By Alison Dellit
Not since the 1989 anti-HECS campaign in Melbourne, has there been a student struggle such as the "no fees campaign" at the Australian National University (ANU).
When ANU decided to impose a $5000 up-front fee for the legal workshop component of the law degree, student anger formed into organised opposition. On Thursday, September 15, a rally of 500 students marched to the Chancellery and occupied the building. The occupation lasted for eight nights before the police were called in. Over that time, some 200 students participated in the occupation.
The occupation demanded the vice chancellor oppose up-front fees and reconvene ANU Council to revoke the legal workshop fee. Meetings happened twice a day to discuss tactics to achieve these demands.
Each tactical discussion posed the issue of campaign strategy. Should the strategy of the occupation be to "disrupt" the functioning of the university, to improve the "lobbying" strength of the Student Association and the anti-fees campaign with the vice chancellor or to develop the level of "mobilisation and organisation" of students and community support?
The occupation could not have lasted so long and threatened the university's ability to impose up-front fees as it has, if it had not maintained a strategy consistently focused on consolidating student mobilisation and organisation. This laid the foundation for winning extensive trade union and community support.
At each turning point of the occupation, decisions were made on this basis. From the outset a publicity committee was set up to organise leafleting of campus and lecture speaking, and a trade union liaison committee was formed to build union support.
Negotiations with the vice chancellor were conducted on the basis of meeting the occupation's demands. Each time the negotiations were stalled, the key consideration was not keeping the ear of the vice chancellor but exposing his unwillingness to make any concessions, in order to maintain and build student support.
When the vice chancellor proposed he would ensure that the legal workshop fee issue was "raised" again at the next council meeting and stated his opposition to up-front "undergraduate" fees, the occupation replied with this motion:
"The students who have occupied the ANU Chancellery reject the [vice chancellor's] proposed 'Statement of Agreement' on the following grounds: 1. The Vice Chancellor has refused to take a stand against the ANU council decision to introduce the $5000 Legal Workshop fee. 2. While supporting the Vice Chancellor's statement against the DEET proposal for up-front undergraduate fees we do not believe that it goes far enough. Postgraduate course fees open the door to undergraduate fees. The students occupying the ANU Chancellery oppose all entry fees to higher education. We are campaigning to defend the rights of all students, and future students, at the ANU, and across the country. We resolve to maintain our occupation until our demands are met. And we, the students, put you on notice that all subsequent efforts to introduce fees will be met by a similar response. We call upon the community and all students across Australia to stand by us."
While there was some mention of occupying other buildings, to further "disrupt" the functioning of the university, such proposals did not win much support. Activists realised that while such actions might have increased the immediate disruption of the university, they would also undermine the organisational ability of the occupation to further mobilise student and community support.
By focusing on building opposition to the university's action, the student occupation was able to enlist the support of a range of trade unions — the Health and Services Union (HSU) which covers most of the university general staff, the Community and Public Service Union (CPSU), the Transport Workers Union (TWU), the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and the Trades and Labour Council (TLC).
With union endorsement, the occupation established a picket line of the university mail room. In this way the occupation was able to have a much greater impact on the normal functioning of the university and increase the pressure on the vice chancellor.
When negotiations reached a stalemate, a small minority of activists in the ANU Student Association, who maintained a perspective focused on lobbying the university, abandoned the occupation in order to pursue negotiations with the vice chancellor themselves.
The vast majority of the occupation remained. Unable to derail the student occupation by piecemeal offers, the vice chancellor chose to call in the police, breaking an official TLC picket line on the Chancellery Building.
The occupation developed a strategic orientation based, not on the good will or otherwise of the vice chancellor and University Council, but on mass action. The occupation itself became an organising focus, a tactic for developing a mass action campaign.
This has ensured that the will to fight of the activists who emerged during the occupation has not been destroyed by the closing of the occupation. In fact activists have already committed themselves to maintaining the TLC-endorsed picket line of the Chancellery.
If the student movement is to be rebuilt and the latest attacks on higher education stopped, the lessons of the ANU anti-fees campaign must be extended nationwide. Student activists need to refocus on organising mass actions, building campaign committees that involve large numbers of students and developing national campaign networks.