The official Macquarie University press release.

Macquarie University’s Vice-Chancellor comments on academic’s public statements.

July 26, 2005

Professor Di Yerbury, Vice-Chancellor and President of Macquarie University, who was on an official overseas trip when Associate Professor Andrew Fraser publicly commented on African and Asian immigration to Australia, said that there had been a meeting today with Professor Fraser.

He had been planning to retire in July 2006. The University has invited him to bring this forward, and he is considering this option. He had not been sacked, as was reported yesterday.

The meeting had also been reported as trying to buy his silence. “Not so”, said Professor Yerbury. “Clearly he is seeking channels for his views to be circulated, and we do not expect that to change. That is his prerogative.

“However, we do not want his views to be identified with the policies and views of Macquarie University and the University community.

“We are a proudly multi-cultural University, with high quality students and staff originating from over 90 countries.

“Yesterday on my return from overseas I and other colleagues met with a number of leading representatives of the Sudanese community and the African Community Council in Sydney. I assured them that I personally disagreed profoundly with the views Professor Fraser has been propounding, and that the University as a whole dissociates itself from those views.

“I apologised to them both for the fact that Professor Fraser had signed his initial letter as an associate professor of Macquarie University, which doubtless gave it more weight, and for the distress and hurt caused thereby. They graciously accepted my apology.