Students support refugees, bureaucrats block action

BY STUART MUNCKTON

CANBERRA — More than 100 students attended the Australian National
University Students' Association May 27 annual general meeting, at which
students voted to make opposition to mandatory detention and support for
asylum seekers official policy of the ANU SA. Unfortunately, the students’
desire to support refugees was partly blocked by ANU SA office-bearers
at the meeting.

The success of the pro-refugee motion — at the largest ANU SA meeting
held for many years — was the culmination of intense campaigning for refugees’
rights by the socialist youth group Resistance. It was also endorsed by
the ANU Refugee Action Committee, the Environment, Women's and Education
Collectives, the Sexuality officer and the ANU Muslim Association.

Aside from committing the ANU SA to oppose mandatory detention of asylum
seekers, the motion initially would have committed the ANU SA to donate
$500 to the ACT Refugee Action Committee — to help escaped refugees — and
to call a referendum in second semester to make the campus a “Refugee Safe
Zone”.

From the beginning, ANU SA officials attempted to sabotage the meeting
and the refugee motion. First, they called the meeting with the minimum
notice time. Second, they called it for a Monday at 3pm, when few students
are on campus.

At the meeting, the obstruction continued. Refugee activists had asked
Barbara Rogalla, a nurse who had worked inside Woomera detention centre,
to describe to the meeting the conditions within refugee detention centres
during the discussion around the motion. However, members of the Young
Liberals and right-wing ALP faction Student Unity joined SA officials from
the careerist student faction the Independents in voting against students
hearing her.

While the motion to allow Rogalla to speak, moved at the beginning of
the meeting, was supported by more than 50% of students present, SA general
secretary and meeting chairperson Tom O'Callaghan ruled that a two-thirds
majority was needed for such a motion, and thus declared it failed.

The pro-refugee motion itself was not discussed until 4.30pm. By the
time it came up, a number of refugees’ rights supporters had had to leave,
changing the balance of the meeting considerably.

The first section of the refugee motion, committing the SA to oppose
mandatory detention, was passed by an overwhelming majority. However, sections
donating money to escaping refugees were defeated, because the Independents,
the Young Liberals and Student Unity all opposed it.

Although these factions’ members argued they were opposing the clause
because it committed the ANU SA to break the law, when the motion was amended
to donate the money simply to the ANU Refugee Action Committee (which is
raising money to assist escaped refugees), they still opposed it.

The behaviour of these students got worse. O’Callahan, a member of the
Independents, refused to even put the section of the motion calling for
a student referendum, ruling its wording was out of order. He refused to
consider amendments to “fix” the wording.

Nevertheless, the motion’s mover, Resistance member Brett Muller, thinks
the meeting was “a step forward for the refugees’ rights campaign”.

“The students who came to the meeting to support refugees, the hundreds
of students who have donated money to escaped refugees in defiance of the
law, and the number of groups who came behind the pro-refugee motion show
how high support is among students for asylum seekers”, he said. “Resistance
is determined to build even greater support next semester.”

From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002.

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From GLW issue 495