ASEN is opposed to VSU because it threatens individual environment departments across the country and is an attack on student environmental activism (and thus the wider environment movement). VSU will dramatically decrease student unions’ incomes. If they survive, survive unions will be forced to implement severe budget cuts and historically, environment departments have been the first to go. Click here for more information on the ASEN VSU campaign. (https://web.archive.org/web/20050615110852/http://www.asen.org.au/VSU.html)
On March 15 2005, a joint meeting of the Liberal and National Party in Canberra cleared a piece of legislation for introduction into the Federal Parliament called the Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill – commonly known as Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) .The VSU legislation prohibits Universities from requiring a person to become a member of a student association and requiring a student to pay fees for non-academic student services. This means the end of universal membership of student unions in Australia – and student unions, starved of funds, will either die or be much weaker. The Howard Liberal government wants to crush dissent to their environmentally destructive, racist, homophobic and sexist policies. Students have always been at the core of progressive social movements in society. Student unions have the power to hold arrogant, repressive governments to account – like the student protests against the Vietnam war, the students all over the world who have overthrown dictatorships, and the students today who campaign for environmental justice today on a whole range of issues – climate change, forests, fair trade, anti-nuclear, indigenous issues…
The Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN) made up of environment collectives and state student environment networks across Australia, is opposed to VSU because it threatens individual environment departments across the country and is an attack on student environmental activism (and thus the wider environment movement). VSU will dramatically decrease student unions’ incomes. If they survive, survive unions will be forced to implement severe budget cuts and historically, environment departments have been the first to go. When VSU was implemented in Western Australia during the mid 1990s, two of the four student union environment departments in Western Australia had been lost, and the remaining ones were much less active. One of the worst outcomes of this attack on student unionism is the broader affect on society, and the suppression of a traditional avenue of dissent. The erosion of student unions, end of student media, and probable insolvency of the National Union Students (NUS) will reduce the role students can play in influencing positive social change through campus groups and state and national activist networks.
Student unions have historically played a major role in broader campaigns for environmental and social justice. The involvement of student unions provides a strong impetus to a campaign because of their activist base, resources, space to collectively organise, and ability to disseminate information and mobilise support from a large audience. Students have played a key role in the Australian environment movement’s history..
– The trailblazing ‘freedom rides’ to expose racism against Indigenous people were organised through Sydney Uni SRC in the 1960s.
– Hundreds of students, from Tasmania and the mainland, were involved in the Franklin Dam Campaign, and since then, countless other forest blockades and campaigns.
– Support from the ANU student union was the one of the main reason the indigenousactivists who established the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the lawns of Parliament House were able to survive the freezing winter
– Students were heavily involved in the struggle to stop the Jabiluka uranium mine in Kakadu National Park on Mirrar country. Hundreds of students, mobilised through their
student unions, traveled to the blockade and partcipated in other, city-based actions.
– Fourteen years ago the first ‘Students of Sustainability’ (SOS) conference was held; it is now the biggest annual national event for the Australian environment movement, bringing together students, Indigenous elders, NGOs and academics for a week of campaign planning, skillshares, discussion and networking.
– Student union environment collectives have fostered and produced many prominent environmental advocates. For example, The Australian Greens senator Kerry Nettle was the UNSW Student Guild Environment Officer in 1996, then NUS National Environment Officer. Student union organising trains students for a lifetime of activism.
Howard’s Ultimate Aim: Silencing all Progressive Movements
VSU must be viewed within the context of other attacks on civil society, especially changes in industrial relations laws, ASIO legislation, and changes to funding guidelines for environment groups.
– Since 1996 the Howard Government has systematically stripped the rights of workers and Trade Unions, reduced social services, and allowed more workplace exploitation.
– In 2002 the Howard Government introduced a raft of new anti-terror legislation which amongst other things gave the government power to criminalize a range of oppositional political activity that is traditionally viewed as legitimate
– Recently the government announced funding cuts to community environment groups, whereby no groups will be eligible for grants if they engage in any ‘political ‘ activity, restricting grants only to ‘practical’ things like recycling or tree planting.
Is there no room for dissent and a critical voice in Howard’s Australia?
The Howard governments wants to take away the power of students to get in the way. This affects the environment because students have always got in the way of environmentally destructive governments. Sustainable campus campaigns and campaigns on every other environmental issue you could think of (forests, marine, anti-nuclear, fair trade, indigenous justice, and more)- student unions on campus and state and national student environment networks are involved in so much. And that’s just the work students have done for the environment. It doesn’t even touch on the work students have done in this country for indigenous rights, for refugees, for peace, for queer liberation, for womens rights, for accessible education, and for so many other things. So if you care about the environment, if you care about the war on Iraq, if you care about social justice, if you care about anything at all, please help us to opposed the spectre of VSU in 2005.