The university system is now two-tier. The Dawkins revolution decoupled research from teaching and commodified teaching. "Teaching-only" contracts have proliferated. Active researchers and researching has drifted out of the classroom. Academic standards are slipping. Early-career researchers have had the rungs of the career ladder knocked out. And the institutions have settled into two tiers: Melbourne and Monash alone hold $6 billion in "strategic investments" (financial capital), while the rest face constant rounds of deficit and restructuring.
Crises
A landmark national Health and Safety study into university staff wellbeing has confirmed what university workers have lived — not least in their mental health injuries! — for years. The 2025 Australian University Census on Staff Wellbeing, conducted by the University of South Australia's Psychosocial Safety Climate Global Observatory, collected responses from nearly 11,500 staff across 42 universities.
The findings are stark:
- 100% of ranked Australian universities recorded average scores indicating high or very high psychological risk. There are no safe campuses.
- 76% of university staff work in environments rated high or very high risk for psychological harm—more than double the rate in the general workforce.
- Just 18% of university staff report working in a low-risk (healthy) workplace, compared with 54% of workers nationally.
- 82% of university staff reported high or very high emotional exhaustion—nearly double the rate across the broader workforce.
- 71% of staff said they regularly work beyond their contracted or paid hours. Nearly one in three full-time staff are working 48 hours a week or more.
- Staff in this sample alone contributed an estimated $271 million a year in unpaid labour because the job can no longer be done within paid hours.
The report found that only senior executives and deans rated their workplaces as medium or low risk. Every other staff group reported high-risk conditions. At the lowest-ranked universities, more than 80%—and in some cases 90%—of staff work in environments that put their mental health at risk.
Job insecurity remains endemic. Casualisation rates in higher education are among the highest in the economy. While overall casual employment has declined slightly, there are "wild differences" between institutions—ranging from a 50% reduction at some universities to a 24% increase at others.
The Missing Bulwark Against Crises: A Strong Union
During the entire era of the Dawkins reforms, despite having a presence on every campus in the country, NTEU has never been at majority density union in the sector (i.e. more staff are not in the union than are, when we come to the bargaining table or take action).
This is all while the sector itself has 'massified', exploded in both staff numbers and student numbers; it's also while it's become the fourth largest export in the country's economy — yet governments have consistently ignored the crises or ignored the tough decisions needed to change them.
In truth, NTEU has been a minority union for so long that some NTEU members and leaders had simply given up hope that it could ever be different.
Made by Members not only believe that NTEU can be a majority density union, we are on track to achieve it.
Who are Made by Members and What Do We Stand For?
The point of Unity that draws together the Made by Members ticket is:
- Optimism;
- Planning;
- Record of results.
NTEU has never been able to wield the bargaining power it needs to address a sector in crisis, whether in the collective agreements at the worksites or in the society at large and government policy.
NTEU members will remember the sea of red shirts in the city in March: the AEU striking, ultimately for a society that values education. We need to see a sea of purple shutting down the city: NTEU members across the state out to bring an end to endless restructures, restore research funding, and to put education and knowledge before profits.
What Union Organising Means
The distinguishing feature of our ticket is our record of organising and winning campaigns.
Some people think building a union happens in offices — writing posts, crafting statements, attending meetings. It doesn't.
Real organising means walking the floors of the campuses, day in and day out. It means having hundreds of one-on-one conversations with staff who've never been asked to join. It means training delegates to have those same conversations with their colleagues.
This is the only thing that actually builds power.
We've Already Started Rebuilding
At Melbourne, Ben Kunkler devised the strategy for the 2023 Unimelb bargaining campaign. This grew the branch by 500 members, won both reductions in insecure work and a minimum research allocation for teaching focused staff. The strikes conducted at Unimelb to achieve this were the largest at the Unimelb campus — ever.
Before that, as a casual academic at UniMelb, then a member-organiser (working at both the University and for the Union) he was a key figure in the campaign to win back $72 million in stolen wages for 1000s of Unimelb staff.
More recently, at VU and then Fed University, he grew both campuses' branches to 30% density for the first time. Membership is at ten year highs at both campuses. He devised the '3-year stability guarantee' being currently fought for as a part of the 2026 Fed Uni bargain.
At Deakin, Jack Kirne led the team that defeated the only non-union ballot in Victoria — a direct assault on our right to exist. As a casual academic, he was instrumental in winning back stolen wages and securing the 40-40-20 workload standard for the Arts and Education faculty.
As Senior State Organiser, Jack has led a team of twelve organisers across multiple bargaining and industrial campaigns. We have successfully grown the union, overturning membership decline in many branches that have had static or declining membership for over a decade.
At La Trobe, Ian Woolford's efforts as branch president have doubled membership in the last year alone. At VU, Brett Woods' efforts as branch leader and now branch president helped fight back against vicious employer attacks, including major workplace restructures in 2023 and efforts to lock staff out when they took industrial action. She was a leader in the VU bargain campaign in 2024, where the branch won new controls on workload for professional and academic staff, pathways into secure work, greater research opportunities.
Together, we led the charge on wage theft campaigns that have put tens of millions of dollars back into members' pockets.
A Plan to Build a Majority Union
NTEU has been a minority union for all its existence. A higher education sector in rolling crises needs a union with real power to fix it.
In 2025, the Made by Members ticket developed a plan to get to majority power by 2030. 800 new members have joined NTEU in the last year, 8% annual growth where usually we grow by 2%, across the state.
Why We're Fundraising
There is no "big money" running these elections. Some of us are dipping into wage theft back pay to help fund the election campaign.
There are over 10,000 voters. It's important that candidates' material makes it into the members' hands so they can make an informed choice.
That costs money. A mail out to members alone costs $12,000. We need your support to get the word out there to as many members as we can.
Please donate $10.
