Legerdemain, Minister of Education, Science and Training Style. (March 16, 2005)

    Front page in today's Australian

Unis to face big fines on union 'fees'

UNIVERSITIES could face multi-million-dollar fines if they attempt to circumvent a government ban on charging compulsory student union fees, under tough legislation to be unveiled by Education Minister Brendan Nelson.

And now from the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee, which appears to be having increasingly acrimonious correspondence with the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson.

University services set to fall apart

“The AVCC rejects the Government’s underlying premise that students are forced to be members of student organisations they do not wish to join voluntarily. They are not.
    “The AVCC’s policy acknowledges that students already have the option not to be members of student organisations but also states the importance of students’ participation in the organisation of their universities,” Professor Yerbury said.

    Professor Yerbury said the Government’s intention to introduce a system of fines for any university not abiding by the legislation was also disappointing.

While the Group of Eight expressed its views somewhat more forcefully:

VSU bill – an elephant to crush an ant

A compulsory student fee should be seen in the same way that rates and taxes contribute to the community life of every Australian. These taxes fund the infrastructure that supports our society including the state and federal parliaments and elected politicians. So too at our universities a compulsory fee ensures that child care, health services, sporting clubs, debating societies and many other campus-based organisations can survive. Student representative bodies are part of this democratic environment and play an important role in the representation of student interests in the internal governance of their universities.

    To introduce this new legislation on the premise that these fees represent the last bastion of compulsory unionism is akin to using an elephant to squash an ant, because student fees fund much more than a small number of elected representatives. Their contribution to the quality of university life is very significant.

Of course while Dr Nelson has now forced this preoccupying card on the whole of the academic community -- staff, students and administrators -- he can go about his business of corporatising the universities and devaluing their contributions to fundamental research as well as diminishing their role as custodians of learning and knowledge -- all the while manoeuvring them into becoming, in the main, advanced vocational training centres.