BY KIM BULLIMORE
MELBOURNE — After much successful campaigning in New South Wales, the Indigenous Students Network has relaunched itself as a national network for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Corrie Hodson, a founding member of the ISN in NSW and its acting state convenor, told Green Left Weekly that the decision, by a December 7-8 national conference held here which was attended by 50 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from across the country, was long overdue.
She told Green Left Weekly that the ISN in her state had played a fantastic role in campaigning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights. "The establishment of a national ISN will help to play a pivotal role in the mobilisation and politicisation of indigenous students across the country," she predicted.
Delegates at the conference, which met under the theme "Which Way?", agreed that the needs of indigenous university students could not be seperated from the needs of the wider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
The conference therefore resolved that, while it would take part in campaigns for education rights, it would also focus its efforts on two campaigns external to campus: for a treaty between black and white Australia and for an end to mandatory sentencing.
Many delegates were also highly critical of the relationship between indigenous students and the National Union of Students, arguing that NUS had in the past failed to give adequate funding and support to organising efforts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. They resolved that the national ISN would remain politically autonomous of NUS but would continue to work with it on indigenous and progressive campaigns.
A second national conference will be held at the end of 2001, at which time activists will discuss in more detail the structure, policy and goals of a national indigenous students' organisation.
Any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students wanting to get involved in the ISN can contact Corrie Hodson on 0416 27087.