Nathan Verney
The National Party's proposed "compromise" with the Liberals on the "voluntary student unionism" (VSU) bill will weaken free speech on campus and should be opposed.
The Nationals' proposal is for a compulsory fee for services only — sports clubs and international student services and childcare, dental, welfare, computer and photocopy facilities. They are still in favour of limiting student campaigns and free speech.
Although the Nationals' VSU model is better than the original one, drawn from Western Australia where half the student guilds from public universities almost dissolved, it still leaves the fundamental problem: any form of VSU will weaken students' ability to defend their rights.
The compromise legislation will also sell funding for services short. Allowing universities to charge fees for student services but not allowing students to decide on how these services should be provided is far from ideal.
We cannot allow a university hierarchy to decide which services it wants and how much funding they receive, while the student bodies are ignored.
Since the mass-based opposition to the Vietnam War, student unions and student organisations have been the launching pads of campaigns against bad government policy on war, racism, women's and queer rights and mandatory detention of refugees, among others.
As university campuses have traditionally been a hub of activist activity and organising, often the loudest voices on social justice have been students and their unions.
It seems that the Coalition government is so worked up about student unions opposing it on the Iraq war, cuts to education funding, the incarceration of asylum seekers and attacks on queer rights, that it will do anything to silence or demobilise them.
Federal education minister Brendan Nelson put it bluntly when he said: "No student should be forced to pay a fee that supports any kind of political organisation or quasi-social organisation".
The VSU legislation is just one part of the Coalition government's attacks on publicly funded tertiary education since coming to power. The Howard government has presided over a 26% decrease in real funding per student since 1996. This has accompanied recent Higher Education Contribution Scheme fee increases of 25%, as well as the creation of full up-front fee places.
Nelson would like to privatise universities and rely on a user-pays system despite the disadvantage and access problems this would create. He knows that to do this he has to blunt political opposition to these changes and, as they will impact on university students, he has to force through VSU to limit the students' ability to protest against this and any future education attacks.
Students have to work hard to bring the broader community into the campaign to oppose VSU as it will affect all university students, not just those who are politically active.
It's critical that people know how VSU fits with other government attacks on higher education and on union rights. While many state National Party conferences have rejected parts of the Liberal's VSU bill, the Nationals are not going to be reliable allies in this campaign.
Student unions and guilds should not accept a "softened" VSU. We must use the national day of action against VSU on August 10 to fire up the campaign and make sure that access to education and free speech is made easier, not harder.
We should also be campaigning in solidarity with workers against the Howard government's industrial relations attacks, which are also designed to weaken collective organisation and limit free speech. Students can start by standing with the National Tertiary Education Union as it fights attempts to force its members on to individual contracts. Our campaign will be stronger if we join with other unions and organise mass demonstrations and protest marches against VSU as well as the new anti-worker laws.
[Nathan Verney is a member of Resistance and is active in the campaign against VSU on Curtin University in WA.]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 10, 2005.
Visit the