Julie Bishop defends cost of building Perth office, claims it’s raised $10m for Australian National University

Australian National University Chancellor Julie Bishop has defended the “astronomical” cost of her office built in Perth claiming it has helped raise over $10 million locally for the prestigious Canberra institution.

At a Senate estimates hearing late on Friday, the embattled ANU boss fielded questions about her personal travel expenses including the $800,000 cost of establishing an office in her home town, while the university faces massive staff cuts.

“When I was asked to consider being the Chancellor of ANU in 2019, a vision was presented to me that the ANU wanted to be a truly national university – that is east coast and west coast, that it didn’t want to be just in name,” Ms Bishop told the committee.

“When I was appointed Chancellor I was provided with a travel budget with the expectation that I would represent the ANU not only across Australia but overseas.

“And a significant part of my role, presumably because of my experience as a former foreign minister was to build international networks and relationships for ANU particularly with global philanthropic foundations.”

Under questioning from Labor Senator Tony Sheldon, the former Deputy Liberal said the costs of setting up her Perth office were “astronomical” because of complications caused by the COVID lockdown in Western Australia.

“Since the Perth office has been open, through my personal connections with the Perth philanthropic community which would not have occurred had we not had an office in Perth, we’ve raised over 10 million dollars in donations.”

“It’s not the Chancellor’s office, it’s the ANU office and academics and students and alumni, National Security College use it – so I think a $10 million support from the philanthropic community in Western Australia is a good return on investment”.

Ms Bishop also revealed that opening the Perth office was considered “strategically advantageous” to attracting more international students and had been originally contingent on an existing ANU office in Melbourne closing.

“In 2019 when we were operating a surplus there was great enthusiasm about a national university that had a base in the Indian Ocean city of Perth and the connections that the Western Australia state had with China, India and the Indian Ocean,” Ms Bishop argued.

Last month Julie Bishop rejected calls to resign as Chancellor after the Vice Chancellor Genevieve Bell stood down from her $1-million-a-year job over her handling of a $200 million savings drive involving mass redundancies at ANU.

At the time the former Liberal MP also declined to say whether sexism or gender had contributed to the resignation of Professor Bell, who was the ANU’s first female vice-chancellor.