100 signatures reached
To: ANU Management
Fighting Against Accommodation Fee Hikes!
The ANU has sold off its on-campus accommodation and continually hiked up the prices to unaffordable levels. ANU needs to stop and provide students, with affordable, safe accommodations for students.
Why is this important?
In June this year, the ANU decided on the increase in accommodation fees for on-campus residences for 2024 as follows:
Bruce: $500 → $528
Burton & Garran: $260 → $287
Fenner: $330 → $357
Toad Hall: $265 → $282
Wamburun: $330 → $342
Wright: $470 → $497
Yukeembruk: $369 → $382
This comes in the face of years of massive hikes to accommodation fees at residences. In 2020 Fenner Hall was $295 and will be $357 in 2024. This isn’t to mention the large number of fees residents are slapped with during their time at college. Res com fees, room changeover fees, cleaning fees, bonds, and more. Residents are also faced with horrible conditions at colleges. Rat infestations, wasp nests, not enough cooking and storage space, consistently broken washing machines, just to name a few. Meanwhile, the positive experiences that residents have while in a res hall are conjured almost entirely by extremely underpaid student representatives.
In 2016, the ANU sold off on-campus accommodation to an investment company, AMP Capital for 30 years and now AMP Capital are in charge and decides how much money to charge students while they are living and studying on campus. This has led to tariff increases (yes, residents pay ‘tariffs’ not rent) that are consistently above inflation.
To top it all off, residents are forced to sign an ‘occupancy agreement’ when they move into their residence. This agreement restricts the rights residents have (such as being unable to terminate their contract fairly) and prescribes extremely punitive punishments for even the smallest of actions. Residents are extremely exploited and it's shameful the lack of duty of care the ANU has shown to students.
It’s important for students to mobilise and fight back against the ANU in this regard. With consultation with the Housing Action Collective, presidents of residential committees at halls, and ordinary students, a petition has been created to mobilise students with the following demands:
An immediate freeze on accommodation tariffs for 2024.
A commitment from the ANU to stop privatising on-campus accommodation in perpetuity.
Establishing a new occupancy agreement in consultation with students that affords students basic rights.
Increase consultation with students regarding the functions of residential colleges and increase transparency about how the university manages residential colleges.
These demands came out of the experiences of students unable to afford to live, who felt insecure about whether or not they could remain on campus, and who have received no information or transparency about how the colleges are run.