An Article About VSU

Hey,

How ya doing? Please forward this email on to people if you agree with the cause (but remove the "FW:" tag in the subject line so people don't think its trash and delete it). Cheers!

Have you heard about the VSU legislation? Don't know what it is? Not a student? Don't think its a bad thing? Don't care? Find political speak daunting/boring/irrelevant? Well if you answered yes to any of those questions then I would invite you to find out more information by reading on (ie. even if you do know something about VSU). The VSU issue at stake here is very important not just to ALL tertiary students now, but students of the next generations, and all who consider our country to be a strong liberal democracy. (Please read below, and for more information go to http://au.geocities.com/stop_vsu)

Due to the last Federal election, the Liberal/National Coalition will have a national Senate majority from July 1. Not since Malcolm Fraser's Prime Ministership in the 70s has a party held a majority of seats in both the lower AND upper houses. For the last three decades we have had a tradition of giving the balance of power in the Senate to alternative parties/independents such as the Democrats, so that they may keep a check on Governments getting too out of hand with the kind of policies they think they can get away with. Now that the balance of power is held by the Liberal/National Coalition, many rightly fear that a whole heap of policies that the Howard Government has had an agenda for pushing since the late 90s, but until now has been unable to, will be pushed through the Senate without question. One of these is VSU, or Voluntary Student Unionism.

The problem with this policy is that its name belies its true nature. VSU in its proposed form is outlined in the Higher Education Support Amendment Act 2005, which was put to the house of reps in March and will be voted on by the Senate some time after the influx of the newly elected Senators on July 1. The bill doesn't technically introduce a 'voluntary' student unionism at all; what it will do is make it illegal for Universities to charge a compulsory fee for non-academic/non-course-related services and impose very strict penalties if they do, which will threaten the livelihood of the Universities so that if they do not comply they will be in big trouble.

This means that a wealth of services provided to students either free or much cheaper than the 'free market' provides, are going to be under threat. These include child care, counselling, student rights advocacy, media/sports facilities, student spaces, disability services, language services, clubs and societies, democratic student representation, student unions, free food and entertainment and almost any things you can think of that actually contribute to the diversity and fun of tertiary student life, that aren't tutorials, lectures, libraries, pracs and exams!!!

This means the vibrant culture of Universities is under threat! When what they call 'VSU' was introduced in WA (it has since been reversed), 85% of students opted out of paying their General Services Fees, and this saw a major depletion of services offered, with many having to be stopped completely (such as disability services in some universities), and the quality of student/campus life was destroyed.

The Howard Government, particularly the Education Minister Brendan Nelson who is responsible for this legislation, claims that they are introducing this bill to help out poor students that are tired of fees, like single mothers. Apparently they seem to think that people's memories are short enough to forget that it was they who just introduced a 25% HECS increase to 'help out' the poor students they seem to care about. They also claim that it is about 'freedom of association' and that a compulsory membership model for student unions is outmoded. This latter claim is a form of misleading rhetoric (also known as lying) similar to the way the Government has the majority of the Australian public convinced that they have power over interest rates at all, when they actually don't (it is the Reserve Bank that controls this). Why is this claim about 'freedom of association' misleading? Because abolishment of compulsory GSF/ASF fees is NOT abolishment of compulsory student unionism at all; it is an attack on the ability of Universities to provide anything to their students other than a certificate at the end of their course.

Does this make any sense at all? Could it be that perhaps there are other reasons why they are introducing this bill then, since they have a well established history of not giving a toss about students' economical well-being, and since their bill is actually hurting parts of University life that they aren't saying they're trying to hurt?

Well the Government have another well-established passion; union smashing. Think unions are bad things? Did your High School Economics teacher tell you so? Or perhaps Brian told you so?

Here's a brief recent history lesson: Commercial current affairs and news shows had a field day back when the nasty 'corrupt' Maritime Union of Australia's workers were locked out of their jobs on the waterfront in 1995 when they were renegotiating their collective bargaining agreement with Patrick's. The nice men at Patrick's with the help of the clearly impartial democratically elected Minister for Workplace Relations of the time, the nice Mr Peter Reith, brought in people to fill those jobs who were desperate enough for work that they would agree to ANY terms, not those ridiculous ones the MUA workers were bargaining for like better conditions and better pay.

After all, how could a small struggling business like the big shipping corporation Patrick's afford to pay all those nasty union workers who were obviously so lazy and inept that they really deserved to be working for the dole, not a decent hourly rate and things like shift-loading for working past midnight? Thankfully, because Patrick's and Reith treated these 'corrupt' unionised workers with enough contempt for their basic human rights, such as balaclava-clad security goons blocking them getting to their jobs and earning a living to support their families, some of them got pissed off and actually dared to PROTEST and blockade the replacement workers. Footage of these protests/blockades helped Reith and his Government in a carpet bombing PR campaign within the commerical media that very few were able to escape. The media pushed the line that unions are corrupt and get in the way of nice corporations like Patrick's from running their businesses, by bargaining for fairer conditions for their workers.

The right climate was established for a wealth of workplace relations reforms (as kind to disadvantaged workers as the current ones you might be hearing about in the media) to be pushed through the Senate, which have been devastatingly damaging to the power of unions to fight for the rights of nasty corrupt workers all around Australia, like your Mum, your Dad, and yourself. And thanks to the media coverage, we've all been happily educated on what bad organisations those unions are, and no one thinks they're worth a grain of salt, which is why no one's really in the unions anymore. Hurrah!

But then there's those dreaded student unions. Damn them for fighting against those 25% HECS increases last year. Damn them for fighting for better quality education available freely to all citizens of Australia. Damn them for fighting for the democratic rights of international students. Damn them for being a political organisation which is made entirely of students, democratically elected and fighting for the rights of all students. And damn students in general for daring to ever be politically active and establishing a long history of fighting for so many worthy social causes. Causes such as ending the war in Vietnam and now Iraq, improving Women's and Gay/Lesbian rights, and lobbying to end the illegal anti-civil-rights imprisonment of asylum-seekers in sub-human detention centres within Australia!

How dare there be an organisation that isn't co-ordinated by the Liberal party (or the current governing party), or a Corporation, or an independent regulatory body that is meant to keep big business in check but whose powers are decimated by decades of reform and deregulation of industry by Governments? How dare that organisation which represents the rights of students above the interests of corporatised Universities and corrupt Governments, be funded by a small percentage of fees that all students pay?

Why don't we just make it so no one will bother paying that fee? That'll show em! They won't be so powerful without any money to provide them with basic infrastructure. And then the Government will be able to get away with anything because they won't be able to collectively organise and schedule protests and co-ordinate campaigns to generate media attention, and no one will know that there are lots of people who don't like what the Government is doing.

It doesn't really matter that this means universities won't be able to support all the other services provided by those fees that have nothing to do with the unions we have such a gripe with. Because we all know the 'free market' will provide free child care, free counselling, free legal advocacy, free printing presses for student publications, dirt cheap gym memberships, free food and entertainment, free student lounges, interest free student loans, don't we? That's why everyone in the world of 'free trade' lives equally isn't it?

So do you still think this VSU thing is a good thing? Still don't care? Didn't think so. What can we do about it? LOTS. That Liberal/National Senate majority that was mentioned is only a one seat majority, and senators often cross the floor to vote against their party. If we convinced one Liberal or National Senator to vote against VSU, then the legislation may never get through in its current form. And there is evidence some National Party Senators who are part of the Coalition may not like the currently proposed VSU bill because it will be damaging to University sports facilities and communities. The battle is not lost!

How do we convince Senators to vote against the bill, or convince the Government to redraft it or scrap it altogether? We participate in a campaign of protesting, letter writing (to MPs, Senators, and newspapers), talking to people, making noise, and trying to get the anti-VSU message heard loud and clear! Everyone can do something to help. And everyone should, because we are fighting against a mainstream media that doesn't even want to talk about the issue meaningfully at all. Did you know on April 28th, 15,000 students protested Australia wide in the First National Day of Action against VSU, forming the largest student demonstration in 10 years, yet the widest read 'newspaper' in the country, The Herald Sun, did not include a single comment about it whatsoever? We have to show them that they MUST report on this issue because we give a damn!

Go here: http://au.geocities.com/stop_vsu for more information and some more ideas about what you can do to help fight VSU legislation. There are useful links there to different university websites which detail their individual campaigns, and information about the wider national campaign.

The next National Day of Action is August 10th, but don't just sit around and wait for that, get out there and take one of the other steps you can read about at the website above.

Thank you. 1