NUS education conference debates way forward
Hundreds of students from around Australia recently attended the annual National Union of Students (NUS) education conference, which this year was held in Brisbane.
The conference, in the first week of July, debated the direction of the student movement. Many of these discussions related to the Make Education Free Again campaign, run by NUS this year. Other important questions for the left were also raised: the lessons of Jeremy Corbyn’s meteoric rise in Britain, current debates within the Australian Greens and the legacy of recent Labor governments.
Attendees spoke of the wave of attacks on students and young workers as part of an overall “war on young people”. Discussion went beyond criticism of the current Liberal government, referring to trends over the past three decades.
Since the 1980s, higher education has been transformed into an expensive commodity, while poor working conditions and attacks on welfare have forced at least two-thirds of students below the poverty line.
The left emphasised that the Labor and Liberal parties share the blame for the current situation and that no amount of lobbying of politicians can win our demands. This was starkly demonstrated when Wayne Swan, ex-treasurer and deputy prime minister under Labor, was featured on the “politicians’ panel” at the conference. He claimed that the ALP, which has in the past introduced many attacks on students, is the best we can hope for.
The most recent positive example of the fightback we need, discussed frequently at the conference, was NUS’s 2014 campaign against fee deregulation. Regular protests and actions forced the issue into the public eye, putting then prime minister Tony Abbott on the back foot and pressuring crossbenchers to scuttle successive attempts to pass the bill.
Many attendees celebrated and discussed the popularity of Jeremy Corbyn’s radical program for education reform in Britain. With promises to eradicate student debt and improve welfare services, Corbyn has electrified millions of young people across the UK and the world. The significance and lessons of his near victory in the general election were the subject of much debate.
Students in National Labor Students (associated with the left of the ALP), were adamant that Corbyn provides an argument for joining the ALP and providing it with the backing of NUS. Socialists at the conference argued that the left has to be rebuilt outside of the opportunism of parliamentary politics.
The need for a new radical student movement emerged clearly from the debates. Activists must prioritise mobilising masses of students against government attacks, regardless of which party is in office. In the context of the current assault on higher education, we need a movement that demands more: free, well-funded universities and decent wages and welfare for those studying.
