Sandra Harding will brief the community on the state of the university’s finances today and what she wants to do about them

The VC is expected to propose savings to deal with a $40m deficit. Apart from reductions in non-staff outlays there are three ways to pursue them. Make cuts to staff remuneration within the terms of the university enterprise agreement.

With union support, put variations to the agreement, probably including a freeze on scheduled pay rises and temporary reductions in staff conditions to a staff vote.  Deals done on this basis generally include commitments to use the cuts to save jobs.

Or management could go it alone and put proposals to staff  which unions oppose.