[NUS_Education] stoush
By popular request — well, by request at any rate, here is the stoush™ that’s been going on over the NUS national education email list.
From: Robert Corr
Congratulations to the WA activists, who realised who the enemy is
and marched against Liberal HQ and not Labor…Cheers,
Rob.
From: Alex Main (Treasurer, UQ Union)
get fucked robert..
the alp has once again shown really poor form.. they should be ashamed of themselves.
I am calling on any person in the alp (student factions or otherwise) to send back their membership cards in disgust. I feel really sorry for all labor students who campaigned on a no compromise on vsu stance AND campaigned in elections and by-elections for the alp. You all worked so hard for this shithead, useless, value-less party only to be shat on from a great height.
Gay marriage,
the war,
refugees (PS its remember the tampa day today)
student unions
working class peopleAll issues the labor party have had a shameful stance on.
Maybe if the alp fucking stood up for something, actually followed an ideal of some sort they would have respect in this country. They support an amenities fee.. whoopie fucking doo! How this will support any kind of political activity is beyond me. This type of stance is going to crush unions in terms of what they are actually created to do.
I am so livid right now. I never write to this list and I probably never will again. The amount of hurt I am feeling is insurmountable and I wont vote for the labor party until they do the right thing (which seems like never).
No VSU in any shape or form.
Alex
From: Robert Corr
Alex:
“I never write to this list and I probably never will again.”
I can’t say I’ll miss your insightful “get fucked” contributions.
Love,
Robert.
From: Alex Main (Treasurer, UQ Union)
get fucked
Are you impressed? I was impressed. But that was just a sideshow. The real stoush is over the fold…
From: Douglas Jordan
Robert Corr is dead wrong. The ALP is as much an enemy of the student movement as is the Liberal Party. Their action in conceding the essential feature of trade unionism is clear evidence of this. If we do not understand this we will lose even more badly than present circumstances indicate. We cnnot and must not limit our campaign to what is acceptable to the cynical ALP hacks.
I have long and bitter memories of the true nature of the ALP. Before I returned to study six years ago I spent 25 years as a tram conductor. This included the January 1990 five week lockout by the Cain Government which was determined to break the union and community opposition to the removal of tram conductors. In the lead up to that dispute we occupied the ALP offices. However, we refused to leave when asked and were than arrested and carried out by the police. The charges against the 15 of us could have been dropped, but the then secretary Peter Batchelor insisted that they go ahead. This action heightened the pressures within the ALP and the Cain Government.
What is more interesting was that a nonth before we occuppied the October 1989 State Conference of the ALP and spoke directly to the delegates. The end result of this action was the state conference condemned the actions of the Cain Government and demanded that it reverse its course.The Cain Government may not have listened but it did have an impact.
Before people rush into print it is important that they think and llok at past history. Yesterday’s action was peaceful, non-violent and made a point. I left the rally early and obviously did not know of the proposed action. If I had I would have been there. It may sound ultra left but as a Spainish Communist once said, ‘It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees’. The ‘comprise’ suggested by the ALP is like living on your knees and I want nothing to do with it.
From: Robert Corr
A passionate appeal, Douglas, but unfortunately contradicted by reality. The compromise proposed by the ALP is almost exactly what exists in Western Australia today. It got WA student organisations *off* their knees after suffering under full VSU.
I’m sorry about what happened to you as a tram conductor fifteen years ago, and I’m under no illusions as to the absolute virtue of the ALP. But if you don’t recognise that focussing your protest against the hard-line Libs is the best way to keep the public on side, then you’ve
sealed your fate.Because guess what? The people who will make the ultimate decision on this are not members of the Socialist Alliance; they’re in the Liberal and National parties. Sad, perhaps, but they have the advantage of electoral success.
The only way you’ll stop full VSU is if Coalition senators cross the floor. The chances of them doing so in favour of the status quo is nil. If there’s a compromise on the table, and one that has demonstrably served WA’s guilds well, then they’re far more likely to move.
Still, I suppose you’re honest. At least you admitted you would prefer that student organisations died rather than lived. But your honesty is a small consolation to those who depend on student unions for the services they provide, as opposed to the shelter they offer to self-important ideologues.
Regards,
Rob.
From: Douglas Jordan
Robert why do you assume I am a member of Socialist Alliance? I am not. In fact I disagree to a considerable extent with many of their approaches and tactics. Howeverit is very easy to dismiss someone you disagree with by red baiting and hoping that you can win the arguement that way. It’s an old tactic and simply avoids the area.
One of the reasons why I have returned to study is that I have a committment to what is called history from below. That is recording the stories of people pushed to the margins of our society by those who hold the real power. The stories of workers, radicals, women, migrants, aborigines and so so and their fight for all equality contains many lessons for students today. At each stage of this struggle and it of course still continues there were groups and individuals who appeared and said you have to comprise and lessen your demands for full equality you cannot achieve it. Well a few listened but the important thing is many did not and kept fighting and in the end achieved far more than any one who was willing to comprise.
The other key thing that the people who wished to keep fighting were red baited. In the period I am now looking at for Phd which is the Cold War between 1945-60 and its role in the trade unions the Communist Party came under savage attack for its support for Agoriginal rights, opposition to the ‘White Australia’ policy and opposition to the nuclear bombs. For all the problems that Stalinism had on the party its activists left a more honourable record than did their oppoents who supported western imperialism. That’s way I remain firmly opposed to any and every attempt to smear people because of their links with Socialist Alliance or indeed any other group.
I am starting to send like an old man-and I am only 55. But history is important and we can learn much from the past. If the choice is between a student union without politics or nothing then I will choose nothing. The reason for us is simple. A student union that cannot represent its members on political matters has no real meaning. Students need this political voice if they are to challenge the neo-conservative agenda that is going to be forced on us. That is why the ALP supports the essence of the Liberal attack. When they return to office it will make little overall difference in policies so they are hardly likely to want to encourage strong student unions.
It is exactly the same arguement in regard to the IR laws. Here in Victoria the trade unions have shown far greater strength and committment in the fight against these laws. The rest of the union movement has been timid and willing to look towards an ALP Government to fix the problems. They won’t off course given Kim’s Beasley’s pledge to maintain AWA’s. The real struggle therefore is not at the Parliamentary level but in the streets and communities and building mass movements that show strength and determination. The ruling elites that control our society will only retreat when the cost of any change to them is to high. That we can learn from history.
One final point if you really want to know my political background I joined the Greens about four years. But I guess that in your eyes that may make be a closet red anyway. And off course like many people of my age I did spend a lot of time in the Trotskyist movement-15 years directly and another 10 years indirectly. However, I have changed and no longer support the concept of vanguard revolution. What hasn’t changed is a fundamental belief in the power of mass action and on the need at times to be unwilling to comprise on key issues. This is one of these times.
From: Robert Corr
Douglas,
I did not mean to imply that you are a member of the Socialist Alliance. I was simply pointing out that the people this movement must win over are not committed socialists, they are conservatives.
I have no problem with members of the Greens or indeed most of the socialist sects — as long as they choose their tactics based on the actual contours of the battlefield, rather than committing themselves to ideological purity and defeat.
Political representation is the cheapest function of a student organisation, and one that I believe can be covered by the profitable activities of the union — there will be no restriction on that.
Although you claim to have abandoned your Trotskyite past, this is vanguardism at its worst. What you are saying is that unless the union is run (or more accurately, funded) /exactly/ as you would like it, you would prefer that it did not exist at all.
Because you and your comrades will have to work a little bit harder to
raise money for your political campaigns, you think women should lose
their women’s rooms, poor students should lose their emergency loans,
student parents should lose access to child-care facilities.So much for solidarity — you’re advocating an extremely selfish approach. You’re like the child who doesn’t like losing at cricket, so he takes his bat and ball and goes home.
Regards,
Robert.PS, I think you’re right about the industrial relations campaign — but that’s a different campaign. Like it or not, student unions don’t have the same clout as the labour movement.
From: Douglas Jordan
Dear Robert,
It appears like talking to a brick wall but here goes anyway. Your first sentence inicates the fundamental difference in approach between what are clearly two different perspectives in the student.
You and the people that agree with you seek to do deals with the conservative forces in Parliament in order to save student unions. In order to do this you have to comprise and accept their terms and concede the political function of student unions. From your point of view this makes absolute sense and you can pride yourself on your victory.
You look with disdain at people who suggest alternative tactics and accuse them of vanguardism.However, people like me insist that it is possible to build a mass movement that can force this government to retreat because the cost of the attempted change is to high. Is it easy to build such a movement. No of course not if it were that easy it would be done by now. It will take time and effort but there is no other way. To put it bluntly its bullshit to call this position vaguardism. Its simply a position of peoplewho are serious about the key issues of this dispute. It corporates a diverse range of people including radical socialists, Greens and many others many who are of course not part of the vanguard.
There is nothing new in your position it has been around ever since I was politically active from the late 1960s. When we started building the anti-Vietnam war movement we we were told that we could not demand the withdrawal of troops but had to demand negoiations. Well we listen to this advice and we built the most powerful movement around this demand and forced the Liberal Government to get the troops out. In a similar way Clarrie O’Shea, the then secretary of the Tramways Union ignored advice that the penal laws could not be defeated and went to jail with considerable courage. This started a movement that made the penal powers unworkable until many union leaders forgot that central lesson of the dispute which was united opposition to the penal powers whould ensure that they would never be used.
You imply that I don’t care if services disappear from university life.Nonsense. What you seem to forget is what happens off campus has even more impact on students then what happens on campus. The thousands of students who cannot get to campus because of HECS or the low level of the student allowance. Over the past six years years I have seen many students drop out because of these problems. I have also seen the gross inequality between universities. Here at Victoria University our resources pale into insignifcance when compared to Melbourne Uni. These problems will only get worse once you remove the political role of trade unions. That is why I am so committed to defending this role.
As to those who suggest you can transform and win the Labor Party to radical positions take a deep breath and read a bit of history. You might start with Gordon Childe’s How Labour Governs written in the 1920s. Childe was by no means a radical but he was shattered by the experiences of early NSW Labor Governments. Look at the example of the State Labor Governments over the past few years. They have simply carried on the policies of the previous Governments. If you think that is overstated get out into the community and talk to people as I do and you will find widespread anger.
The last chance to build a signifcant radical wing in the ALP was here in Victoria in the 1970s.One of the reasons why the anti-Vietnam movement was so strong here was the active involvment of the ALP. On many issues at this time it stood to the left of the CPA. It was broken about by those who wanted to get their bums on seats and those who stuck by their princples. Today many of the founding members of the Socialist Left are outside working in community campaigns and doing more productive political work then they could ever do inside. Today the Victorian ALP factions have no real meaning as they switch support from one another at the hint of a parliamentary seat. Even when you get a progessive policy decision adopted party leaders can and do ignore them. I saw this from the inside when I spent two years on a policy committee and saw party policy constantly breached.
The days of saying TINA are long over. There are plenty of political opportunities outside the ALP and the more people and activists adopt them the better off we all would be.
From: Robert Corr
Douglas,
It’s hard to discuss this with you because you seem more interested in delivering history lectures than focussing on the current campaign and how it ought be run. As interesting as your anecdotes are, they don’t add much to the debate.
I don’t disagree with you that building a mass student movement against VSU is a valid tactic, but, as you admitted, “if it were that easy it would be done by now”. I am not saying that you should stop working towards such a movement, but you need to recognise that when the Senate considers the VSU legislation in a matter of weeks, you simply won’t muster the numbers to make the Libs even bat an eyelid.
At this point of the campaign, the goal is to minimise the damage that will be caused when the legislation is passed. It /will/ be passed, but the short-term goal must be to amend it first, to protect student services and a compulsory fee. When (if) that is done, then we can continue the medium- to long-term campaign to implement the ideal policy — and that (not now) is the time to campaign against the ALP.
By bagging Labor now, you’re driving the moderates in the Coalition back to their fold. You should be attacking the hard Right, and congratulating those who take even small steps towards support for student control of student affairs. You’re giving them no incentive to make what is a very big decision to cross the floor. You’d rather shout slogans and see students suffer.
The problem with some on the Left is that they believe in the idea that it must get worse before it will get better. They /want/ people to suffer, partly to punish them for their bourgeois aspirations or their apathy, and partly because they think it will lead to a mass epiphany.
I’m afraid I can’t go along with that. It’s better to have an amenities fee now, protect student services, and work from that baseline position for something better, than to gut the student unions and start from scratch.
Regards,
Robert.
From: Vicky Kasidis (Education VP, Swinburne Student Union)
Hello
I take issue with what you have said Robert regarding the ‘left’ and their desire to see people suffer. That is a completely false statement and I would like you to produce one scrap of evidence to support that assumption.
This campaign has been as successful as it has because activists have not stopped campaigning at a grass roots level since the commencement of the year. To date no legislation has been passed and I would guess that there was no chance that it would have been passed in September if the Labor Party maintained its position.
Just for the record my entire family all voted Labor from the day they arrived in Australia from Greece many many moons ago. The Labor they supported is no longer there. They now vote for the Greens. The decision to shaft students and their right to politically organise has only added another nail in the Labor coffin.
I truly feel sorry for those students who have placed their faith in the Labor Party and campaigned against VSU. It must be really difficult to live with the idea that your own Party has fucked you over.
What Labor is doing is NOT saving our student organisations but killing them.
As the old saying goes – No Union. No Voice. No Rights. No Way.
I have written to every Labor Senator and let them know of my outrage. Our student media is heavily covering the backflip. No mercy as far as we are concerned.
Nuff said me thinks.
Yours sincerely
Vicky Kasidis
From: Robert Corr
Vicky,
Thanks for filling me in on your family’s voting history. Do you have any entertaining stories about tram conductors?
> I take issue with what you have said Robert regarding the ‘left’
> and their desire to see people suffer. That is a completely false
> statement and I would like you to produce one scrap of evidence to
> support that assumption.Douglas has already said he’d prefer there was no women’s room, emergency loans, subsidies for student clubs, counselling services, etc, if the alternative is an amenities fee to cover those services and fundraising to cover political activity. In other words, he (and you, since you endorse his tactics) wants students to suffer so that he can claim martyrdom.
Seriously, what do you hope to achieve by a “no mercy” campaign against Labor? They’ve offered a carrot for the wavering Coalition senators, which is the /only/ way we’re going to avoid full VSU. Another NDA or a sit-in at ALP HQ is not going to change things.
> I have written to every Labor Senator and let them know of my outrage.
Save your stamps — especially if they’re the union’s. And start fossicking around under the cushions on your couch, too. You’ll need every penny you can scrape together when you have to fund student services without a compulsory fee.
Yours,
Robert.
From: Vicky Katsidis (Education VP, Swinburne Student Union)
The point I am making is that Labor has lost the plot. Lost support. And could buckle over and die as far as I care.
They sold students out. They will sell workers out too.
Nice meeting you.
Cheers
vicky
From: Robert Corr
> Nice meeting you.
I haven’t met you, and (thankfully) I’m not likely to either.
The point I’m making is that the “all or nothing” approach taken by some activists on this list is just long-hand for “nothing”. It’s simplistic, foolish, and morally bankrupt, because you’re putting your ideological purity ahead of the actual needs of students.
It’s been fun chatting with you, but your persuasive skills don’t seem likely to attract many voluntary fee-payers when your silly strategy ushers in VSU.
Enjoy your student union job while it still exists. But when it’s gone, remember you’ve only yourself to blame.
Sincerely,
Robert.
I think I’ll leave it there for a while.
The only people Labor has ’sold out’ is a handful of self righteous student politicians that have to be the only group of people more hated in this country than actual politicians. Broke university students are forced to pay money to sustain student politicians and this is strongly resented. The student politicians complaining about the appropriate and wise position shift of the Labor opposition are completely out of touch.
If student unions actually had clout, power, or actually managed to achieve anything noticable for students, we would not be in this position. Student unions have been more actively pursuing their particular agenda’s than providing a decent product, and students are hence ambivalent towards student unions. The theory of student political representation does not gel with the reality.
The student politicians complaining about Labor’s new stance need to get their head out of their backsides. Stop talking to yourselves and get out there and try to convince people that they should even pay an amenities fee. I assure you that there is so much resentment out there to student unionst that even the concept of an amenities fee is unpopular. This is despite the very high value of the important services that an amenities fee could cover.
Student politicians need to consider doing something constructive for a change.
[In fairness to student politicians... I have known many good student politicians... the problem is more the entire picture rather than specific individuals]
I’m inclined to agree with Stuart. I’ve yet to see evidence that Student Politics really achieves anything, or that I see any benefit from the union fee – other than the occasional newsletter to line my paper bin. Oh that, and the false sense of “community”.
You’ll feel the same way about whether you’re getting value for money when you have to pay council rates on your first house. (Don’t get me started on commercial/industrial property rates!) Same deal. A bunch of paid, professional LGA club members sitting about working out how to increase their empire, with a mandatory source of revenue at their disposal.
Yeah Ryan, like I mean all that money from Union fees for the students, and guess what – they actually expect some people to be answerable for the way that the money is spent! How absurd. Don’t people trust us to do what is best for them? And to think that they might even know what that is? What we all need are AUTOCRATs who – and this is the most important point – wear the right badges on their jacket lapels. Thats all we need, thats all we need.
Universities are becoming increasingly corporatised. If there were amendity fees without some kind of student representation what would stop university management from simply putting that money into helping a McDonalds franchise set up on campus, as an arbitrary example? If there are fees to be paid by students, shouldn’t the students have a say in how those funds were spent. If you find the student politics so boring – and I didn’t take much notice of it neither when I was at uni – might that have something to do with the fact that things were going along uncontroversially. Some university unions may have become corrupt and went broke – but having these amendity fees being spent in a completely unrepresentative way is not a way to reduce corruption, nor is it a way to have the fees spent in the best way for students.
I completely agree with you, Rob, and that was an impressive smackdown.
Theres not really much more to add other than that all the screaming, yelling, marching and militancy really does nothing, nothing at all, to change the situation – in fact it is counter-productive. As you say, civily getting this deal done with the moderate Coalition MPs is the only option. Protests have outlived their usefulness as is anyway.
Nice smackdown indeed.
Suffering purifies, apparently, and after several years of having no functional student unions, a vast number of students will swell the ranks of the extra-parliamentary Left. I mean, that’s what happened at ECU right?
Right?
Getting into flame wars with petit-bourgeois moralistic Greens (Vicky) and ultra-left infantiles (Douglas) is one of the more pointless exercises one can engage in. Another is to defend yet another betrayal of the Labor Party.
Now now, Alex. That “betrayal” is what we in WA call “VSU repeal“, and it saved our guilds.
Rob is correct, Alex. Things are very ship-shape here in WA as far as I can see – I can’t see how the rest of the country adopting our system would be a terrible disaster.
Youre going to have to back your position up – this “betrayl” is no more than pragmatism.
Most pragmatism is a betrayal of principle, and that is certainly the case here.
Western Australia, unlike the rest of Australia, was suffering from “scorched earth VSU”, so anything that allieviated that was an improvement. You cannot say this proposal is alleviating the effects of VSU on states that have never known it — it is imposing Jeff Kennet-style VSU!
The proposal that Labor is suggesting is Victorian-style VSU. Under this arrangement, large student unions were able to negotiate with their Universities to get a good funding agreement. Small unions got fucked over. Are you saying that unions like those at Griffith or Swinbourne or USA are large enough to negotiate as equals with the Universities to get a decent funding agreement? I doubt it — in fact, the Victorian example would indicate that they aren’t, and so their funding agreement with hostile University administrations automatically excludes political representation, funding for political clubs, campaign budgets, etc. Melbourne Uni Student Union and Monash Student Association were fine, because they were large, had a broad activist base, good relationship with the Uni admin, etc.
In Victoria, if Labor’s proposal were to be adopted, there would be minimal or no change for student unions. I’m concerned for students and student unions in other states. No student organisation should have to go through VSU, even Victorian-style VSU.
Furthermore, the ALP position has always been “No VSU”. Any move from this position of principle, decades of support for the autonomy and success of student organisations, hundreds of statements by hundreds of Labor MPs in every state and territory against any form of VSU… any move from this position to one that supports an article of faith, a totemic issue of the Liberal Party, is a betrayal by the Labor Party.
I’m not saying I don’t understand why the Labor Party made this shift. It was to wedge the Coalition, to seem like a Party of Government, to “bring sanity” to the VSU debate, etc. Of course Victorian-style VSU is better than “scorched earth” style VSU. But I don’t support any form of VSU, and nor do any left-wing student groups.
This doesn’t change the fact that the ALP has betrayed student organisations, just like it has constantly betrayed those who have supported it over the years, like Unions with the Accord, like gays with homosexual marriage, like refugees with mandatory detention.
All of these are policy positions driven by the Labor Right. As a member of the Left, I am quite comfortable to oppose these policies as regressive, unprincipled and treacherous. I will continue to work within the Party to oppose this position on VSU, and to seek to have it overturned, particularly the worst part of the statement: Beazley saying that he would not repeal VSU if re-elected to Government.
Rob
The situation in WA was completely different to the national fight going on now. The decision to go with an ‘amenities fee’ was not made lightly and the compromise was only made because 2 guilds were about to go under (one for a second time).
An amenities fee was offered to WA Guilds in 1996 and they turned it down. Why- because IT IS the thin edge of the wedge. Unionism isn’t just about the collection of fees from students, but also about the collective voice of students. The ALP has agreed to give one of those elements up (collective voice) and significantly water down the other (an amenities fee for the Uni to pass on- as I understand it). I can appreciate the frustration of many student representatives!
The ALP believes that a compromise position is needed at this stage. A half model of student representation is better than no representation (?) The ALP are yet to sell the merits of such a position.
Kate
PS- Has the Notre Dame student association affiliated to the National Union of Students?
Can these people not count?
Without the amendment there will be VSU. The coalition has the numbers in the Senate!
A betrayal would be the ALP introducing this themselves, not trying to make unpleasant legislation better!
The ALP are yet to sell the merits of such a position.
And you people are yet to sell the merits of not compromising and losing everything!
An alternative would be for the ALP to support SOS legislation at a State level, similar to the Federal funding given to WA and Victorian student unions by the Keating Government. Best of both worlds there (although it is unlikely that the State ALP Governments would have the political will or conviction to go through it); of course it is always easier to sell out than to stay true to your values.
Alex wrote:
>But I don’t support any form of VSU, and nor do any left-wing student groups.
You have hit the problem of the current situation on the head. Most people who support the current situation are left-wing student groups. This is a small subset of university students. Most university students who are aware of the issue look forward to VSU. At a guess, between 90% and 95% of university students want VSU. In fact, the number who will not full blown VSU – not the compromise position offered by the ALP – will also be a similar proportion. It is not tenable to continue to force students to pay money into student unions that they do not support.
At certain Queensland universities, you can smell the resentment towards student unions. Few believe there is any “representation” involved in student unions. The talk from people who have an interest in continuing to receive student money on this page seems oblivious to how most university students perceive this situation. How much time do you spend out there talking to normal students who genuinely do not give a stuff?
Alex wrote:
>like Unions with the Accord, like gays with homosexual marriage,
>like refugees with mandatory detention.
These shots at the ALP appear at least twice in this thread. The Unions and the ALP maintain a very close and clear relationship inside the party.
Homosexual marriage and refugee rights are wedge issues. The Coalition has been proven willing to use fear, ignorance and bigotry to win votes. If the ALP took gay marriage to an election, the Coalition would happily split the country in two and pick up the bigger half (and it would be the bigger half). The Coalition tried to wedge Labor on homosexual matters leading up to the 2004 election, but it never took off the ground. Consider for a moment what a painful, public slanging match about homosexual rights would mean for people who are homosexual in this country. I subscribe to the left view on homosexual marriage, but believe that running for this cause right now will greatly harm homosexuals (there is not enough support, and the bigots will make life dreadful for homosexuals).
The ALP had a refugee policy for the 2004 election that included removing children from detention centre’s, removing detention centre’s from private enterprise, speeding up processing and so forth. This policy took the issue as far to the left as the ALP could politically take it, but did not please the harder left because it maintained “mandatory detention”. While I agree with the left view on this matter, the left view was not sellable. I have spent many hours talking to normal, politically indifferent people on this topic, and assure you that most have been convinced that refugees are a genuine danger to our society. It will take us years to lead Australia back on a more informed, understanding and humane direction.
Good stuff Rob.
Speculation, Stuart. Hence one of my preferred solutions would be campus referendums on compulsory or voluntary unionism, before VSU could be brought in.
At a guess, between 90% and 95% of university students want VSU.
As Liam points out, this is uninformed speculation. In fact, a couple of unions have conducted surveys, indicating that between 60-80% of students favour the current situation (ie, no VSU). Since the unions which conducted these surveys were not in VSU-affected states, one could assume they are also happy with the “compulsory” membership.
As for the other things you raise, it would appear that you want the ALP to follow public opinion and the interests of conservative lobby groups, rather than provide national leadership over important and controversial issues.
The ALP cannot be constantly directed by electoral pragmatism. This approach, tried successively since 1996, has utterly failed each time, to a point where the ALP can no longer say that it stands for anything.
For your information, I’m a member of the Labor Party. I’m well aware of why it has made these decisions. I still disagree with them. The ALP, as I have written must articulate a uniquely Labor world-view, rather than one which panders to the Liberal/Conservative paradigm. The issue of VSU was one area (and AWAs was another) which differentiated the ALP from the Liberal Party. No loner. Both Labor and Liberal are now parties that support VSU.
Liam – Yes, it was speculation. It was labelled as such by noting that it was “a guess”. A referendum is a good idea – would be best with offering the three options that are currently most popular. I would like to make sure this refendum got the full cross section of students (which is not the case with university ballots I have seen).
Alex – Please provide details on the suveys conducted by the unions. I would be very interested to see which unions, their sampling technique, questions asked and so forth. It sounds like dodgy statistics, but it would be excellent if there is some validity to their claimed results.
I absolutely agree with you about the Labor Party needing to articulate a unique world view. Some of my thoughts on this matter can be found at http://sfenech.blogspot.com/2005/07/future-of-alp.html . I believe I have read the article you referred me to, in said Labor Left journal :-)
Where I believe we differ here is not so much in what we believe, but what we perceive as the best way to go about it. I am the sort of person who will not stand up and talk about an issue in a room full of people if I know I can not change the mind of any person in that room. I believe that the way you go about effecting change must keep in mind that change is the desired result, not merely the symbolism of ‘taking a stand’.
Homosexual and refugee rights are not battles we can win overnight. Just like John Howard uses subtle messages to influence public opinion, we need to do the same in a more progressive direction. We can not sit around and beat people up for being ‘homophobic’, ‘racist’, or anything else, because that does not convince anyone of our cause. We need to plant ideas, influence, move us in a certain direction.
Do I think we are currently doing this at the federal level? For the most part, no. Some actions on that front have been dissappointing. What I am saying is that we need to gradually move our society in a more progressive direction before we can consider taking the social positions you seem to be advocating. If we take them now, we will never attain power to even implement watered down versions of what you would like to see in government. Not only that, but our social causes will be put back 20 years by a Coalition driven shameless fear campaign that will immensely harm those we want to help.
We need to harness the techniques of the conservatives from America and Australia. They gradually shifted public opinion to the right, not by beating people around the head, but by gradually planting ideas and influencing public opinion. Society did not change overnight to a point where people could seriously question things like abortion rights. They did not come out right from the start and advocate hard right social positions, because they would have been massacred at the voting booths. The conservative movement has mastered the art of practical influence while we on the left, to a large extent, are clutching at straws.
If I was currently in a federal ALP, I would be publicly putting out reflections from a left of centre perspective on the social issues mentioned. On refugees, I would regularly repeat that most boat people are genuine refugees, refugees are not terrorists, that immigrants create jobs via consumption, etc. On homosexual rights, I would regularly repeat that homosexuality is not ‘a choice’, etc. I would distribute educational materials on these subjects, attend supportive meetings, etc. The first priority must be to shake the perceptions and shift opinions, with the target of making more humane policy positions politically viable.
You mention AWA’s. My personal position on the AWA’s is clear. The entire concept of employers and employees negotiating as equals is flawed. AWA’s are merely a mechanism to decrease the pay and conditions of our most vulnerable workers. They should be abolished.
Cheers
Alex, you are still ignoring a fairly important point though. The ALP doesn’t have the numbers.
Compromising when you have a chance of winning is one thing. You would be justified in your anger if that’s what had happened.
Providing a compromise solution that may entice moderates to cross the floor and vote with you, allowing you make bad legislation less bad, is not a betrayal.
The ALP didn’t introduce the VSU legislation. They have put forward an ammendment to help alleviate the effect on students. If it fails, they will vote against VSU, and they will still lose.
It’s really very basic maths.
Kate
The UNDA Student Association, the bastian of representation that it is (not), has not affilliated because we are statutorily barred from charging students, who are automatically members upon enrolment, any sort of fees.
We can’t afford to join NUS, as much as we want to.
Brendon Nelson adores us, probably for the above reason, but being a part of this system I do not wish it upon any other university.
But this is what Nelson wants:
We have no rights, we are barely consulted on anything except for token chats the Pres and VP have with the VC twice a year. The administration recently overhauled our entire calender structure and no one knew of it. The official announcement came a few hours after our student magazine published an article about it which we just managed to sneak through the Chancery’s censorship radar.
Half is better than nothing. Trust us. Campuses around the country will be as sad as ours if VSU gets through. You don’t want that.
Yours sincerely
Sunili Govinnage
Vice President
Notre Dame Student Association
Good work on raising these issues Rob
On the first part of Robert’s post. I think if labor are the real enemy then all those disaffected student activists should start tearing their NUS representatives apart.
As a current member of the NUS State Executive and certain Guild hack, I can not honestly endorse affiliating to NUS at present. Yes I believe in peak representative bodies, but not insanely badly run ones dominated by personal interests.
For instance, I dont believe that it is fair to pay office bearers honararia ranging from $1000 – $6500 when in the budget it is decided to allocate only about $300 to the ‘priority’ of the education campaign. Over $1000 went to the queer department and over $3000 went to international department. Obviously this so called threat to student guilds wasnt a clear priority in the eyes of a majority of state executive.
Fight for your rights, but dont sacrifice your principles along the way.
Geoff Hansen
Vice President of UWA Student Guild
Ordinary member of NUS West State Executive
Good to hear from you Sunili. I thought the whole issue had gone off the radar at ND, but I’m glad it’s at least still being talked about…that’s a start.
the legislative prohibtion on Notre Dame charging amenities fees was repealed in 2002.
the legislative prohibtion on Notre Dame charging amenities fees was repealed in 2002.
Oooh! That’s news to us. Everyone has just been so busy organising the Ball. Or no-one cares.
I have to admit I am embarassed that we accepted the (previous) status quo so freely for so long that no-one even went back to look at it, but joining NUS has been raised amongst the Exec Comm quite often, including this morning, actually.
As a matter of pragmatism, though, there is no way in hell we’ll be able to charge fees. No one’s going to pay us to plan parties.
Well the way i see it is that students are not interested in unions any more. at Swinburn barely 700 students out of about 40000 votes and from all accounts they were mainly international students anyway. the one who seem worried about the vsu are the ones like vicky I don’t know how much she is paid but all the union people are paid when they get voted in. if they lose their jobs they are out of a job. deakin didn’t do much better or latrobe. bringing in the vsu is saving the alp from doing a job they want to do like bringing in the ir changes.
It’s no wonder people lose the plot with the Swinburne Student Union when officebearers buy Ipod’s off the budget to “record meetings”