Sydney University protest turns ugly

Police clashing with a student at the Darlington Centre,
 Sydney University.

A rally at one of Sydney's most prestigious universities has wound up with three arrests, one officer with a broken arm and protesters' claims that police "brutally attacked" students.

Hundreds of staff and students at the University of Sydney marched to the uni's senate building today to protest against job cuts to academic staff.

Protesters have hailed the march a success, saying they managed to block the services building of the university after the senate meeting was moved there.

"We moved to here and successfully stopped the senate from meeting," protester and political economy student Ben Dharmendra said.

But university official said those protesters were "totally misinformed", adding that the senate met this afternoon and the protest "hasn't disrupted the meeting".

He said the meeting of the senate, the university's governing body, was routine and just happened to coincide with today's announcement of 23 more offers of voluntary redundancy.


Police have confirmed a female officer suffered a fractured arm in the protests and was taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Three people were arrested in the protests but all were later released without charge.

Mr Dharmendra said the students acted peacefully towards the police.

"The violence all came from the police," he said.

"They have broken one person's arm and brutally attacked people."

A video has emerged on Facebook showing police dragging protesters away from the university's Darlington Centre.

The footage shows protesters throwing objects at the police, as one man is escorted by four officers, one of them grabbing the man's neck.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) said it had organised a rally with students and staff that concluded at 2pm (AEST).

NTEU University of Sydney branch president Michael Thomson described the rally as "big" and "loud" and said the protesters had marched to the university's senate building.

He told Macquarie Radio that some students had continued on with the protest after NTEU staff had left.

Education Action Group spokeswoman Freya Bundey said the protest was going well until the students tried to have "a peaceful occupation and sit-in".

"The police brutally broke that up. A number of students have been quite hurt," Ms Bundey said.

"So because of that the students have actually been sieging the senate building and not letting senators in at the moment," she said during the protest.

The university says it has offered 110 teachers voluntary redundancy or teaching focused roles.

It says the offers are the "end of the process" for cuts to academic staff but "the university will have to make other savings in other areas".

The remaining students marched from the services building near Darling Street to the main part of the university and the protest began winding down around 5pm (AEST).

(AAP)