Left ticket challenge at ANU

Wednesday, August 21, 1996 - 10:00

By Natalie Zirngast

CANBERRA — An Education Action Group ticket was recently formed to contest the upcoming ANU Student Association elections. It involves Resistance and Socialist Workers Student Club members and independent activists from the Canberra-wide forum which has been organising the student campaign against cuts to education.

The platform includes: stop all attacks on education; no HECS; support for the staff pay campaign; a livable Austudy; student control of student affairs; and affiliation to NUS.

"The basis of this broad left ticket is that we are all involved in the campaign against the education cuts, while the Students Association, run by the ALP right, is not", Nick Soudakoff, Resistance member and candidate for president on the EAG ticket told Green Left Weekly. "Not only has the Students Association failed to support the campaign against the cuts, it has actively tried to undermine it", he said.

The Students Association, led by president William Mackerras, organised a counter-rally to the May 30 National Day of Action rally organised by EAG and the NTEU. It tried to pass a motion at a students' meeting banning funding to EAG and only endorsing actions organised by the association. It also submitted an options paper to the university council which advocated up-front fees for post-graduate courses and apologised to PM Howard for an ANU staff and student protest against him. Most recently, Mackerras declared that he would find a way of blocking the association from supporting new initiatives in the education campaign. Resources from the NTEU and the University of Canberra have allowed the ANU education campaign to continue.

"If the EAG ticket wins it will mean a progressive association next year. The time has come to sack Mackerras. He is more interested in his career as a conservative student politician than fighting Howard's attacks. We need a Students Association that leads the campaign against the cuts and advocates student rights, not up-front fees", Soudakoff said.