Macquarie University management has proposed a radical restructure. If implemented, it will result in:

• • more than 75 job losses,
  • the loss of 70,000 hours of teaching, and
  • the effective destruction of dozens of degrees and majors

THE DETAILS.

The proposed cuts. The changes will result in likely 75 staff being sacked, and 70,000 hours of teaching cut. First-year units will be slashed. Eleven Arts majors removed from the BA. Degrees and majors in music, politics, sociology, gender studies, journalism, and electronics engineering will be dismantled or removed entirely. Many areas face near-total obliteration.

Real impacts. Staff will lose jobs. Students will lose subjects, majors, and supervisors. Local communities—from the Central Coast to Western Sydney—will lose access to a comprehensive public university. Class sizes will grow. The staff–student ratio, already the worst in Australia and one of the worst in the world, will worsen further.

No crisis justifies this. Macquarie’s budget deficit is just 0.3%—a rounding error. Teaching is profitable. Arts, for example, brings in $180 million and costs just $45 million. The problem is not teaching. The problem is a $900 million debt from executive building projects.

Governance failure. Consultation has been rushed and disingenuous. Evidence has been withheld. Union members and critics have been targeted. Some staff describe these cuts as “the human equivalent of burning books.”