Senator Sarah Henderson – Estimates questions to the ANU regarding Jewish student safety

June 6, 2024

I refer to a letter from the Australian Union of Jewish Students dated 1 May—these are students at ANU—and I think there is this overwhelming despair that, despite perhaps all good intentions, the pleas for action, the pleas for safety by Jewish students are not being heard, and, even if they are being heard, there is no action. As part of that, I have been provided—I’m sorry, I don’t have multiple copies but I can distribute it to you to look at—a sign at the encampment.

Senator HENDERSON: I will endeavour to be as brief as I can. Did you receive a copy of a letter from TEQSA dated 10 May 2024 seeking a whole lot of information, asking you to report fortnightly, and are you able to provide a copy of your response or responses?

Prof. Venville : We can.

Senator HENDERSON: Thank you. If you could table that, it would be appreciated.

Prof. Venville : I don’t have a copy of our response right here, but we can provide that.

Senator HENDERSON: If you could provide that on notice, I would be really grateful.

Have you referred any matters to the Human Rights Commission for breach of the Racial Discrimination Act?

Prof. Bell : Senator—Tony, this is also one for you—the provisions of the Human Rights Act are for individuals to report themselves.

Senator HENDERSON: They are. Yes, I realise that. But I thought that maybe, on behalf of a student?

Prof. Bell : No.

Senator HENDERSON: Are you aware of any matters that have been referred to the Human Rights Commission?

Prof. Bell : I imagine I wouldn’t be, in so far as they are individual decisions.

Senator HENDERSON: Is the university facing any legal action or threats of legal action?

Prof. Bell : Senator, you may need to be more specific.

Senator HENDERSON: There has been an announcement by a law firm of a class action that is intended to be taken against the University of Sydney and others. I wondered whether you are caught up in that class action.

Prof. Bell : To the best of my knowledge, as of this morning, not yet, Senator.

Senator HENDERSON: I refer to a letter from the Australian Union of Jewish Students dated 1 May—these are students at ANU—and I think there is this overwhelming despair that, despite perhaps all good intentions, the pleas for action, the pleas for safety by Jewish students are not being heard, and, even if they are being heard, there is no action. As part of that, I have been provided—I’m sorry, I don’t have multiple copies but I can distribute it to you to look at—a sign at the encampment. The photograph was taken on 1 May, clearly stating ‘from the river to the sea’. And there is another photograph taken on 30 April, and this was reported to ANU security. It was taken at the encampment and there was no action taken according to the students who raised this with me, and this has, ‘intifada intifada’ in very big signs. I also refer to a meeting between Jewish students and yourself, Vice-Chancellor. I believe, Professor Venville, you were also at this meeting on 16 May, and I am just looking at some notes of that meeting. Those notes say, ‘We asked for the VC to draw up a red line on the use of “from the river to the sea” and “intifada”, explaining what “intifada” means. We also asked ANU to take action where that is crossed. Grady told us that they won’t do so because that would only inflame things and provoke more people to chant “intifada.”‘ There seems to be a lot of contradictory positions on the university’s position on the use of these slogans, because, as I’ve already said, this is causing enormous distress.

Prof. Bell : Thank you, Senator, for both the commentary and the question. We all share the same concern about our students and our student wellbeing and safety. We have some of our students in the room today and I am glad you got to invite them here, and I got to discover that my parliamentary pass lets me sign them in. It was a nice moment for all of us.

Senator HENDERSON: Just for the record, we did not specifically invite anyone in, but we certainly have been talking with students who indicated they wanted to be here.

Prof. Bell : Well, we are excited that they are here too, because it is a nice and important thing to get to see how democracy functions in these kinds of moments, right? I think that for all of us it has been an ongoing challenge as we manage the university. We care tremendously about our students and our student community. We care about the wellbeing of all of our staff and students. We have a set of policy instruments in our academic freedom policies and in our student code of conduct and our disciplinary proceedings and working between those things is always hugely important. Academic freedom and freedom of speech are not absolute. They are moderated by Australian law and by codes of conduct, at least for us inside our university. At this moment in time, Australian law does not regard ‘global intifada’ and ‘from the river to sea’ as hate speech. In our university we have continued to argue that they are hurtful. We have asked our student organisations and students at various moments in time to take down signs that say those things. For the most part, students have complied with that. We have, where we can, using our code of conduct where there have been clear breaches of that, initiated disciplinary proceedings. And, as I mentioned, Senator, we have had 10 of those, with two exclusions and multiple cases still being worked through. That is just to say that we are taking action.

Senator HENDERSON: I am very concerned to hear that you don’t consider that ‘intifada’ and ‘from the river to the sea’ should automatically attract sanctions. I understand there have been various views expressed tonight, but this is a real line in the sand and, when that is crossed, it is causing enormous distress—not just hurt; distress to the core of their soul, because what they are saying, Vice-Chancellor is, ‘I do not belong here. I do not feel part of this community. I do not feel I am being supported, and I want to be part of the ANU community and feel supported.’ So is it possible that you might review your position in relation to the use of these slogans?

Prof. Bell : We continue to work with our academic freedom policies and our code of conduct and our disciplinary proceedings and we have taken action repeatedly in the last nine months.

Senator HENDERSON: Let’s not forget that the Prime Minister said that the word ‘intifada’ was a terrorist slogan, a very hateful phrase. Vice-Chancellor, can I just quickly raise concerns about the ANU Students Association. They are running a very aggressive pro-Palestinian campaign, obviously using lots of materials and resources to run that campaign. Deep concerns have been raised that they are not there to represent all students. Have you taken any action in relation to the current activities of the student association?

Prof. Bell : As you know, Senator, the ANU Students’ Association, otherwise known as ANUSA, is the peak representative for all students at the ANU currently. It is an independent organisation. It is guided by a constitution and it has responsibilities to uphold governance and compliance. The ANUSA president sits on council, and it has a charter and a series of ways of being. All of that said, on 8 May ANUSA held an online AGM as part of their constitutional requirements. We didn’t facilitate that or have anything to do with it. They are held and conducted by the student organisation.

Senator HENDERSON: This is the online meeting where the two students participated in performing the Nazi salute, allegedly.

Prof. Bell : Indeed, and we were incredibly concerned about that meeting and what happened in it. That meeting, as you might be aware, went on for a little while that evening, and, within three hours of the next day starting, my Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) had brought the ANUSA president to her office to ask for clarification about what had gone on and about why this had been the kind of meeting that it had been. We raised a series of concerns about the validity of that meeting, about the way the students had behaved in that meeting and about issues about the way ANUSA was enacting itself. We sent a formal note or letter to ANUSA on 14 May to basically ask them to show cause as to how they were functioning, and we are now in receipt of their first response to that, but we are working through it to get to a different kind of outcome.

Senator HENDERSON: Thanks, Vice-Chancellor. If those letters could be provided on notice, I would be grateful. My final question is in relation to the position of the chancellors. There was a communique from chancellors where they did not directly condemn anti-Semitism that attracted a lot of publicity. I’m not suggesting that was the position of every chancellor, but were you consulted in relation to that communique and does that concern you, because obviously that reflected very poorly on universities right across the country?

Prof. Bell : I’m sure you can appreciate that I can’t comment on or determine what was in the heart of my own chancellor, but I am willing to take that question on notice for her.

Senator HENDERSON: Thank you very much for your time this evening. We are most grateful.

Link to Parliamentary Hansard