By Michael Tardif and Jorge Jorquera
On February 15 the National Executive of the National Union of Students (NUS) decided to campaign in the federal elections under the slogan "Put the Liberals last".
According to a bulletin sent to all campus presidents by NUS president Ken Fowlie, "It was the belief of the executive that the policies of the Coalition, including their stated intention to deregulate fees, abolish bulk billing access for students, take control of student money out of the hands of elected student officers are unambiguously worse than anything currently offered by the ALP".
Of course it's necessary to oppose the Coalition's plans for education. This is something else: NUS has launched an extensive campaign primarily with the aim of re-electing Labor.
Being produced are anti-Liberal posters, leaflets and even coasters advertising the effect of the GST and voluntary student unionism. The campaign has already been allocated $30,000 by the NUS executive. In addition, many ALP-dominated student councils are spending thousands for the same purpose. The campaign is not concerned about Labor's attacks on education.
Labor and NUS
Since the decline of the student campaign against the $250 higher education administration charge in 1987, the Labor government has used "round table" negotiation to slash education.
With the formation of the National Union of Students in 1987, and its continued domination by ALP students, the Labor government has been able to introduce the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), cut tertiary funding by over 12% and erode the Austudy grants system, while minimising student protest.
What's left of the free education that NUS was supposedly formed to defend? The only thing that remains is for the Liberals (or perhaps Labor) to introduce full tertiary fees.
If NUS genuinely meant to "represent" the interests of students, it would be campaigning for a political alternative to both Liberal and Labor.
NUS is not primarily interested in defending student rights, but in maintaining itself as a national "student services" bureaucracy. At the same time, NUS demobilises the student
movement by dominating its resources and claiming political leadership of it. This suits Labor fine.
NUS was formed with a view to developing an "education accord" with the Labor government, and has since worked on this basis, seeking small reforms in the framework of Labor's general program to "restructure" higher education.
Last year NUS managed to negotiate some minor changes to Austudy, but only on the basis of accepting the government's Austudy loans scheme. In this same "negotiated" way, NUS and the Labor government brought us the HECS. NUS's now infamous High Court challenge has never gone ahead, but spent tens of thousands of dollars to pre-empt the threat of militant opposition.
The Liberals, with their smash and grab tactics, won't have much use for NUS's placating role. NUS fears this most. But even the advent of a Liberal government would not guarantee a fighting NUS.
Negotiation and bargaining have become the catchcries of NUS, just as they are of the trade union bureaucracy. The old cry of "if you don't fight you lose", has been abandoned — in fact, it was never taken up. If NUS can negotiate its survival it will, just as the trade union bureaucrats have shown in NSW and increasingly in Victoria that they will work hard at reaching compromises even with the Liberals as long as they can be guaranteed "job security" for themselves.
Afraid of members
Like most trade union leaderships, NUS is afraid to mobilise its membership. This would require both the involvement of student activists through democratic structures, and a break with attempts to collaborate with the ALP. Such a course of action would threaten the very survival of the bureaucratic, pro-ALP leadership of NUS.
Even for their federal election campaign, NUS has refused to organise any nationally coordinated mass demonstrations. Such rallies, even if dominated by NUS's pro-Labor agenda, could get out of their hands. Students might start to ask about Labor's record; some might even ask about alternative candidates in the elections.
NUS prefers a sedate National Day of Action, "Chooseday" as they've unashamedly titled it, on which students will be handed leaflets about why they should vote and why they should put the Liberals last. On "Chooseday" NUS bureaucrats will be out and about, talking to the media and trying to get those swinging student voters for Labor. No actions, no protests.
Independence
The movement can be revitalised only by involving thousands of students in campaigns that squarely challenge the government. Negotiation without struggle only leads to the dead end of apologising for Labor.
While the student movement is tied to the interests of any government, including Labor, there is no hope of salvaging education and defending student interests. The student movement needs to reclaim its political independence.
NUS has taken the student movement backwards. When there was no NUS, the student movement ran its own candidates at federal elections, like the two National Free Education Coalition Senate candidates in 1987. Today the student movement is politically compromised by NUS, which uses its power base to barrack for Labor.
Rebuilding an independent student movement means refusing to compromise student campaigns to the pro-big business agenda of either the ALP or the Coalition.
If NUS stands in the way of doing this, then the only way forward for the student movement will involve breaking with NUS — campaigning for campus student unions to disaffiliate from it and to redirect the funds they give to the NUS bureaucracy to the building of an activist-based free education campaign.