By Nikki Ulasowski
To initiate discussion about what direction the No Fees campaign should take, and to exchange information about campaign experiences, the Education Action Network in Perth has initiated a national phone link-up on June 2. Arun Pradhan, a student at Curtin University and activist in the Perth Education Action Network, explained the reason for the phone link-up:
"The next stage of the campaign against fees and the federal government's user-pays education system will be crucial. The federal budget outlined up-front fees for residents who are not Australian citizens, and allowed the deregulation of postgraduate fees to continue. That means up-front fees for degrees are still on the agenda for tertiary education, and we are going to need national communication between student activists if we are going to win this campaign.
"The phone link-up will exchange information and ideas between activists around the country. In Perth, for example, the Education Action Network is seeking to broaden the campaign by building links with the Community and Public Sector Union. This union played an important role in supporting students' campaign against fees at the Australian National University in Canberra last year.
"We're also seeking to reach out to high school students, whose futures may be affected by up-front fees, and urging other community and trade union organisations to support the campaign. Students here have also participated in union activities such as May Day, as part of broadening our campaign."
One of the ideas to be discussed will be a third national day of action in August, which was proposed by ANU student activists at the May 11 march on parliament in Canberra. Sarah Stephen, general secretary of the Australian National University Students Association, said:
"At the last No Fees campaign meeting at ANU, we voted on the idea of another national day of action on August 17. Some key demands I think it should take up are the plans to charge up-front fees for students who are not Australian citizens, the attacks on Austudy contained in the budget and the continued deregulation of up-front fees for postgraduate courses.
"There is huge support from students to continue the campaign. By continuing to build the campaign and involve students we will be able to build a movement that will win."
The National Union of Students is planning to run an "enrol to vote" campaign prior to the next national day of action. Commenting on this, Stephen said, "I think it is a real concern that ALP students within NUS have been pushing for students' money to be spent on an 'enrol to vote' campaign rather than the campaign against fees. Change won't come through getting the ALP re-elected. It comes through building strong grassroots campaigns."
Other actions that Canberra is planning are a petition campaign, an education campaign around the links between illegal course fees and the need to increase funding for public education, a sacrificial burning of reading bricks to highlight illegal course fees and a 40-hour Austudy famine.
Further demonstrations against fees have been planned on Wollongong University on May 29 and in Sydney on May 30. Students from the South Australian Education Network are calling for another National No Fees Activists Conference to be held in Adelaide in September.