540 Words on VSU.

April 05

What student unions have known was coming for months is now official- the Liberal government's push for Voluntary Student Unionism is on again. On March 16, Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson introduced a bill to Parliament that would ban universities from collecting money to fund any "non-academic" service. Their legislation would also fine any university that decided to keep collecting money a whopping $100 per government-supported (HECS) student.

Virtually anyone who has anything to do with universities has declared their opposition to VSU - from Australian University Sport to the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (which represents the heads of all of Australia's universities).

Many different voices in the media have also condemned the bill for the way it threatens to wipe out services student unions provide. At RMIT, services from clubs and societies to legal advice, academic disciplinary advice to the dental service are all at risk. Have a look over the page at the long list of services that may not exist in 2006.

According to the AVCC student union fees are "a bit like council rates - not everybody uses all the services, but rates in a community are compulsory". Under VSU the university would still be forced to offer at least some of these services (like academic disciplinary advice) so students will end up paying for them one way or another.

But VSU is about more than just closing services. The Liberals claim VSU is about choice, but its real purpose is to create a massive funding shortfall for student unions with the ultimate purpose of crippling and closing them. The Liberals' attempt to wipe out student unions is all about their ideological hatred of unions of any kind. They hate the idea that students should be allowed to have an independent, democratic voice on campus. They point to individual cases of misuse of student funds to argue that student unions are corrupt and unrepresentative. What they fail to mention is that student representatives are democratically elected by students. Students get to decide whether a small portion of their money should be spent fighting the government's cutbacks to education, or supporting the refugee rights or anti-war movement. The Liberals' real problem with student representation is that people who oppose their agenda of privatis ing universities get elected.

They hate the way student unions have tried to oppose their "reform" agenda for universities, which has seen over $5 billion dollars cut from the system since 1996, the introduction of upfront fees, and continual HECS fee increases, most recently last year's 25% rise. Education Minister Brendan Nelson has tried to defend VSU by claiming he wants to make universities more accessible by abolishing student union fees. Where was the Liberals concern when they pushed through cuts to student welfare? Or when they introduced up-front fees?

The Liberals want to abolish student unions so they can get rid of opposition. Without student unions, who will stand up to their plans to reduce government funding and force more students to pay full fees. On the national day of protest on April 28 come join thousands of students around Australia who will be showing the government that students need their student unions. The more students that participate, the harder we will be to ignore.