Student unions

Brendan Nelson, the Federal Education Minister backed out of a university speaking engagement, apparently over concerns for his safety - and the reaction of students protesting over the government’s voluntary student unionism legislation.

I must admit to being ambivalent about this legislation. While I’ve always advocated freedom of choice in whether or not to join a union (I never have, although probably would have if the Public Sector Union had been more diligent about chasing up membership forms when I joined the circus years ago), and I think the people who participate in student politics are generally complete wankers having a bludge from their studies, my thoughts on VSU are why does the government bother picking this fight? What do they expect to gain? All I can see is getting back at the successors to the Liberals enemies from their uni days. Big bloody deal!!!!

The problem in abolishing VSU is that there is a small but vocal minority of students who use the facilities that are subsidised by all. Most use very few of the services - most likely the shit (and usually not bargain priced) food outlets they run. When I was at uni I couldn’t have cared less if there were health services, counselling, child care etc - let the users pay for them. I suspect the proportion of students using the services the membership fees pay for is about the same as those who bother to vote in the elections. At my old uni, with about 18000 students, the SU president would be elected with 500-600 votes. However, at the end of the day, while you know you’re subsidising wankers, and services you never use, is it worth while to have the fight and not have to pay?

The VSU fight seems to me just a waste of time and resources that could better be used fixing more significant problems in the tertiary education sector.