A June 1 student conference held at Sydney University resolved to make George Bush's visit to Australia and the September APEC summit in Sydney a focus for the anti-war and environment campaigns on campus.
More than 100 people filled the student union's Manning Bar to hear Terry Hicks, father of former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, and a panel of speakers address the "war on terror", civil liberties and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Hicks said students and the broader community have a responsibility to hold Bush and Prime Minister John Howard to account and that September would provide a great opportunity to do this will be when the two war criminals meet in Sydney.
Political economy lecturer Tim Anderson and University of Newcastle lecturer Chris Doran argued that David Hicks has been used as a political pawn in a war that has involved serious attacks on civil liberties in Australia in the name of "fighting terrorism" and the plundering of the Middle East's resources at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives.
The day started with a session of around 35 people aimed at debunking Howard's "clean coal" and nuclear "solutions" to global warming. University of NSW lecturer Mark Diesendorf and Steve Philips from Rising Tide Newcastle both argued that a serious move away from coal and other fossil fuels is urgently needed to address climate change.
Cecilia Vagg from the Australian Student Environment Network explained that "APEC's policies are aimed at developing the economies in the region by freeing up access to land for privatisation and securing oil, natural gas, coal and uranium, which consequentially cause climate change and environmental destruction". The session included a debate over the role of carbon trading in the fight against climate change.
In the final session, despite a debate over the relative importance of building the APEC protest compared with other campaign possibilities, the conference resolved to endorse the September 8 rally called by Sydney's Stop Bush Coalition and make building the protest among students a priority for the coming semester.