2025-11-06
This morning, the Senate will debate the Higher Education Support Amendment (End Dirty Uni Partnerships) Bill 2025. This Bill requires universities to disclose and divest from any partnerships with dirty industries, including weapons manufacturers, gambling, fossil fuel and tobacco companies.
The Higher Education Support Amendment (End Dirty Uni Partnerships) Bill 2025 requires all universities receiving Commonwealth funding to:
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Disclose all links with dirty industries;
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Divest from all partnerships, investments and other monetary ties with dirty industries;
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Not enter into any new ‘prohibited partnerships’ with the weapons, fossil fuels, gambling, and tobacco industries.
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The Bill also prohibits universities from appointing to their governing bodies any individual with ties to these industries.
The Bill comes at a pertinent and challenging time, as the climate crisis escalates and fossil fuel companies record mammoth profits, and as weapons manufacturers pocket billions while people are slaughtered in their thousands by their war machines.
Earlier this year, the National Union of Students organised a referendum in which students across the country voted overwhelmingly for universities to divest from all partnerships with weapons companies, with over 5,000 students voting across roughly 20 campuses and the motion passing with 98% voting in favour. Student and staff-led movements have for years called for divestment from these dirty industries.
The National Tertiary Education Union has longstanding opposition to university investment in the development and manufacture of weapons, and earlier this year reaffirmed their call for universities to divest from military and weapons companies.
The links between universities and dirty industries are extensive, but details of the extent of these relationships are unclear. The Australia Institute’s recent Fossil-Fuelled Universities report found that 26 of Australia’s 37 public universities take money from fossil fuel companies, including Woodside, AGL and Santos. Monash University has recently announced the closure of its sustainability institute, while ramping up its partnership with climate-destroying Woodside.
Just yesterday, it was reported that ANU purchased shares in Elbit Systems, one of the key weapons companies profiting off Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as recently as March this year, while Western Sydney University has recently signed an agreement with weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
Lines attributable to Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Greens and spokesperson for Higher Education:
“Universities should be fully funded to be places of democracy, equity and public good, not places that help dirty industries profit from human misery. Having these links to dirty industries betrays this core purpose and the mission of academia.
“The audacity of ANU investing in weapons companies even under heavy scrutiny from staff and students shows their hand will have to be forced. This bill is about making sure universities have to disclose and divest from dirty industries like weapons, gambling and fossil fuels. There is no place for these industries in our universities.
“There can be no justification for universities investing in weapons manufacturers whose killing machines are enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Our universities should not be helping fossil fuel companies greenwash their climate crimes and environmental destruction.
“Universities across the country receive millions of dollars from major arms manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Thales, who are profiteering from genocide.
“The rules are so lax that we don’t even know the full extent of these dirty partnerships, which is deeply concerning given the governance issues rife in the sector.
“Universities have shamefully failed to heed the calls of the courageous staff and students who have long been calling for weapons-free and fossil-free campuses.
“Dirty money should stay out of universities. I urge the major parties to support this important Bill.”
Line attributable to James McVicar, Education Officer of the National Union of Students:
“Students have spoken. In the National Student Referendum on Palestine, we demanded an end to weapons companies on our campuses. Universities should be places of learning that contribute to making the world a better place. Instead they churn out profits for climate criminals and arms dealers.”
Line attributable to Bella Beiraghi, spokesperson for Students for Palestine:
“Over the past two years of Israel's genocide in Gaza, students have mobilised in opposition to our government and our universities ties to weapons companies. Universities function in many cases as the "brains behind the bombs", facilitating research and even manufacturing with some of the largest weapons companies in the world. Students for Palestine will continue to campaign for a weapons-free university sector.”
Line attributable to Toyo White, spokesperson for Stop Woodside Monash:
“Monash University continues to run campaigns on its supposed climate credentials and associating its image with taking action, as ‘every second counts’. But running this campaign, while dismantling a climate research institution and continuing to buddy-up with climate criminals in its Woodside partnership, is infuriating.
No public institution should be partnering with these companies. To talk about building leaders of the future, whilst assisting companies like Woodside who are destroying said future, is untenable."