Labor factions almost destroy National Union of Students

Rebecca Barrigos 04 February 2010

Last December the corrupt and undemocratic practices of the student Labor factions at the National Union of Students conference in Ballarat led to the near abolition of our national union. After the supposedly left-wing National Labor Students (NLS) and the right-wing Student Unity faction collaborated to deny votes to NUS delegates from fee-paying campuses and give the right control over the conference and ballot for NUS office bearers, the NUS constitution had been so seriously breached as to require a special meeting of the union. This special meeting of NUS took place at Sydney University on January 29. Despite a thin veneer of legality, by mid-afternoon the special meeting of NUS was shaping up to be a repeat of the last conference, with the NLS refusing to force the Labor Unity faction to make quorum and allow the meeting to open. The result was a paltry two hours of token discussion of union policy for 2010.  When conference floor was finally convened, there was no attempt by the NLS (who chaired the meeting) to hold Student Unity to account for their outrageous and illegal actions in Ballarat, where the Unity General Secretary of the union contracted a Returning Officer to do the bidding of the right and hijacked the ballot. Instead, the NLS agreed to allow Unity to move hypocritical motions calling for NUS office bearers to act in a more “professional and ethical” manner and for a Unity-led campaign to have more campuses affiliate to NUS in 2010. Worse still, the NLS signed yet another deal to give Unity key positions in the national union for 2010, including that of General Secretary. Any suggestion that Unity has anything to offer in the way of strengthening our student union is a complete joke. Unity, an anti-union faction, has consistently opposed women’s and queer rights and has used representative positions to rort and drive student unions into the ground. This conference was no exception as Unity voted against motions calling for NUS to campaign in support of abortion rights, and for NUS to publicly support refugee rights.   Yet it is really no wonder that the NLS were so willing to put the Labor right back in office. Under NLS leadership, NUS has refused to hold the Rudd government to account for its anti-student policies. While in government Rudd has refused to increase the youth allowance, has supported University-led attacks on public education at campuses such as Melbourne University in the form of the Melbourne-model, and has refused to abolish Howard’s anti-student union laws (VSU).  Having spent the last three years acting as a cheer squad for a Rudd government which has proven itself to be no friend of students, the NLS now seem to want to actively implement the government’s attacks on public education. Speaking to the main piece of NLS policy for 2010, Carla Drakeford (newly elected NUS President for 2010) noted that the Rudd government plans to deregulate tertiary education by 2012, allowing universities freedom to maximise their profits by having complete say over how many students and at what price they will accept. Already deregulation has meant staff cuts, course cuts and the entrenchment of a two-tiered education system – with elite universities like Sydney and Melbourne increasingly the preserve of students from wealthy backgrounds who can afford to pay for Law and Medicine degrees, while working class students are expected to get their education at the more technical colleges.  Drakeford spoke, not to oppose deregulation and reaffirm the historic position of NUS in support of free, widely accessible public education for all, but rather to accept deregulation and indicate that NUS’s top priority for 2010 should be pursuing a permanent seat on the government board (the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency) which will be implementing deregulation! In May 2009, Julia Gillard’s office sent out a press release stating that the creation of this board will cost the government $57 million over four years. That’s tens of millions of dollars that could be going towards funding public education. In a federal election year, the NLS are set to implement the same disastrous approach that they had in the lead-up to the 2007 Federal Election, when they refused to raise any criticisms of Rudd, thereby squandering a real opportunity to use the looming elections to demand that Labor institute real reforms. The special meeting of NUS confirms the need for a sizeable and genuinely left-wing force in the student movement committed to standing against governments, Labor and Liberal alike, in the interests of students and for a national union that is unashamedly a progressive voice on our campuses and in broader society.  To that end, Socialist Alternative is glad to at least be able to report that two of our members, Kath Larkin and Phoebe Kelloway, were elected as the National Queer Officers of NUS for 2010. They will be using their position, in conjunction with Socialist Alternative NUS officers in Victoria, Queensland and NSW, to strengthen our union and make NUS relevant to students by leading a campaign to overturn the Rudd government’s homophobic ban on same-sex marriage.  Rebecca is an NUS delegate and a former National Education Officer of NUS   Feedback on this article Related articles none