"Renew ANU" is a zombie. It is a shuffling corpse, still ambling along in the background, as headlines are dominated by the high-profile resignation of the former vice-chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell.

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The Renew ANU zombie still stumbles on, despite renewed scrutiny of the chancellor Julie Bishop.

At this stage, the Renew ANU zombie has no beating heart. It is time to bury it once and for all.

More than 100 people at the ANU are still facing the involuntary loss of their job through Renew ANU, the disastrous consultant-driven change process that has trashed the ANU's culture, reputation, and productivity.

It has also damaged people.

Renew ANU was launched on October 3, 2024 after an online staff Town Hall was called at short notice. Staff morale was already low at this point. For some months prior, the newly established recruitment approval committee (known more by its torturous acronym, the RAC) had been restricting new hires and the filling of vacancies, leading to workload issues and even concerns that researchers would not be able to fulfil the requirements of external grants.

The Town Hall was a scripted presentation without any questions and was the last time the former vice-chancellor fronted staff in this manner.

Shortly afterward, the National Tertiary Education Union estimated that the $100 million staffing reduction announced would be the equivalent to 638 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions.

In August this year, I told the Senate that the staffing reductions at the ANU - including job cuts proposed but not yet implemented, were approximately 646 FTE.

These include those not made directly through Renew ANU, as the RAC continued in the background.

As well as Renew ANU, there were vacancies not filled, fixed-term contracts not renewed, casual budgets slashed, and natural attrition as people left an increasingly toxic work environment. Our initial predictions were pretty accurate.

However, in the meantime a couple of things had shifted.

Firstly, the foundation for the cuts. Universities calculate their finances based on calendar years, and Renew ANU was based on a projected deficit of approximately $200........

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