Nathan Coombs, Melbourne
“If we want to defeat the Liberals' education agenda, students have to rely on our own ability to organise and fight”, Paul Coats, the education officer of the National Union of Students (NUS), told Green Left Weekly.
The agenda he was referring to is federal education minister Brendan Nelson's higher education legislation, which was passed by parliament in December.
A national day of action against the legislation is being organised across university campuses around Australia for March 31.
The legislation gives university administrations the “option” of increasing Higher Education Contribution Scheme fees by up to 30%. Coates says that while the HECS fee increases are optional, it is likely they will be implemented by many universities “given that successive governments have continued to starve universities of public funding, universities will be eager to cash in on the student fees increases”.
The legislation also allows for the number of places for full-fee paying students to rise to 50%, “a means by which wealthier students can buy themselves a place at university”, said Coates.
He said that the federal Liberal-National Coalition government wanted to “tie over $400 million in extra funding to the ability of university administrations to undermine the National Tertiary Education Union by ending collective bargaining and getting their staff onto individual contracts”. But the government had to back down on this due to strong opposition, especially in “an impressive strike by the NTEU last year”.
Student unions and activists, Coates said, “are planning a serious campaign to mobilise opposition to the implementation of the fee increases”.
A Labor win in the this year's federal elections will not stop the attacks on free tertiary education since, as Coates noted, “it was Labor that introduced the HECS scheme and up-front fees for international students and postgraduates in the 1980s, legitimising the `user-pays' principle and paving the way for the Liberals' subsequent attacks”.
Coates called on all university students to get involved with campus groups organising the national day of action on March 31, and to “help build a campaign that can oppose university administrations and attacks from the government — whichever party is in power”.
From Green Left Weekly, February 25, 2004.
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