“It’s really disappointing,” said ANU Students’ Association (ANUSA) president Christian Flynn.

Yesterday (21 March) ANU announced a multi-million-dollar investment to tackle sexual assault across the university community.

The media statement detailed investments in staffing ANU residences, recruiting new case managers, and their zero-tolerance policy, concluding with a point-by-point summary of all actions taken by the university to address sexual assault since 2017.

In 2017, the National Student Safety survey brought to light ANU ranking worst in sexual harassment and second worst in sexual assault across the country, a result that Mr Flynn describes as “horrific”.

ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt said, “We are building a community and a culture that prevents sexual assault and sexual harassment, that supports, cares, and provides justice for victim-survivors”.

“We have accepted, and will implement, all the recommendations of the Independent Assessor’s Report,” the Vice-Chancellor added, a similar commitment to those following the Australian Human Rights Commission Report in 2017 and the Nous Review in 2018.

According to ANUSA, one party that was not consulted in the plan was the students themselves.

“No student saw this plan before it went out, as far as the student associations are aware,” Mr Flynn said.

“The plan was obviously put together very quickly. It did not receive formal consultation from ANUSA or the women’s department.

“They had talked with us informally last week. I communicated a long list of actions that ANU should take. Notably, some of what we mentioned is here. There is no mention of where those ideas came from.

“It’s frustrating that there are lot of broad commitments without the specificity that students were asking for,” he said.

“I believe the reason ANU didn’t make time to consult us was because they wanted to launch this plan today (21 March).

“Later this week, the ANU, and all universities in Australia, will be releasing the National Student Safety Survey results. At 1.30pm, this Wednesday, all 40 universities will be releasing them.

“Why was this plan launched today, instead of on the day, or after? The university is trying to get ahead of the media and create a new narrative.”

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Anderson said in the media statement, “Under the new plan, ANU has also committed to consulting with its entire community, including student leaders, advocates, and survivors, to finalise what each major initiative will look like”.

“We cannot do this without you,” Professor Anderson said. “We are committed to learning from and working with you. Together we can make meaningful change in our own community and across all of society.”

In response to a rocky start, Mr Flynn noted that while the initiatives listed in the plan are positive, such as increasing the number of case managers and professionally trained staff in residential halls, the specifics were left out of the larger picture.

“One sentence at the end of a four-page document is not enough,” he said.

“They quoted us without discussing it in depth. That’s really disappointing because these are complex matters that we’ve provided a lot of feedback on.

“They make all these broad statements then months later, where does it go? There’s nothing here that we can hold them to.”

Professor Anderson stated, “We have a high number of students living on our campus. ANU is their home. They must feel safe and be safe in their homes.”

No one will attest to that more than Mr Flynn, who was inspired to dedicate his time at ANU to pastoral care after his experience as president of Wamburun Hall.

“On Wednesday, after all the effort and work that the ANU consistently claims to do, it will be interesting to see if there is any decline or if rates remain steady.

“I think the statistics will speak for themselves.”

Mr Flynn said that ANUSA and the ANU women’s department will be delivering a strong response and working to hold the ANU accountable over the coming days.

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