By Sean Healy
MELBOURNE — The La Trobe University administration has upped the stakes in long-running negotiations over funding between the administration and the La Trobe University Student Representative Council. In a letter dated August 8, the university chief accountant sent the SRC an invoice for $97,454.92 and requested payment within 14 days.
The sum covers all money spent over the past 12 months by the SRC on activities which, under Victorian voluntary student unionism (VSU) legislation, cannot be paid for out of the compulsory general services fee (GSF) on students.
The SRC has borrowed from the university to pay for such things as the student paper Rabelais, the honorariums of SRC office bearers and research officers and for various campaigning activities.
The Tertiary Education (Amendment) Act, 1994, stipulates that GSF funds can be made available to the SRC by the university only for "non-political" purposes — such as the wages of SRC staff.
Under the federal government's student organisation support (SOS) scheme, SRCs can claim funding for "political" activities from the federal Department of Education, Employment and Training, through a lengthy bureaucratic process. La Trobe SRC has yet to receive its DEET funding for 1995.
Until now, the university has allowed the SRC to use a current account facility to pay for activities covered by DEET funding, as a temporary measure until the funding came through.
The demand for repayment follows the breakdown of negotiations over a funding agreement, stipulating the forms of GSF funding in the future.
The agreement was all but finalised, and the SRC ready to sign, when the administration introduced new issues. Thesse included the publication in the SRC newspaper of an article, "The Art of Shoplifting", and the university's deliberate misconstruing of internal SRC staffing arrangements.
VSU legislation has made La Trobe SRC, and student organisations across Victoria, more vulnerable to university attempts to restrict their autonomy. This latest attempt comes only a week after extraordinary comments by La Trobe Vice Chancellor Michael Osborn on the need to avoid "unrepresentative" elements dominating the SRC.
It follows letters in recent weeks from Haddon Storey, the state minister responsible for the implementation of VSU, to all vice-chancellors, seeking to ensure that university administrations are implementing the legislation to the full. The letters particularly draw attention to membership conditions, staffing arrangements and student newspapers.
Activists at La Trobe are angered by the administration's latest attempt to bring the SRC to heel. SRC general secretary and Resistance activist Di Quin said, "Clearly, the administration is using the situation created by VSU to undermine the SRC's autonomy and independent existence.
"During the campaign against VSU, Osborn and the administration repeatedly claimed to oppose its introduction. Their actions now show what a sham this 'support' for student control of student affairs really was."
The SRC has called an extraordinary student general meeting for August 15 to discuss the issue and plan a response.