By Nikki Ulasowski
Following the May 3 "No Fees for Degrees" national day of action, students in Adelaide established a tent university outside the ALP headquarters. Green Left Weekly interviewed EMMA WEBB, an activist in the South Australian Education Network (SAEN), which organised the tent protest, and a member of the socialist youth organisation Resistance.
What were the main purposes of setting up the tent university, and what was achieved?
It was originally planned to be an ongoing, visible protest outside the ALP headquarters leading up to federal budget night on May 9. We wanted to make it very clear that this campaign was not ending with the May 3 national day of action.
Throughout the week we were able to gain more and more support from other organisations, individuals and particularly unions. The ALP office is part of the Trades and Labour Council building, which meant that liaison with individual unions and the TLC was very important.
We had unionists coming over to give their solidarity every day, and in particular the CFMEU were very supportive. They hung a banner on their office, straight above the ALP's office, that read "Building Workers Support Students". The Adelaide City Council tried to evict us before we wanted to leave; however, John Lesses, the secretary of TLC, intervened and defended our right to protest.
The other role the tent university played was as an organising base for planning an ongoing campaign, where students came to discuss and debate the issues and get involved in actually deciding the direction of the campaign — something that many of us felt students organisations haven't been providing.
What was the involvement of National Union of Students and students associations ?
A few individuals from NUS (South Australia) came down for a couple of hours, but on the whole NUS and most students associations ignored the tent university. This surprised many of the activists; however, it probably wasn't as surprising for activists who had been involved in the SAEN before the May national day of action.
At the March 23 national day of action, which culminated with thousands of students staging a sit-in in Brookman Hall, where the University of South Australia's administration is, some students called a meeting in one of the lecture theatres to decide whether to occupy the building. Unfortunately, these students didn't have megaphones, and many students were directed to a BBQ instead of into the meeting.
Like the tent university, NUS ignored this meeting and even told the university administration that the attempted occupation was not "endorsed" by SAEN. Around 100 students did stay, and a meeting was held. Many activists expressed frustration that while many students had done a lot of work for this rally's success, it was still tightly controlled by NUS on the day.
Many activists who previously hadn't been active in SAEN got involved to organise the May 3 action. SAEN meetings grew larger as new activists became involved, but NUS seemed to really pull back. The Labor right students in some of the University of South Australia students associations pulled out as well and wouldn't put up posters for the rally or organise buses, as they had done for the first national day.
What happened to the tent university after budget night?
On budget night we held a rally and band night; there were about 80 people at the tent university. We held a meeting, which 40 people were part of, to decide what to do next. Many people were keen to keep the tent university going. At the meeting we decided to stay outside the ALP office. However, a few nights later we decided to move to Adelaide University, where we would obviously be closer to students.
We moved to Adelaide University on May 16. However, the administration told us we had to go. On that night we had already arranged to go to the Students Association of Adelaide University council meeting to ask for support. The pressure being put on us by the administration made this even more urgent.
A motion was put to the council that it support in principle the setting up of a tent university on campus. This motion was defeated. Many on the council were more concerned with maintaining good relations with the administration than stating support for students' action on campus.
We were very disappointed with this decision. We felt that to keep the tent university without Students Association support we would have to fight very hard, and it was probably more worthwhile to put our energies into the broader No Fees campaign. So we decided to end the tent university.
What is SAEN planning now ?
At our first meeting post the tent university, we had some discussion about the campaign nationally. We support Canberra's initiative of another No Fees national day of action in August. We will very probably be initiating another national No Fees Conference to be held in Adelaide just before Students, Science and Sustainability, which is at Flinders University in September.
There are many ideas for state actions and campaigning leading up to the August national day of action, such as regular campaigning stalls, stunt actions, public meetings and debates, teach-ins, a band night and more community reach-out, especially with high school students.