Farida Iqbal
"Voluntary student unionism" legislation (VSU) is designed to crush student organisations by ending universal student union membership.
Federal education minister Brendan Nelson is framing the VSU debate in terms of Lego clubs and sausage rolls. However this legislation, if it comes into effect, will have a devastating impact on university students. Student organisations provide vital services, such as the sexual assault resource centre that was forced to shut down under VSU at the University of Western Australia.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer students will be among the hardest hit by VSU. Most university student unions provide a "queer space" for these students. VSU places all queer spaces under attack. A pamphlet produced by the National Union of Students' queer department outlines the role of these spaces: "Student organisations and 'queer spaces' on campuses exist as a safe space for queer students to go when they are in danger of violence, attack or suicide. They provide free information and materials to help students and a place to organise against queerphobic violence or discrimination.
"Student organisations have elected sexuality/queer officers and sometimes queer support staff who can refer students to counselors or support groups. They provide information about safer sex and other queer health issues and facilitate on-campus collectives to empower queer students to challenge the numerous inequalities that exist in current society. It would be no understatement to say that student organisations safe lives."
VSU doesn't just attack queer students. It also affects the wider queer public. Student organisations have always played a critical role in the struggle for queer liberation in Australia and abroad. The first two Mardi Gras parades were organised out of Sydney University. Many of the early gay liberation groups in the 1970s, such as CAMP and the Gay Liberation Front, were student groups. In 1964, before the gay liberation movement even began in earnest after the Stonewall riots in the US, the Australian student press were already publishing articles about queer issues.
More recently, a "kiss-in" conducted by the New South Wales Queer Students Network in 2003 was crucial to the success of the campaign for an equal age of consent in that state. Queer students also played key roles in winning gay law reform campaigns in Tasmania, Western Australia and Queensland. And it was students who organised the queer blocs at the 2001 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting protests in Brisbane and the S11 blockade of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in 2000.
Students, when they are organised, have tremendous power to hold homophobic governments to account. And this is precisely the reason why student organisations are under attack. The Coalition government is threatened by students' plan to oppose its homophobic, racist, war-mongering, anti-environment, anti-refugee, anti-poor agenda. It seeks to crush student unions so it can continue to plunder the environment, lock up refugees, ban same-sex marriage, bomb Iraq and so much more. This is why everyone, not just students, should attend the rallies on April 28 for the national day of action against VSU.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 13, 2005.
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