Anthony Defraine & Tom Flanagan, Lismore
Students and staff held a spirited protest outside the Southern Cross University council meeting on May 21.
The council was initially expected to consider increasing HECS charges for 2005. Although a front-page story in the Northern Star that morning said the HECS increase was off the agenda, students remained sceptical.
The council was also expected to consider the proposed restructuring of the university's student organisations. In addition, the SCU branch of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) was demanding that the council intervene in the enterprise bargaining process following unsatisfactory negotiations with the vice-chancellor.
In response to the argument that a staff pay rise would have to be paid for by a HECS increase, the NTEU branch took a stand opposing the HECS increase, and the students' Education Action Group supported the staff demands for a pay rise. Responding with unity to attempts to divide and rule, staff and students rallied together and took their demands to the university council meeting, chanting and beating drums.
Four-hundred students and staff poured into the library and proceeded upstairs to the council meeting. After sustained chanting, Chancellor John Dowd emerged and addressed the crowd. Dowd claimed that it had never been the council's intention to raise HECS and gave an undertaking that there would be no HECS increase for 2005.
Council agreed to hear from a delegation of students regarding concerns about the control of student organisations and to hear two NTEU representatives put the case for council intervention in the enterprise bargaining process.
The student delegation demanded that any changes to the structure and control of the student organisations be put to a student referendum.
Speaking to the rally after addressing the council on behalf of staff, NTEU branch president Paul Gannon remarked that a great step forward in collaboration between staff and students had been achieved, and that the victory of the day was the empowerment of the university population.
"People got off their bums and did something, positively and peacefully and managed to achieve the outcomes they desired", Gannon said.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, May 26, 2004.
Visit the