On Thursday night, ANU chancellor Julie Bishop finally resigned. Her departure follows the resignation of vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell in September 2025. Two leaders gone, and the damage - to students, to staff, to the institution - has been immense.

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It did not have to be this way. But without reform, it will happen again.

It is easy to treat this as a story about individuals - their temperament, their judgment, their failures. Character is part of the problem. But as former vice-chancellor Ian Chubb has suggested, it is only part.

The deeper issue is institutional design. ANU's crisis is not exceptional. It reflects a structural weakness in Australian university governance.

The accountability deficit

University councils wield enormous authority while remaining largely unaccountable to the staff and students who understand and bear the consequences of their decisions.

ANU council is not merely powerful. It is also largely self-perpetuating. In normal times, council appoints the chancellor. The chancellor then presides over the processes by which other council members are selected. Only council itself can remove the chancellor. The result is a closed loop at the top of the institution. This can entrench groupthink and create a jobs-for-mates culture. A body with this much authority should not be so insulated from the university community it governs. A university council should not operate like a private club with a public balance sheet.

In a company, shareholders can hold directors to account. In a democracy, voters can remove parliaments. But universities are structurally different. They are public institutions with a........

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