BY SIMON BUTLER
BALLARAT — The 2000 National Union of Students national conference, held here from December 11-15, closed in tumult and chaos, with members of the National Broad Left, the Labor left and the Labor right factions hurling abuse, and at one point even blows, at each other.
So what's new? Ritualised, crass and apolitical posturing is one of the trademarks of the Labor factions which have run NUS since its formation in 1987.
But what has most concerned many student activists is the political degeneration and co-option of the NBL, most of whose members went along with the well-established rules of the NUS "game".
Formed in mid-1999, the NBL was a coalition of activists and left organisations which initially considered itself a left opposition within NUS, one which sought to end Labor domination of the union.
But the five day long NBL caucus which preceded the NUS conference made it clear that the NBL was no longer united behind any such goal. The caucus rejected a proposal which would have forced the left Labor faction, NOLS, to choose between dealing with the NBL or dealing with the Labor right Unity faction, thereby breaking up the NOLS-Unity alliance which has been the lynchpin of Labor dominance.
Instead, the NBL chose to accept a NOLS-Unity powersharing deal, on condition that Unity change one of its preselected candidates for office. As a result, the two Labor factions were able to increase their hold on the national union, capturing a majority of office-bearer positions.
NBL's decision not to challenge the Labor factions prompted a walkout by delegates from Resistance, which had helped to found the NBL and to set its initial anti-bureaucratic stance. The socialist youth organisation has said it will seek to form a new radical student faction, one which maintains the strategic aim of breaking, rather than accomodating to, ALP control of NUS.
The behaviour of NBL delegates at conference further illustrated how far it had gone from its initial aims: shouting down and haranguing delegates with whom they disagreed while applauding and cheering "left" delegates from NOLS, in a style no different from the antics of the Labor factions themselves.
Nikki Ulasowski, Resistance's national campus coordinator, told Green Left Weekly that the ALP's retention of control over NUS will mean the union will not be the democratic, campaigning and activist union that it should be.
According to Ulasowski, the future for left forces intervening into NUS will depend on whether an independent radical left faction can be formed that seeks to challenge ALP domination of the union. Otherwise the left will continue to prop up a bureaucratic farce, she said.