In October, MICHAEL WHITBREAD won the position of 2004 president of Newcastle University Student Association (NUSA). The Activate ticket he was part of campaigned for free, accessible education, a commitment to progressive campaigns and student control of student affairs. He spoke to Green Left Weekly's SIMON BUTLER.
What campaigns and issues do you think are shaping up to be important for NUSA, both on campus and community wide?
Fighting the huge attacks on public education by the federal Coalition government will be a very important campaign. And local campus issues like opposing the closure of the Huxley Library on Newcastle University need to be promoted. We are also keen to link up with the community activists who are determined to save the rail line to Newcastle.
We will continue to be involved in defending student rights, but this also means that we need to defend the rights of unions to organise.
A big part of this will be solidarity and building up trust with the National Tertiary Education Union. When the NTEU initiated its strike last month, members of the Activate ticket helped out with the pickets and agitated for students to support the staff.
The National Organisation of Labor Students (NOLS) offered the Activate ticket a deal prior to the elections. Why did you reject the deal and campaign against NOLS?
We weren't convinced that making such a deal would be in the best interests of NUSA. We felt that we already had a ticket of excellent activists, while at the same time we agreed that we didn't need to deal with people whose politics were so different to ours. Our ticket was made up of activists who believe that the entire private profit system, and the oppression and inequality that goes along with it, needs changing.
Our candidates had been involved in campaigns and collectives throughout the year, unlike most members of NOLS.
The proposed deal would have meant that all NUSA office-bearer positions would be elected unopposed. We thought that providing students with a choice was a valid thing to do.
In your opinion, what is the significance of the Activate team's victory this year?
We campaigned to defend our education, but also on relating student issues to refugees' rights, war and racism. It wasn't just about stopping HECS, but campaigning for free education and inspiring people with a vision of how that could be achieved. We wanted to use our election campaign to provoke debates on campus.
I think our victory has proved that we can convince students that progressive, left politics is worth supporting and voting for. I think it helped to get away from the concept that student politics is just about voting once a year.
Following the anti-Bush demonstrations and other recent protests, our victory on campus shows that the potential is there to build grassroots campaigns and to start a real movement against corporate control of education.
What is your assessment of the state of the student movement and the political awareness of students?
It's a hard question to answer because political awareness varies from campus to campus. While there are pressures on students — paid work, inadequate child-care facilities and other things — I do think that students are beginning to see what really is going on. I think we are at a time that is ripe for student radicalisation.
There is always potential there. Students can surprise you. People who you never thought would get involved do get involved, and this will continue to happen.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the National Union of Students and the role of the ALP students who form the leadership of NUS?
On the strengths, NUS provides a framework for a national network for activists. It provides an opportunity to coordinate a united front so we can have activism that goes beyond an annual march on the streets.
Regarding the weaknesses, I think that people in the ALP are in it for their careers. The Labor Party means collusion with the system. The Liberals and the ALP right in NUS are basically anti-union.
There are serious problems with NUS that will be worked out to a degree if people in the radical left are prepared to sustain their networks in the face of the right-wing opposition. If we can do this, then we can look to control of NUS in the future.
Sadly, today a lot of cynical faction dealing detracts from the ability to build these networks at the NUS conference. Winning positions replaces building student support on the ground.
I really think the priority for left-wing officebearers in NUS is to build student support and build student activism.
From Green Left Weekly, December 3, 2003.
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