Lot's Wife Edition 1 2017

Make Education Free Again
For their biggest campaign of 2017, the peak
representative body of student unions around
Australia, the National Union of Students (NUS),
have started a campaign called Make Education Free
Again. The campaign will defend the rights of students
to accessible education and welfare, fight against the
tertiary fee, and demand an end to the enormous debt
students are saddled with.
Once upon a sweet time, tertiary education in Australia
was completely free (say whaaat). This lasted until 1987
– but it means the very people who are forcing us to
pay higher fees and scrape by on poorly funded welfare
went to university without paying a cent. Since entering
politics, these people have pushed heavily to deregulate
university fees. The average annual student contribution
rose to $1,800 in 1989, then to $5,183 in 1997, and further
to $7,600 in 2014. At the moment, universities can
only legally increase fees by a very minor percentage.
Deregulation means that Vice Chancellors at Australian
universities can make degrees as expensive as they like.
This cruelly takes advantage of the limited options many
students have in regards to their university course, and
a working class that increasingly relies on a tertiary
qualification simply to live within ones own means.
While deregulation was first introduced as an idea
in 2014, it came after a long history of our government
slowly dismantling public funding to education. Recent
years have shown scholarship cuts, major cuts to student
welfare, and a fee structure that makes university
increasingly difficult to access. It is no wonder research
shows that approximately two thirds of university
students live below the poverty line. Financial stress is
not only a huge deterrent from academic success, but
it disproportionately affects Indigenous students and
students from low-socio economic backgrounds. This
issue is simply becoming more devastating for students
and families by the day. A tertiary qualification is almost
the requisite standard for a job that pays a living wage in
Australia. Living in such a world begs the question: why
is the cost of a qualification so financially crippling?
While much of the deregulation bill was blocked by
Parliament, the idea still remains on the table as some
university courses are already being deregulated without
much public scrutiny. In 2014, when we were on the brink
of a complete fee restructure that would be absolutely
devastating for students across the board, NUS along
with many other groups of students, launched into
action by protesting in the streets. NUS President at the
time Rose Steele arranged meetings that successfully
convinced a number of Independent senators to
vote down the bill. Fee deregulation was turned into
a poisonous issue and was defeated in the Senate
three times. While smaller, lesser-known attacks on
education have come into place then, the success student
activists had with beating the main fee deregulation
bill emphasises the importance of student unionism,
political engagement and the effectiveness of taking
action.
The Australian Government consistently implements
cuts to education every year, often far from public
scrutiny. Being deliberately subtle, they take advantage
of an increasingly disengaged and clueless middle class.
This means that there’s seemingly no reason to protest
anything – and IT’S A TRAP. Fighting back to this in the
form of protesting and activism not only pressures the
government, but it spreads the message far and wide that
the current government does not stand for us: not for
workers, not for families, and certainly not for students.
The Australian Government is also cracking into
welfare. Recently, in what has been mostly labelled as a
‘scam’, thousands of dollars of false debt have been added
onto Centrelink recipients. Debt notices calculated on
faulty algorithms have changed the lives of thousands
of people already, forcing them into the stressful task of
scrambling through old payslips to prove they don’t owe
money. It has been alleged that approximately 20% of the
debt notices are inaccurate. There are reports of people
paying debts they don’t owe, just to stop the government
hounding them. This illustrates the government’s tactful
approach to welfare: make it measly, hard to access, and
push as many people off as possible.
In 1974, Gough Whitlam abolished university fees
with the belief that “a student’s merit, rather than a
parent’s wealth, should decide who should benefit from
the community’s vast financial commitment to tertiary
education” (from his 1972 pre-election speech). These
sentiments still ring true, and that’s why instead of just
reacting, we are pushing for positive change.
The National Day of Action is an annual protest
organised by NUS that happens on the same day, at
the same time, in all major cites around the country.
This is what helped students in their major win against
fee regulation in 2014, and 2017’s objective is the Make
Education Free Again campaign. When thousands hit the
streets of cities around the country to fight for our right
to affordable and accessible education, we are heard. It
is absolutely vital that big numbers of students inform
themselves of the completely unacceptable education
inequity that this government is getting away with, and
get involved with NUS campaigns.
The protest to Make Education Free Again will kick off
with a bang on March 22nd at 2pm, at the State Library.
There will be a barbeque held on the Lemon Scented
Lawn at 12pm and a contingent from Monash will be
leaving together at 1pm. All are welcome to join – and
even if it’s your first protest, you will be apart of a large
and friendly group who are keen to answer any questions.
To join student activists around the country in fighting
for this right for accessible and affordable education,
contact your student union about how you can get
involved with NUS campaigns and events. At a more
local level, the Education (Public Affairs) Officers or the
Environment and Social Justice Officers at the Monash
Student Association (MSA), located upstairs in the
Campus Centre, are always willing to speak to students
who want to know more about their campaigns or how
they can get more involved.
article by juliet steel and jasmine duff, illustration by audrey chmielewski
student affairs
16-17