Expect Coalition attacks on students

By Natasha Simons The election of the Coalition federal government has raised fears among higher education student and staff unions. The Coalition's higher education policy statement "Quality, diversity and choice" included the threat of up-front fees for undergraduates who don't secure a Commonwealth-funded place and voluntary student unionism (VSU) legislation, which would aim to destroy students' ability to defend themselves. The new government's policy, released two weeks before polling day, is big on "equity" and "access" rhetoric but lacking in specifics. The general thrust is expanding industry links to education, primarily through an increase of $90 million in research funding; encouragement of university "initiatives" to broaden the education funding base (largely through up-front student fees); and maintaining the current, but greatly eroded, level of government funding. This is a continuation of the restructuring of education, to suit the needs of business and industry, begun by the Labor government. Thirteen years of Labor expanded the numbers in education without the corresponding expansion in funding. A decrease of 10% per student eroded academics' work conditions and led to the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and up-front fees for postgraduates and a downgrading of arts and humanities courses in favour of business and economics. The Coalition proposes to continue the trend of forcing students to pay for education, identifying the main beneficiaries of education as individual students rather than society as a whole or businesses that employ graduates. Its policy does not rule out up-front fees for undergraduates who miss out on a government-funded place. While the Coalition says this is not an issue for the moment because demand for places at universities has dropped, it will become an issue when the demand rises. In particular, there is demand above government-funded places for more popular courses. Further up-front fees are likely to rouse considerable opposition from students. Last year's campaign against up-front fees mobilised the largest number of students since the introduction of HECS in 1989. Then, student opposition to attacks on education was muted by Labor's influence in the student unions, particularly the National Union of Students (NUS). The Coalition, however, is seeking to destroy student unions altogether, so it can minimise organised student opposition to fees and other attacks on education. Voluntary student unionism legislation has already been implemented in Victoria and Western Australia and is on the drawing board of the Tasmanian Liberal government. With all states except New South Wales governed by the Liberals and Nationals, the new federal government can choose either to implement VSU state by state or introduce federal legislation, which it threatened to do in the 1993 election. The strong 1994 campaign by Victorian students against VSU, supported by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), ended abruptly when the federal Labor government promised to introduce federal funding for student unions. The problem with this "solution" is that whether a union is funded or not, and by how much, is left to the discretion of the minister for education. Under the Coalition government, this leaves the majority of Victorian student unions without money to fund their activities. This is likely to spark students once again into taking action to defend their right to organise and control their own affairs. A National Day of Action has been organised for March 28 under the banner of "Student Control of Student Affairs". A rally at Museum at 2.30pm has been planned in Melbourne, while other states have yet to decide on what action to take. The NTEU, which represents 25,000 academic and general staff, has offered its support to the student campaign. NTEU national research officer Jane Nicholls said, "The union will offer unhesitating and unwavering support to student organisations on proposals by the new government to outlaw compulsory student union membership (beyond the usual caveats for conscientious objection). The right of students to be represented at an institutional and national level is a crucial one in any democracy, and is seriously undermined by government attacks on student organisations as proposed by the Coalition." The NTEU has also voiced opposition to up-front undergraduate fees. Melbourne Resistance organiser Alison Dellit urged students to demonstrate on March 28. "The anti-student union legislation introduced by the Kennett government represents the biggest attack on student rights for decades. We need to step up the campaign to defend universal student unionism, because all students have a common interest in defending quality education and student rights against attacks, such as up-front fees, that the Coalition wants to introduce."