By Nick Fredman
There is renewed debate over the nature of the National Union of Students — whether it a useful instrument of struggle or another device for the ALP to co-opt a movement.
NUS office bearers and delegates are dominated by two factions. The main left representation comes from the Left Alliance caucus. The latter argues for using NUS for progressive ends through actively intervening in it. But other non-aligned leftists who have been involved in NUS see problems with this approach.
"The union is becoming less accessible and accountable", says Dave Sanders, a delegate from Macquarie University at the 1990 conference who worked on the organising secretariat for the 1991 conference.
"Last year the number of delegates was reduced and a motion to allow rank and file students to attend was voted down. A constant trend has been for power to be concentrated in the executive, especially the president.
"Student Council presidents are automatically delegates, adding more bureaucratic careerists. Delegates play no advocacy role at campuses but merely bolster their faction at conferences."
Sanders described the jockeying for NUS positions as "sacrificing all scruples to get positions of power. Left Alliance dumped its education policy and voted for Tony White [ALP NUS president] to get education officer. The price is alienating students. It's pointless and counterproductive compared to grassroots work."
Sanders thinks campaigns NUS runs should be supported, but "it doesn't do much to show for its multimillion budget — why actively help to build it?"
Jamie Parker, a delegate to last year's conference from Macquarie University, and now an editor of the campus paper Arena and representative on the NUS state executive, is particularly annoyed that "union bureaucrats automatically label any criticism 'anti-union'. NUS should be able to take criticism from the left and work with everyone against the real enemy."
Parker says lack of democracy springs from the absence of open discussion at conferences, decisions being made by closed caucuses and secret factional deals. "Anyone not identifying with a faction is unrepresented."
He describes the union as "a career opportunity for Young Labor, carried by the work of the left". Parker thinks it is worth using the union for funding and the production of materials for campaigns, but "it is not a union that builds campaigns or trains new activists ... but will probably leave, rather cynically, if NOLS [Labor students] don't give them a national office bearer again this year."
Tim Stewart, an observer from Newcastle University at the last conference, said the March 26 National Day of Action, to which he organised a bus load of students to attend in Sydney, showed the outcome of the deals and compromises made at the conference. "NUS office bearers categorically opposed the proposed loans scheme [to replace Austudy grants] but rank and file students saw this as only one of the continuing attacks on education ... Left Alliance and others kept the cross-campus education networks going and built the rally, but it was the Labor state president who spoke to the media and made rather unthreatening demands without even mentioning the reality of the education crisis."
Stewart mentioned NUS "campaigns" that consisted of the production of glossy posters, and concluded, "in maintaining support for NUS, Left Alliance is forced to carry the burden of organising narrow campaigns while taking the blame for a union that misrepresents students".