Keep the whine in the Pyne

Just hours after surviving a party room challenge, Tony Abbott was interviewed by Leigh Sales on the ABC’s 7.30. She started by asking the PM a simple, brutal question: “Are you a dead man walking?”

Education minister Chris Pyne is in a similar sort of situation. Except that he’s more of a dead man whingeing. He’s got lots to whinge about. He is part of a government that has been an utter failure, a historic embarrassment. While it has managed to push through some vicious cuts to welfare and social services, the headline policies have been blocked.

At the same time, the Liberals have done more to popularise and mobilise opposition to austerity and cuts to social spending than anyone in recent memory. Rupert Murdoch, the Business Council of Australia and the IPA are fuming.

The key thing weighing on Pyne’s mind would be his inability to garner broad support for his portfolio’s higher education policies. Described by the Liberal Party and its big business mates as “important reforms”, the rest of us call Pyne’s changes a savage attack on workers and the poor that will lead to a US-style, two-tier education system.

Typically, Pyne decided to spend $15 million of taxpayer money on an ad campaign to convince students to support his policy. What is worth noting, however, is the way the policy has evolved in the months since it was announced. Initially, he sought to introduce an interest rate on HECS debt, to cut government funding and to turn badly needed student welfare payments into a loan scheme.

The response by students was fantastic. We hit the streets, disrupted the Q&A program, mobbed Liberal politicians wherever possible and generally caused hell for the government. I’m happy to say that members of Socialist Alternative’s student clubs have been crucial to the campaign.

As a result of all these actions, students have made the attacks on education untenable. Pyne was always one of the most unpopular ministers – his name is now mud on campuses across the country. Under pressure to negotiate a fairer deal, he has more or less had to abandon many aspects of the “reform” package in order to focus on the key battle: fee deregulation.

This retreat is a sign that students are on the right track. Some initial supporters of the policy are now complaining that deregulation without funding cuts will result in a net increase in government spending on education: the exact opposite of the original intention!

Pyne has now joined Abbott in the pathetic faction of Liberal politicians under attack from both the left and the right. His policy is a shambles, his credibility shot.

But we can’t be complacent.

Pyne is a determined ideologue who fervently believes in the virtues of the free market. More importantly, Pyne is a loyal servant of Australia’s corporate elite. He and his backers care for nothing except bank balances and profit margins. They are indifferent to the fact that the vast majority of students, staff and the broader public oppose these changes.

Just look at how they responded to student protesters in mid-February, pepper-spraying more than a dozen students seeking to express their opposition to fee deregulation.

We have beaten Chris Pyne once, and we can do it again. But the only way is to keep the pressure on is via public protests and direct actions. The ACTU rally on 4 March and national student demonstrations on 25 March are crucial next steps in the campaign to ruin Pyne, Abbott and the corporate interests they represent.

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NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

VIC – 2pm State Library

NSW – 2pm UTS

QLD – 2pm Queens Park

ACT – 2pm ANU Union Court

TAS – 12pm Lazenby's, Sandy Bay Campus

SA – 4pm Rundle Mall, King Williams End

WA – 12:30pm Murray St Mall