LinkedIn account to authorities for investigation after I told them it had liked some posts about how Julie Bishop is a CCP-backed dictator enabler and conspiracy theories about Fauci. www.linkedin.com/posts/austra...

Colonial extraction and unequal exchange have shaped two centuries of North-South inequality. A thread on the new study written with @gatonievas.bsky.social [A thread 1/8🧵]

'Acclaimed' public figures keep shilling for Israel's genocide. They must be outed open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

A violation of sacred space and freedom to worship www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

In the UK they are now going after Quakers in their place of worship for meeting to talk about Gaza and the climate crisis. Yes, we have reached peak dystopia. The Quakers recording Clerk said "no-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory.."

Our vice chancellors need to stand up to these wannabe Trumpian fascists. We need to pressure our university leaders to be brave and stand absolutely firm on principles of free speech, academic freedom and artistic freedom. These are red lines and without them our society is at risk.

In the past 3 days, the Musk-Trump-Vance administration: –Hosted Netanyahu, who faces an international arrest warrant –Endorsed ethnic cleansing & occupying Gaza –Sanctioned the International Criminal Court for pursuing Israeli leaders –Approved $7.41 billion arms sales to Israel

"Anyone who has studied science under the Nazis...cannot fail to be dismayed and alarmed at the parallels in the response so far of scientific institutions and academies to the purges and abuses of power following Trump’s executive orders" 🧪 #scicomm www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/scie...

Please sign this letter in support of Palestinian academic Dr Randa Abdel Fattah. The attacks on her are also attacks on our basic rights to academic freedom

rOaAaAwWwRrRr Be careful folks, the circus is coming to town 🎪🤡 You'll never believe what local clown school / racist gang, the Lions of Zion (meow), lead by their PTSD afflicted, unhinged, main character syndrome suffering leader Yaacov Travitz are planning on counter protesting...

A British Jewish writer with a book out on how antisemitism became such a battleground issue, I was not invited to speak at Jewish Book Week. A wider point here (fortunately, I'm invited to speak at many other book events) about the political gatekeeping of this festival