Directions for the student movement
In the final of a three-part series on the student movement, MARINA CAMERON talked to four activists currently involved in the campaign against the Liberals' education cuts. PHIL HAROLD is a member of Left Alliance at Murdoch University and the National Union of Students national education committee. SARAH LANTZ is NUS national women's officer and a member of Non-Aligned Left. JOHN NOLAN-NEYLAN is president of NUS NSW and a member of Non-Aligned Left. SARAH STEPHEN is a member of Resistance and an NUS delegate from the University of Tasmania.
Question: What is your assessment of the current state of the campaign?
SL: To isolate the education campaign as a single attack by the Coalition government is a fallacy, as it does not exist outside other attacks on such groups as the unemployed, indigenous Australians, women, workers and immigrants. The campaign must be exploring other oppressions, as they are part of the same big picture.
Whilst the politicisation of students has significantly increased, the campaign on campuses can only continue if more students become actively involved in the decision-making processes and take on active organising roles. The campaign has succeeded in exposing attacks on education as within the ideological framework of the current government: "user-pays" principles and economic rationalism.
PH: Out of all the groups that are being cut by the Liberals, students have been the most successful in attracting attention to themselves. Once the alliance between students, academics and the vice-chancellors began to splinter and the VCs showed themselves more willing to sell out, the campaign lost some of its momentum.
VSU [voluntary student unionism legislation] is a big concern. In WA, student organisations have become almost purely service providers which as a sideline represent students. The people who are being elected to organisations now don't believe that they can attract members on a strong unionist line. Instead they just offer discounts, bands and cheap beer. Without strong student unions and representation, it is going to be harder to defeat the cuts.
SS: One of the most positive aspects has been the united stance and action by tertiary students, academic and general staff, TAFE students in many cities and high school students (who sometimes made up more than half the rallies). The last few years of student mobilisations have generally been sporadic and short-lived; this is a hangover of the demoralisation and loss of basic activist skills created by the defeatist lobbying approach of ALP-dominated movement leaderships during the '80s.
The ALP's restructuring drive resulted in a student population fairly convinced ideologically of the need to pay for their education. The central aims of the campaign need to be challenging the idea of "user pays" and organising students around this, uniting the education sector against the cuts, and uniting with other sectors of society fighting the Liberals.
The student movement has learned the hard way that neither of the major parties can be trusted. But we are still behind in building a strong left national leadership that can run a campaign independent of the interests of ALP students, which are aligned with the electoral needs of the ALP.
JN: One of the gains is that the government and VCs have not been able to cut as much as they wanted to. Education has had a high political profile and a lot of public support. Campus is starting to wind down now, but I think we need to find ways of keeping the ball rolling through December, January, February with targeted actions.
Question: What is your view of the current state of student consciousness?
PH: People will talk about "average students", and I think that is rubbish. Students and the community are quite aware of what is happening with education cuts. However, in the new era of higher education, students are often apathetic, involved in other things or just too busy thinking about a career — get into uni, get out and get a job.
Labour students have done quite well in recent student elections, which shows that with a federal Liberal government they are no longer the evil people in the world, the ones who are implementing the cuts. Labour students have been let off the hook.
SS: The political vacuum created when the Labor party shanghaied the student movement in the '80s and then sat on development of any real campaigns has meant a decline in the profile and left-wing understanding of education issues. But there is also a surprising openness to left ideas amongst many students when they come across them. These are the people we should be looking for, winning over and using to build the left's strength.
JN: We've had bigger demonstrations this year, and that shows an increase in awareness, but we also have a long way to go. The percentage of student involvement is still pretty poor. We need to continue to pitch our message at a number of different levels. Sometimes those who have been involved in a campaign get carried away and fail to get their message across in a way that students coming in at a ground level can understand. I think we need to look at more teach-ins to inform and educate students: stopping the university for an hour to just talk about the issues.
Question: What do you see as the major sources of debate in the campaign?
PH: The major debate is really between those right-wing leaning students and the left around whether to be activists campaigning to bring about change and awareness, or whether we should lobby politicians or university administrations instead.
JN: We need to take our strategy to students and convince them to get involved, rather than just a few people in the cross-campus organising group sitting down and saying this is our campaign and this is what everyone else is going to do. People need information about what is happening, but also why and what our goals are. Then people can see how they can fit in and how to contribute to making a difference.
SS: In the last few years the left have consolidated around specific demands, such as free education. But there is still confusion or a lack of thinking about how to get there. The biggest area of misunderstanding is the need to, and exactly how to, challenge the ALP. Particularly since the election of the Liberals, we should be prepared to work with any Labor students around particular issues, but we should make sure that the history of the ALP in government is never forgotten or glossed over. We should never let them take credit where it isn't due. And we should make sure that we publicise it far and wide if they stuff over the campaign in some way.
Despite the fact that Labor students hobbled or sat on the campaign this year on many campuses where they control the student unions, they were returned to office in recent elections. Ironically, the ALP in some cases ran on the education issue better than the left. Many left tickets failed to run clear political campaigns linked to the education campaign and aimed primarily at involving more students. There is still too much focus on winning positions over what politics is put forward. Only on the basis of politics and mobilising more students can the left win leadership of student unions and NUS. It is not enough just to have "good" people elected.
Question: There is often an accusation that the student movement focuses too much on opposing things and not putting forward any "vision". How important do you think this is?
PH: The student movement needs to oppose things done by state and federal governments and university administrations. But the national union always has, and student organisations always have, put forward another vision: a free, publicly funded, accessible and quality education system. That is not just rhetoric.
SL: We must break down the perception that the student movement are defending "ivory tower" education. I think Bell Hooks provided a clear vision when she said, "We must envisage the university as a site for critical consciousness, where we can have a pedagogy of liberation". We need an accessible, well-funded education system democratically controlled by students, staff and the community. We must reach out and inform others as to the immense value to society of a higher education system which is able to redress inequalities rather than playing its traditional role of perpetuating privilege.
SS: We need to get more concrete about alternatives, make them more real for people. In New Zealand the Alliance ran in recent elections on a platform of student financial assistance paid at the level of the unemployment benefit in 1991 without means-testing, the repeal of all university fees, the formation of student-staff councils to investigate education quality and funding, and for education to be funded through a financial transactions tax, an increase in corporate taxation and a progressive increase in tax in the top income brackets.
Resistance is proposing that NUS tour an activist from New Zealand next year, or a French activist, given the positive example that French students have set in organising massive demonstrations against education cuts and on other issues.
JN: I don't think that there should be a definitive student position. We can make some general points, but we haven't had that debate within the movement yet. Clearly, the majority agree on a fully funded public education system, but we need to debate through the alternative policy options. For example, the whole relationship between high schools, TAFEs and universities is one thing that needs more discussion.
My personal position is that TER scores are a ridiculous way of determining entrance. It is skewed towards the wealthy, private schools. I think NUS as a union should not just focus on high school students as they reach the gateway of higher education. We need to find ways of going into schools; listening and supporting students in their action is an important part of improving access to higher education.
Question: How well do you think NUS has responded to the Liberals' attacks on education, and what is your view of the role left activists can play within NUS?
PH: As a national organisation, NUS has been effective in creating a response to the budget, putting in submissions and holding national days of action, supplying information to grassroots organisation. But, nothing that NUS can do will be successful unless it is supported by student organisations on the ground.
SS: NUS has responded better this year than in many previous years. It makes a difference having a Liberal government. Resistance changed our position on participating within NUS this year. We see that there is the space now for left activists to fight within NUS, but always with an understanding of the ALP's control of NUS. A truly effective union needs to be controlled by the left.
JN: The NUS response has varied from state to state. The experience in NUS NSW is that having left activists in a branch means that the campaign at a grassroots level has access to resources. A campaign always rests on the number of activists you can get involved, but left activists in the union can help direct funds to activist-based, progressive campaigns rather than into administrative expenses like excessive travel.
Question: What do you think will come out of the NUS national conference this year? What sort of outcome would you like to see in the debate around restructuring the union?
PH: Left activists within the union, and Left Alliance in particular, have been saying for many years that we need to restructure the union to be more democratic, representative, accountable. Now with VSU and a corresponding crisis of funds for NUS, everyone realises the need for restructure. From previous experience, it has been difficult to get anything out of the conference beyond a broad outline of where the union wants to go for the next year. I would hope, though, that we can go in quite strongly and put forward some quite effective ideas about what the union wants to do next year.
SL: Hopefully we will see a commitment to maintaining and increasing activist-based portfolios, funding for active campaigns, ongoing fighting funds for VSU-afflicted states and a greater decentralisation and dissemination of power within the organisation. The only way this will succeed is if students in the ALP place a perspective on the way they legitimise the economic rationalism of the ALP and participate in the erosion of education.
JN: We have to be quite explicit about the sort of campaign that we want to see next year, calling dates early so that new students are presented with a calendar of events. We know that the budget is coming down in May. We know that bills will be going through the Senate. Then we can start to look at the politics of these actions. I think the proposal for a common youth allowance is a big issue we need to take up. It impacts on young people across the board.
I am concerned about proposals to centralise the union. I believe very strongly in a decentralised structure, where there are even sub-regions within states. National office should serve as a coordinating office which ensures that the politics of the campaign is coherent, that what is said to the media and in lobbying government is clear and in line with the politics of the campaign. Stripping back on state branches will mean paper-driven campaigns and not enough people going around and talking to campuses, linking up with activists and organising people. Listening to the concerns of students, channelling this up from the campuses, through the state branch to a national level, can't be done without strong state branches.
SS: Resistance has put together a comprehensive policy on the education campaign and NUS restructuring as a serious alternative proposal, and as a contribution to discussion amongst the left about how to change and influence NUS with the eventual aim of creating a left-led, campaigning national union. We see the conference as a useful chance to promote discussions that can set the basis for more united left work and collaboration throughout the year.