The University of Melbourne held its second ‘all staff town hall’ for the year on 3 June at The Spot building. The event began with an opening address from Vice Chancellor Emma Johnston, followed by a Q&A session intended to respond to questions submitted by staff via an online portal. 

Although all staff were invited to submit questions, only pre-approved ones were initially displayed for the panel of senior management to answer, which included the Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor (International) Michael Wesley. Live questions from staff in attendance eventually appeared on the portal, with a few being addressed by the panel. However, all remaining staff-submitted questions were abruptly deleted from the system shortly after. 

One question addressed to the Vice Chancellor was submitted by National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) UniMelb Branch President David Gonzalez, who raised concerns regarding ‘an atmosphere of mistrust between leadership and staff’ influenced by the University’s use of ‘tools like workstation monitoring, mobile CCTV vehicles and wifi tracking’, but Vice Chancellor Johnston denied the University had increased monitoring of staff. 

Following the event, NTEU members approached the organisers for clarification on why staff questions had been deleted but were not provided with an explanation.