“Racist, sexist, anti-queer, Liberals are not welcome here!”—the sound of students chanting echoes through the Old Quadrangle at the University of Melbourne. Dotted across the building’s sandstone walls are bright yellow stickers that feature former Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies with devil horns. The stickers read “NO MENZIES INSTITUTE”.
On 18 November, students at the University protested the opening of the Robert Menzies Institute (the Institute). The University administration, together with the Liberal Party and their big bucks—seven million dollars of federal funding to be exact—have established the Institute as an outpost of Australia’s hard right at the heart of the Parkville campus.
The University’s Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell and members of the board of the Institute—including right-wing Sky News commentator Peta Credlin and chair of the neoliberal think tank the Institute of Public Affairs Geoffrey Hone—are no doubt very pleased to see it finally open. The partnership between the University’s management and the Institute is mutually beneficial. Maskell can further cement a (no doubt already close) relationship with some of the most powerful people in Australian business, media and politics, and Credlin, Hone, and other right-wing culture warriors get a platform to spread their ideas on campus.
Opposition to the Institute among Melbourne University students and staff is in part about the right-wing worldview it’s being set-up to promote. The right whinge about “free speech” any time anyone opposes them. Yet the backers of the Institute are, like Credlin, already among the most high profile figures in our society—they don’t need yet another avenue to publicise their views. The establishment of the Institute is, in reality, a blow to whatever remains of a culture of “free and disinterested” debate on campus. It’s an example of powerful interests buying access to academia and the prestige that goes with that.
The establishment of the Institute as a bastion of reaction at the heart of one of Australia’s major universities is particularly galling at a time when the far-right is enjoying a resurgence in connection with the so-called “freedom movement” against COVID-19 related public health measures.
Sam Rathnaweera, a socialist and activist in the “Stop the Liberals—Menzies Institute off our Campus” campaign, highlighted the connection between the two. “The right-wing of the Liberal Party and the figures backing the establishment of the Institute on our campus”, she said, “are among the most strident promoters of the kind of worldview held by the far-right individuals and organisations marching through the streets of Melbourne. The right-wing, anti-human messaging of the far-right street movement isn’t disconnected from the kind of rhetoric that people like Peta Credlin spew day-in, day-out on Sky News”.
In addition to pushing back against the right politically, our campaign is part of a broader fightback against attacks on higher education. National Tertiary Education Union member and socialist activist Elyssia Bugg, who spoke at the protest, highlighted the connection between university managers “who are directly responsible for the mass sackings of staff and slashing of student resources across universities”, and the backers of the Institute who have consistently supported cuts to public education funding.
Among those responsible for attacks on higher education is Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who gave the keynote address at the opening of the Institute. As Treasurer, Frydenberg was the architect of this year’s federal budget, which slashed tertiary education funding by almost 10 percent over the next three years.
The work of those establishing the Institute on our campus is part of a much bigger agenda—one that’s about entrenching the power of big business and the rich over every aspect of our society, including universities. “We can’t afford to let those who champion an anti-education, anti-student and anti-worker agenda go unopposed,” continued Elyssia, “because if we do, the situation on our campuses will continue to deteriorate, and our universities will become even more dominated and controlled by right-wing business interests than they are already”.
Monica Sestito, Education (Research) Officer in the Melbourne University Graduate Student Association and a leading activist in the campaign against the Institute, summarised the tasks ahead for student activists: “This isn’t the end of our campaign. This is just the beginning of rebuilding the student movement. The Menzies Institute isn’t going away without a fight. We want to tell the people running this centre that we will be back!”.
Hundreds of refugees rallied outside Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil’s office in Oakleigh, in south-east Melbourne, on Monday, demanding permanent visas for those who have still not gained protection more than a year after the election of the federal Labor government.
The murder of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police last September sparked the largest revolt in Iran since the 1979 revolution. What began as a protest in Gina Mahsa Amini’s home town of Saqqez soon developed into a nationwide revolt against the Iranian state. Over the course of six months, hundreds of thousands of students, workers, the young and the old, took to the streets with the battle cry “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi!” (Women, life, freedom).
Australia’s goods and services tax is the one tax that the rich in this country love.
Large demonstrations have been taking place across Syria in recent weeks. While their scale has yet to reach the peaks seen in 2011, many are hopeful that the government will be brought down. To get a more detailed assessment of the movement and the situation it faces in Syria, Red Flag spoke to long-time Syrian leftist Jamal Chamma. Jamal is based in Melbourne and has been involved for years in organising demonstrations in solidarity with the Syrian revolution.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers claimed last week that the average Australian worker is $3,700 “better off” than a year ago, citing this as proof that Labor in government has delivered on its promise to “get wages moving again”. The West Australian newspaper called it “Labor’s wages growth win”. Other media headlines could almost have tricked you into thinking that workers are getting richer right now.
As the referendum approaches, the key dynamic in the debate is clear. The conservative right views a defeat for the Voice as a chance to strike a devastating blow against support for Indigenous rights among the Australian population. In the process, it is reviving every racist myth in the play book: Indigenous people shouldn’t get “special privileges”; opposing anti-Aboriginal racism is actually “dividing the nation”; and the colonisation of Australia had only a “positive impact”, in the words of Jacinta Price.