NTU students vote for education campaign

NTU students vote for education campaign

By Tim E Stewart

DARWIN — The Education Action Group at Northern Territory University put a motion to a student general meeting on March 12 for a campaign against the Liberals' attacks on higher education, which was unanimously endorsed.

The motion noted that already this year 50 staff have been lost and 21 courses have been cut, including 19 in the faculty of arts. The motion called for a campaign involving "a coalition of all groups affected: high school students and teachers, academics, TAFE students, and general staff".

Specific action included commitment to national days of action, support for the National Tertiary Education and Industry Union pay campaign and "solidarity with any student or education staff that may come under the Liberal knife first".

For the first time in years, a student general meeting was used as a platform to discuss and vote on the way forward for a campaign. The motion, put by education vice president and Resistance member Sibylle Kaczroek, was supported by NTEU representative Trish Crossins and students union president Evelyn Loh.

The meeting endorsed targeting the federal government rather than just focusing on the campus administration. Nowhere are there references to lobbying the NT government, a strategy being argued for by the more conservative members of the students union.

The meeting also adopted a motion declaring all NTU campuses as "racism free zones". It noted that the racist debate initiated by Pauline Hanson has become a tool for scapegoating Aboriginal people and migrants for problems like unemployment.

"This approach needs to be exposed", read the motion, "especially as it is these and other disadvantaged groups in society who suffer disproportionally more from the cuts".

From GLW issue 267