By Danny Fairfax and Ryan Liddell
Imagine this: you wake up in the morning and you're feeling terrible. You have a headache and a sore throat. You ask your mother if you can stay home from school and, on feeling your temperature, she agrees.
You lie in bed for a while, but the pain persists so you go down to the chemist for aspirin. You're just about to walk inside when a pair of cops demand to see your pass. You don't have one. They throw you into their paddy wagon, and drive you to your school.
If you are a high school student residing in New South Wales, this could be a reality. From the start of second term, police will have the power to escort you back to school if you do not have a "leave pass" during school hours.
The Labor premier, Bob Carr, has proposed these laws in an effort to "combat the chronic truancy" of high school students. Do not expect anything better from the Liberals: this latest scheme is just another item in the now infamous "law and order auction" by the major parties for the March state election.
The new proposal will criminalise skipping school. As Moira Rayner of the National Children's and Youth Law Centre said, forcing school students to carry passes "smacks of occupied wartime Europe".
The police will target "hot spots", such as malls, arcades and railway stations. The main aim is not to catch truants, but to intimidate young people.
Money spent on having police prowl the streets for truants would be more efficiently spent on reversing public education cuts to make schools interesting and lively centres for learning. The truancy crackdown is typical of Carr's method: pump funds into attacking the symptoms of society's problems, not the causes.
The reason students wag school in the first place is not because they are lazy bludgers, but because schools are repressive places designed to create mindless robots who obey society's authority figures.
Carr's law also has an insidious political consequence: if there is a high school walkout, similar to the anti-racism walkouts organised by Resistance last year, police could barge in and send everybody back to school. The truancy laws are thus a deliberate attempt to undermine high school students' ability to take political action.
To combat the "law and order" platforms being put forward by the major parties, Resistance member Stephanie Roper is running for the Democratic Socialists in the seat of Strathfield in the NSW election. Roper explained: "Resistance is going to launch a campaign to defeat the truancy laws. We are going to enlist thousands of young people in a pledge to defy the truancy law when it is implemented and make it unworkable.
"We are also going to call a mass truancy on one day a few weeks into term to show that high school students are willing to defend their right to organise."
Roper added: "Carr says that the Parents and Citizens Association is out of touch for opposing the new law, but he has proven that he has no idea of the real problems of society, especially in relation to young people. It is obvious that Carr's narrow mind can only envisage the glistening votes on the horizon, and that he has little concern for the well-being of young people."
Resistance will hold a rally against the truancy laws on Saturday, February 13, at the Town Hall steps in the city. The date for the mass truancy will be announced at this rally. For more information, phone 9690 1977.