Comment by Sean Healy
The March 26 national day of action and three-day occupation in Sydney of the University of Technology administration clearly demonstrates that students are ready and willing to fight the government's education cuts. What are the next steps for this campaign? How can we mobilise more students and increase the pressure on the government and vice-chancellors?
In early March Resistance put forward a proposal for a joint staff-student national day of action in the lead-up to the May federal budget. May 8 has to now be the major national focus for the campaign.
While the student campaign is uneven nationally, it is clear that united and organised student opposition to fees, cuts and charges on universities can force university administrations and vice-chancellors to back down. Such struggles will continue to be a central focus for mobilising students.
But these struggles will be limited and any victories fleeting if they're not connected to the demand that the federal government increase funding to universities and halt its overall austerity drive. Government policy is behind the present round of campus by campus attacks.
We need to demand that the government reverse the education funding cuts. If we don't, we're committing ourselves to a rearguard action — fighting over how the cuts are implemented and not whether they should happen at all.
It is unlikely that the May 13 federal budget will include any major new attacks on students and tertiary education — making it even more necessary for us to raise pro-active demands.
The proposed Common Youth Allowance is a part of the government's cost cutting agenda and, as such, does need to be one of the issues raised by the campaign. But in the lead-up to the March 26 national day of action, the CYA was overemphasised particularly in publicity produced by the National Union of Students and argued for by Left Alliance and Labor students.
This was one reason why student mobilisations in some states were smaller than they could have been. Due to a lack of information the youth allowance is not yet a major cause of student anger. There's even some doubt that the CYA will be announced in the federal budget; it's likely that the government will simply implement the allowance's components piecemeal.
The overemphasis on the CYA masks a tendency, among sections of student movement, to admit defeat on the fight over last year's cut of $2.3 billion from the higher education budget. Making the CYA the centrepiece of the campaign might allow for an easy "victory" if the government chooses not to implement it in the May budget, but such a victory would be hollow, and would come at the expense of campaigning hard on issues which would show up the government such as demanding it reverses its education cuts.
The role played by NUS, particularly its Labor leadership nationally and in most states, in the lead-up to March 26 was far from exemplary notwithstanding the hard work carried out by non-Labor office bearers.
Labor students and the National Organisation of Labor Students (NOLS) have no idea about and little interest in organising a real fight against the Coalition. Preparations for March 26 were left until the last minute in most states. There was little contribution made to on-the-ground organising. National NDA publicity arrived late (thanks to giving priority to other posters) and was badly carried out.
It was in state branches dominated by Labor where the least amount of effort and organisation went into the national day of action. For instance, NUS in South Australia seemed more interested in closing the cross campus education network than in organising students to attend the rally.
The potential for a significant student struggle together with large sections of the community on May 8 is obvious. But unless the student movement reassesses its strategy, demands and level of organisation this will not happen. Now's the time for us to get better organised and force the government to reverse its education cuts.
[Sean Healy is the national coordinator of the socialist youth organisation Resistance.]