BY PETER ROBSON
&STUART MUNCKTON
"This is what it feels like to have no access!", chanted 60 angry students as they blockaded the entrance to the Melbourne offices of the federal Department of Education, Science and Training on December 2 in response to the Senate agreeing to the second reading of education minister Brendan Nelson's amended package of higher education "reforms".
Two days later, the four "independent" senators — Brian Harradine, Shayne Murphy, Meg Lees and One Nation's Len Harris — that the government needed to get the legislation passed had caved in. The whole of the package — the most regressive education policy since the abolition of free education — was voted up with minor changes.
The Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (AVCC) had already endorsed the package and recommended that the Senate pass it. The AVCC was used by the government to add respectability to a package that has been condemned by student and staff groups.
Students have responded angrily. Dozens of students in Adelaide occupied Lees' office and student delegates in Melbourne for the National Union of Students' annual conference immediately made plans for a day-long occupation of treasurer Peter Costello's office.
The legislative package will allow universities to increase fees for undergraduate students by up to 25% and increase the number of up-front fee payers to 35% of all students. Courses will face greater government scrutiny and funding will be restricted in some cases. Students will only be able to access HECS-funded courses for seven years and regressive interest-bearing loans will be available to students who are forced to pay upfront.
In the industrial relations area, universities will be encouraged to open access to individual contracts for staff members in exchange for greater funding. This is a backdown from Nelson's original position of holding funding hostage to universities offering individual contracts but it is still an attack on the right to collectively bargain. It is an attempt to undermine the solidarity shown by university staff in their October 16 national strike.
Nelson also made a concession on when students will have to repay their HECS loans, increasing the income threshold to $35,000.
All of Nelson's concessions, bargained for by the independent senators, change nothing substantial for students.
"The class of 2005 will pay more to go to university — about $14,000 for an arts degree and up to $50,000 to train as a doctor", reported Linda Doherty in the December 6 Sydney Morning Herald. "More than a third of students could potentially be full-fee-paying students, admitted to university on lower marks. These students will be paying through the nose — perhaps $100,000 — to get a degree...
"Students will shop around for a degree. Price as well as prestige will determine choice of study. Courses that are expensive to run or have low student demand will disappear and some institutions are expected to amalgamate, even close."
The government has now moved the arena of battle to university administrations, which will now be responsible for implementing the legislation. While waging the fight at this level, the student movement must at the same time call for the immediate repeal of the legislation.
Mass demonstrations and occupations have already been planned by student activists, but unless the core of the campaign calls for the immediate repeal of the legislation, it runs the risk of being subordinated to an "elect Labor" strategy that will fail to mobilise students in the numbers necessary for victory.
What can win is a strategy aimed at politicising and mobilising as many students as possible to demand accessible higher education for all. This must be the demand of the student movement regardless of which party is in government.
[Peter Robson and Stuart Munckton are members of the national executive of the Resistance socialist youth organisation.]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, December 10, 2003.
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