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Dr Liz Allen

@drdemography.com

5.3K followers 370 following 1.3K posts

Demographer | Demography, populations, social trends, surveys, data, methods, census. Educator, researcher. | Author ‘The Future of Us’. The original Dr Demography! @DrDemography on X and Insta

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Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · Nov 21

Hi folks, this is me. I come from a disadvantaged background including youth homelessness, teen parenthood, high school dropout, poverty & more. Education was my passport to life. Demography helped me realise I was never the problem; society is unequal & needs fixing. www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

Deviating demographics with Liz Allen - ABC listen

Dr Liz Allen is a demographer fascinated by Australia's demographic trends. But her own story is a remarkable case study in deviating from the norm

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3h

‘audited numbers do not suggest the ANU is experiencing any crisis’

‘The auditors ticked off on one set of numbers, and the senior leadership waved another set at their staff, students and community in order to justify the spending cuts they want to make’ australiainstitute.org.au/post/a-close...

A closer look at the ANU books reveals a hard truth about these job cuts

The leadership of the Australian National University (ANU) has been claiming it is in financial crisis, with the former vice-chancellor declaring the institution was living beyond its means.

australiainstitute.org.au

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3h

'There can be no end to the building of a university'

ANU must stop being complacent. The university must look to the future and build, maintaining its difference, its uniqueness as the nation’s university. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt...

The Making of The Australian National University: 1946-1996 on JSTOR

The Australian National University has always been a university with a difference. Conceived in the mid-1940s to serve Australia's post-war needs for advan...

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3h

My corporate memory - tho only 17 years - draws on knowledge and insights from colleagues that have been at the university for decades. Among the first things done in crisis is cut public-facing work in communities, aimed at giving back & driving the social licence.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3h

ANU doesn’t need a swanky Perth office (for staff counted on one hand), it needs a national vision focused on building national education & research infrastructure. This means serving esp those from disadvantaged & non-traditional backgrounds. Serving not just the privileged.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3h

The ANU has lost its way, it ‘…has forgotten its past; or more precisely,…its corporate memory has been receding…’ And with that comes dunderhead decisions and cack-handed actions that have undermined the institution, especially since the pandemic. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt...

ANU THE world university rankings. Major slide for ANU around 2020.

Reposted by Dr Liz Allen

B Jarosz @datageekb.bsky.social · 1d

What could possibly go wrong...?

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

Who are university senior officials ultimately accountable and responsible to? Who holds university officials to account?

Current governance structures are inadequate.

I call on Jason Clare, and his state/territory counterparts, to close loopholes that allow governance dysfunction.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

University governance is broken, and it’s breaking people.

University governance and associated regulatory structures assume the most powerful senior office holders will behave in accordance with the high standards benefiting their station.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

Members of uni governing bodies don’t know what they don’t know. They rarely have skin in the game, and operate in a bubble far removed from the realities of university life. Uni governing bodies rely on information carefully curated and presented by via senior officials.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

Broken university governance is holding higher education back in Australia. Where wrongdoing occurs, who or where do staff go? Who’s holding officials to account?

Uni governing bodies have proven incapable of doing the right thing.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

When (or IF) senior officials behave in accordance with their privileged station, the system works. What happens when the senior most officials in universities fail to conduct themselves properly and adhere to good governance?

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

Current university safeguards assume senior officials will behave with integrity and propriety.

And place the community above themselves.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

University staff and students – the community – pay the ultimate price for bad behaviour of those at the top, which appears systematic. Senior officials appear to get away with gross dysfunction.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

University workers must adhere to sector and workplace standards, and we’re closely monitored to ensure that. Frankly, few dare compromise; it’s after all our business, our reputation and the reputation of the sector that’s on the line when staff behave poorly.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

There’s an assumption senior university officials will be exemplars of good behaviour. Leaders are paid big money; with positions bestowing great prestige, privilege, power & respect.

Reality is senior university officials operate largely unchecked, without adequate safeguards.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

University governance is broken, and it’s breaking people.

University governance and associated regulatory structures assume the most powerful senior office holders will behave in accordance with the high standards benefiting their station.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 1d

‘Absolute shemozzle’
citynews.com.au/2025/absolut...

'Absolute shemozzle': embattled ANU head faces probe | Canberra CityNews

Foreign minister-turned-chancellor of the ANU Julie Bishop has faced senators to discuss governance issues that have plagued the institution.

citynews.com.au

Reposted by Dr Liz Allen

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 1d

If there ever was a single tweet demonstrating how families radicalize successive generations, this would be it

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 1d

There is no need to editorialize. Just quote.

“Why don’t we tattoo a Star of David on the forehead of every terrorist we have to release?” - My daughter

Proud father.

Reposted by Dr Liz Allen

kcarruthers @kcar.me · 2d

lol I actually used the phrase “Let’s delight our customers not Deloitte them” earlier today

Deloitte refunds Australian government over AI in report

: Big Four consultancy billed Canberra top dollar, only for investigators to find bits written by a chatbot

www.theregister.com

Reposted by Dr Liz Allen

Mark Pendleton @markpendleton.bsky.social · 2d

Brilliant news out of ANU. We are watching in admiration for all you’ve achieved in pushing back collectively at management’s attempts at destruction. Lots of lessons for us in #ukhe and @ucu.org.uk

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3d

#Breaking | ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences will not face structural changes at this time. No renaming, merging, or disestablishment of areas. Change management appears to have been halted, even walked back completely. It’s unclear the impacts of this announcement on the school of music.

Reposted by Dr Liz Allen

Matt Ryan @mattdjryan.bsky.social · 3d

This is incredible news, and shows the incredible power of collective action. The fight against the neoliberal university (my own included) goes on, but its nice to hear some good news for a change.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3d

#Breaking | ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences will not face structural changes at this time. No renaming, merging, or disestablishment of areas. Change management appears to have been halted, even walked back completely. It’s unclear the impacts of this announcement on the school of music.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3d

Fabulous news. Things should never have got to this point. ANU Council has done an appalling job overseeing terrible times at the University.

The strategic timing of this announcement one day out from senior officials appearing at Senate estimates tomorrow is not lost on me.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3d

#Breaking | ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences will not face structural changes at this time. No renaming, merging, or disestablishment of areas. Change management appears to have been halted, even walked back completely. It’s unclear the impacts of this announcement on the school of music.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3d

I’ve said it many times & I’m gonna say it again: putting wealthy folks in charge of complex problems they have no inner knowledge of is bad for everyone, especially those navigating the very problem the wealthy are tasked to fix. We get dumb policies. It’s veneer, nothing else.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3d

How does Australia fix the housing affordability crisis when ‘O’Neil’s [Housing Australia] agency…[is] an “incompetent hellhole”’?

The rich and connected are so busy looking after themselves they’re not at all interested in fixing the nation’s problems!
www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

Labor’s housing agenda in crisis amid complaints, resignations

A senior whistleblower says a slew of top executives at the agency in charge of Labor’s housing agenda quit amid claims of bad behaviour.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3d

I’d be willing to part with a kidney, maybe a slither of liver.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 3d

You know the generational bargain is corrupted when couples with kids can’t buy a first home. Maybe bigamy is the solution. Unorthodox solutions appear all we have.

Suggest new reality tv series: first homebuyers want a throuple. theconversation.com/buying-with-...

Buying with a sibling or rentvesting: some unorthodox approaches to buying a first home

While these strategies work for some people, they are not necessarily possible for most aspiring first home owners.

theconversation.com