Some Arguments Against VSU Legislation
The Universities also provide some funding to the student unions with these fees but by no means does the entire fee go to the student unions. At Swinburne University, for example, the Swinburne Student Union was given only $240,000 in funding by the university this year.
It is also important here to stress that the configuration of individual universities' administrata and the distinction between student services and student union is variable greatly across universities in Australia and indeed some universities have only student associations. While the term student union undoubtedly evokes the idea of unionism and the long history of the workers' union movement, it is important not to simplify the issue and assume abolishment of compulsory ASF or GSF fees equates to abolishment of compulsory student union memberhsip. In Victoria, a soft form of VSU already exists, this system's interpretation of GSF/ASF fees is the strongest evidence that they are not union enrollment fees: union or student association enrollment is free and an automatic result of being a student. Students may choose to decline membership; very few do.
The unions themselves usually are not simply a political collective that is equivalent to a trade union, and are often comprehensive collections of resources, services, and spaces provided for all students for a variety of purposes and for use by anyone. Often the union is synonymous with many of the invaluable services I mentioned above, and therefore, it is oversimplistic to conflate abolishment of the ASF/GSF fees with abolishment of compulsory unionism.
These are the things, in all their multiplicity and variety, that make universities vibrant, exciting communities with a wealth of opportunities beyond merely formal qualification and training for employment in the corporate workforce. This kind of culture sits hand-in-hand with the great tradition of universities as a place for the open exchange of ideas. Policy making in regards to tertiary (and other) education that responsibly bears these wonderful traditions in mind would look a lot different to the 'VSU' legislation and similar anti-free/cheap public education policies instigated by recent governments (such as the recent 25% HECS hike authorisation).
The loss of income from these fees to the universities means they will have to source funding from elsewhere, and considering the history of continual cutbacks to union/services funding that has been established in recent years, it is likely that universities are not going to try very hard to find alternative avenues for funding the unions. This means the unions may die or become very weakened!
In relation to the political climate of late in many 'liberal democratic' societies like Australia, and transformations in populist politics since the rise and rise of rampant commodity fetishism and consumerism since WWII, the term 'union' is often believed to have a predominantly perjorative connotation, and the 'union movement' is talked about as if it is some kind of commie-scum-boogeyman. Students in Commerce or Economics subjects in High Schools are often unethically taught by their teachers that Unions are bad.
The reality is that the term unionism represents a multi-discursive set of philosophies much like any other intellectual or political concept, and is in theory egalitarian and a powerful mechanism of lobbying governments and employers for increased fairness and improved working conditions in the workplace, and other modern social arenas such as universities. Due to black marks in the history that is associated with the term, some people find it too easy to simplify the philosophies of unionism and treat it like a bad thing almost by definition. This is not the case.
In ideal terms, student unions represent students. Student unions are made up by students. They are collective organisations built upon the principles of representative democracy. And they are strong enough (at the moment) to be a credible political voice. They are there to fight for us, against an increasingly unfair, undemocratic and unequal political climate which threatens the very rights of all people to access education and be fulfilled and happy members of society.
As an example of what student unions have done for students; at Swinburne University, students who feel they have been graded unfairly are able to have their work re-assessed by an independent marker and the student is able to keep whichever of the marks is the highest. This is a right of all Swinburne Students that was won by the lobbying of our student union. Our student union is also able to provide professional legal representation for students upon request, if they are faced with a panel review of their academic record and/or pending suspension.
Unfortunately, public debate in this country is largely shaped by an increasingly de-regulated news media where ownership is highly consolidated so that only a handful of rich and powerful corporate leaders are in control. Journalism had a long and respectable tradition of being a public watchdog for the actions of governments and other socially influential institutions, and the profession used to be one of the emblems of a healthy democracy. The state of journalism today, thanks in part to the influence of economic rationalism, is very different. The Herald Sun is a paper read by an average of 1.6 million people a day and is the country's most read newspaper, according to their own statistics. This is a paper whose most popular, outspoken, and well known 'commentator' is Andrew Bolt; a man whose dedication to fosering a healthy open democratic debate is so obviously non-existent that his well-read columns without fail are completely one sided, nasty, and usually irrational rhetorical attacks on groups, individuals and movements which fight against the conservative status-quo for a society where there is more fairness and equality. 'Journalists' like Andrew Bolt are the rule rather than the exception in the news-sources that the majority of voters in this country are influenced by. Even newspapers that were traditionally far more reliable in questioning government actions for the sake of truth, democracy, and the people, like The Age, while not as sensationalist generally as The Herald Sun, have allowed 'politician-speak', the highly disguised and misappropriated use of terms deliberately employed by politicians to confuse and misrepresent political issues, to become increasingly the language of the news, without criticism. Examples of this are the way the meaning of terms like 'WMDs', 'The Coalition of the Willing', 'Boat-people', the 'War on Terror', 'UnAustralian' 'queue-jumpers' and even 'VSU' have tended to be reified as social facts rather than questioned for what political ideologies they may in fact be concealing.
It is simplistic to argue that the mainstream privately-owned media in this country (all but the ABC and SBS) are merely the speaker-box for the Government, or that the media has entirely, without exception, lost its sense of democratic journalism and there a simplistic binary in operation whereby The Government and The Media are pushing exactly the same lines, and that they are uniformly against the interests of everyone. But what is closer to the truth, and more scary, is that in actual fact Governments are now often at the whim of the media owners, who are so crucial in either building up or tearing down Government's popularities (this was well demonstrated by the shifts in media 'slant' which shaped federal elections in the 70s and continues today). Highly consolidated corporate ownership of our media means there is a conflict of interest; the owners of the media, as is the nature of corporations, are more concerned with increasing profits, and wielding power, control and domination over media markets in order to maximise market share, than they are with strengthening the traditions of democratic journalism for the interests of people. The effects of this are seen in the way the institutions of news deal with important issues. How many times do you find yourself frustrated that an important social issue is not even commented on by the media, or when it is, it is treated as an after-thought, taking a back-seat to frivolous issues such as a celebrity's breast cancer? How ofen do you find that when the media do report on things, they distort the issue, or misrepresent what is actually at stake? Can you see your voice in the news media? Or do you feel alienated by the opinions which the news media perpetuate as stemming from the 'average Australians'? These questions take on new relevance when considered in relation to the 'VSU' issue. Are the media largely (and often enough) talking about the kinds of problems with the 'VSU' legislation that we are discussing here? No. On April 28th, the largest student demonstrations in 10 years took place against the VSU legislation and received nothing but shallow, brief commentary by almost all media sources. Some, particularly The Herald Sun did not comment at all!
Howard's government claims abolishing the compulsory ASF/GSF fees helps poor students (like single mothers, who they must belive don't benefit from free/cheap child care provided by their student unions) and that the services it funds will be better provided for by the 'free' market. These claims have actually been debunked by the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission).
Basically what this amounts to, unsurprisingly, is a distinctly lazy and sloppy approach by the government, one which will frighteningly have drastic results for the welfare of so many, and an undemocratic agenda-setting founded on lies and misinformation. Tampa anyone?