ANU's leadership crisis was a test of democracy. Here's what won
By Ron Levy, Laura Davy
May 14 2026 - 5:30am
The recent early resignation of Julie Bishop as chancellor of the ANU, and the resignations of many of her allies on the ANU council, is on the one hand a mark of how leadership went off the rails at the university. On the other hand, however, it's a mark of something much more positive.
Democracy worked in this case, if belatedly, as a kind of immune system to repair the damage done.
Democracy both within the university and across the wider democratic system of Australia played this role.
The ANU ultimately withstood a problematic period in its leadership - which could have hollowed out the institution - because staff, students, local and national media, regulators, and a wide and non-partisan group of members of parliament stepped up.
As scholars of democratic governance, we see what happened at the ANU as ultimately a success story - even an inspiring one - that shows how grassroots democracy can still sometimes work to restore sound governance.
By way of background, a former vice-chancellor - whom Julie Bishop had selected - initiated a program of structural change and widespread firings of staff based on contested claims about the university's apparent money woes.
From start to finish, there was a notable lack of transparency around the figures. Staff, understandably, wished to see the numbers.
Many staff were financial experts, others experts in political processes, and still others simply concerned employees of an institution they respect and even love.
In the end, academics with expertise ranging from Middle Eastern politics, to honeybee pollination, to politics and constitutional law formed a constituency that spoke up, and prevailed. This is why this saga qualifies as a success story.
The success involved one of the most effective ground-up democratic movements of recent years - which continues at other universities, like UTS, with comparable governance failures that have led to program and staff cuts based on unexplained rationales, overreliance on costly external consultants, and little to no transparency or accountability to staff, students and the broader public.
At the ANU, one of the standout features of the movement was the leadership of the ANU Governance Project, led by a senior lecturer, Jessie Moritz, and a few dozen other concerned academics.
The group helped to frame the problems at the ANU under the vice-chancellorship of Genevieve Bell. Then-chancellor Bishop noted the group's role during the extraordinary town hall last September where Bishop announced Bell's departure.
But the group did not work alone. A broader movement to fix the ANU's governance drew on local senators, other federal and territorial MPs, and the federal Minister of Education. All of them helped to amplify concerns. Media reporting was also essential - demonstrating the key, continuing roles of media in catalysing democratic change.
While the Governance Project focused on process and system design, the National Tertiary Education Union led the campaign to stop Renew ANU and called for the resignation of Bishop and all appointed council members.
Other staff and student-led initiatives focused on financial transparency, produced independent letters of no-confidence in university leadership - speaking up despite a widespread culture of fear.
It was the combination of these efforts - each independent but with the shared goal of requiring accountability, transparency, and good governance at our national university - that has led to a historic opportunity to rebuild ANU and instill governance that is nation-leading.
The project operates on principles of deliberative democracy - a growing movement in which citizens' democratic voice is elevated in policymaking, but is also informed, and carefully facilitated to involve inclusive and reciprocal reasoning. The Project held so-called "kitchen table conversations" with hundreds of staff to draw out their lived experiences in reaction of Bell's tumultuous project of restructuring and retrenchment.
From then on, nearly everything the governance project did was informed by these initial staff conversations, as the group built upon these conversations to propose specific reforms - to make sure, most of all, that the university's problems will not recur.
And this is a key point. Securing better governance in universities is not about deposing particular members of governing executives.
It is not about Julie Bishop, Genevieve Bell, or anyone else in particular. It's about ensuring democracy and deliberation have a central place in universities, which continue to be vitally important institutions for generating knowledge and educating citizens, teachers and leaders of each generation.
The governance project has formulated plans to update ANU's institutions. The plans focus on making sure that no single person or group can, by appointing friends and allies, dominate a university's governance and promote a single perspective without pushback.
If and when these reforms are adopted, ANU's internal institutions will be stronger, better informed, and more able to weather future financial and other pressures that continue to shape the higher education sector.
And, our university will be better positioned to do what we're all here for: producing public education and research for Australian society. We are less likely to need regulatory intervention because we will be able to resolve our issues internally. That is, in itself, the best answer to any concerns about regulatory overreach.
Of course, on its own, democracy is not always a complete solution to problems of governance.
Sometimes, democracy leads to divisions of such depth and ferocity that sensible policy cannot be reached.
But as mentioned, what worked at the ANU was not just democracy in its raw form, but rather deliberative democracy.
Looking ahead, the governance group now proposes deliberative institutions overtop democratic ones.
For instance, in addition to democratically elected council members, some members should be randomly assigned from the broader population - based on date of birth or other "lottocratic" methods.
This might ensure that at least some leaders are not insiders, but ordinary citizens who bring the insights of the governed into governance.
Careful deliberative facilitation of council debates - ensuring, for example, equal opportunities to speak, civil conduct and reciprocal reason giving - are ways of managing debate in more a deliberative rather than divisive key.
While other universities still struggle, ANU is nearly back from the brink.
The recent experiences of chaos and governance at the ANU have taught us about what may work to restore institutions.
Academics from around the country and the world have expressed interest in the ground-up, deliberative democratic movement that is helping to restore ANU's footing. Similar movements should become permanent parts of universities' governance over the long-term.
- Ron Levy and Laura Davy are ANU academics and members of the ANU Governance Project.