The Australian National University let its national breastfeeding friendly workplace accreditation lapse in 2010 and six months on from a campaign by staff in 2016 the institution has not moved to regain it.
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Australian Breastfeeding Association CEO Rebecca Naylor said after making "all the right noises" late last year about re-accreditation, interest had dried up.
"From our point of view there has been no progress," she said. "We made several attempts to contact ANU but unfortunately they have not come back to us. The last contact we had was in October trying to make contact with them three or four times."
ARC future fellow Dr Julie Smith, a working academic at the university, conducted a survey last year revealing staff were expressing and feeding their children in toilet areas on campus.
The research, published this month in Breastfeeding Review, ignited a push in 2016 to bring the university in line with best practice standards and to match institutions such as the University of Canberra and the UNSW ACT campus both with current accreditation.
Dr Smith was surprised and disappointed the university hadn't followed through after talking so positively about a renewed focus on the issue months ago.
"I had been hopeful that under the present leadership at the university that things were really going to change for women," she said. "The report shows there are deep structural issues that the ANU needs to address if it wishes to be a leader. Without the ANU pursuing accreditation it is likely those structural issues will remain unaddressed."
ANU pro vice-chancellor Professor Richard Baker said "the university is not actively pursuing accreditation with the Australian Breastfeeding Association" but would not respond to questions from The Canberra Times about what factors led to the institution's change in stance.
Professor Baker's statement reiterated the university's strong commitment to ensuring the campus was family friendly.
"ANU currently has five family rooms around the campus, which provide a comfortable location for parents to nurse and care for young children," he said.
"Most recently, construction work has started on a new child care centre on campus to provide more childcare places, and access to family rooms are included in the planning processes for new building projects."
Ms Naylor said the university was a frontrunner in the 1990s creating a bold stance on breastfeeding in the workplace and had longstanding BFW accreditation.
But she feared without third party, independent evaluation there was no guarantee stated policy was translating into practice on campus.
"The most important outcome is that they are supportive of women who breastfeed and that they have all the appropriate policies and physical spaces to support that," she said.
"It is not just the physical space, it is also the policy that sits behind it and the culture that those policies and attitudes of managers drive. Accreditation considers all those things and provides assurance. It isn't just about having a family room."
