Pro-Palestine protesters relocate in middle of night

"I want to personally thank the encampment participants for working with us and ACT Policing to ensure the safety of everyone in our busiest precinct on campus as well as our broader community," she said.

"ANU has also invited protestors to genuine and open dialogue about their demands, in particular ones that the University can reasonably consider.

"This includes looking at our investments as a university and our sector-leading socially responsible investment policy."

The protesters were refusing to say on Tuesday why they had changed their minds about staying at their high-visibility encampment in the heart of the campus.

In the early afternoon of Monday, they had voted to stay and defy the police and the ANU authorities. But at 11.30 that night, they packed up their tents and moved 200 metres to a less visible site but one approved by the ANU authorities.

It seems likely that some students had cold feet about being arrested. Earlier on Monday, some were heard voicing fears to each other about jeopardising their degrees and their careers. There are exams at the university this week.

"While there were individuals who were willing to be arrested if necessary, we don't want to see anyone arrested and we encourage everyone to engage with our protests in a peaceful way," a spokesperson for the protesters said.

Some harder-line students who had wanted to defy the authorities were distancing themselves from the new camp on Tuesday.

"On the night of Monday the 27th of May, the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment overwhelmingly made the decision to relocate to the end of University Avenue," spokespeople for the camp said in an emailed statement.

The Canberra Times asked for some detail about why the change of heart had happened but a spokesperson said she was not inclined to answer questions.

The ANU had called in the police to clear the camp, and on Monday the police said that the protesters had until noon on Tuesday.

The protesting students said that the argument that the lawn on which their previous encampment sat was an assembly point was bogus.

"These concerns were never raised with the encampment in a good faith dialogue," the protesters' statement said.

"Instead, the university engaged in reckless and unjustifiable intimidation tactics - university officials showed up in the early hours of the 27th of May, which is a public holiday in the ACT, with 20+ security guards, and threatened students with the AFP (Australian Federal Police) to force us to give up our right to peaceful protest."

On Tuesday morning, students, Canberra union leaders and some Greens politicians, including MLA Emma Davidson, wearing a Palestinian scarf known as a keffiyeh, held a meeting on the previous camp site.

But the new camp showed signs of a rushed relocation, with tents set up haphazardly and belongings strewn under gazebos. The mood at Tuesday morning's meeting was downbeat despite assertions that the campaign goes on.