There is a National Day of Action this Thursday with events in every capital city. For those in Melbourne there is a rally at the State Library at 2pm and then some live music at the Treasury Gardens which I believe is going to be mixed by our very own Fancy Dave Bower.
On a similar topic, the Melbourne Uni paper Farrago is doing an article on VSU and it's effects on Western Australian universities and in particular, student media. I am putting together my thoughts on VSU and student media now, and seeing as though we have quite a few Guild types that frequent this site I thought I'd open up the comments section for discussion.. I will forward any submissions onto the Farrago team. See the 'read more' link for a list of the email questions.
—–EXTENDED BODY:
Your full name:
University you were in:
University degree/course:
1) What were some of the immediate visible results in your university and other universities when VSU was implemented in Western Australia?
2) What effect did it have on student media (especially the Pelican)?
3) How did the student unions cope? Which services ceased to operate/were still operating?
4) Did this affect the numbers of the student intake that year (and the years following) as far as you know?
5) How was your university's response in this situation?
6) How do you think the student media could play a role in countering VSU?
Lu says:
New ed. of Farrago came out today. See pg 5. You might want to speak to Imogen Hamel-Green (enviro officer)-i.hamel-green@union.unimelb.edu.au re: the impact of VSU on the enviro dept's in the unions in WA back in '94
killer says:
Wow, thanks Lu, as always you add so much to the discussion.. and you know what I <i>will</i> contact Imogen Hamel-Green re: the impact of VSU on the enviro dept's in the unions in WA back in '94, even though I wasn't a student in '94 and even though I have never been involved in the environment department, that just happens to be my area of expertise.
CAAAAATFIIIGGHHT! says:
*ROWR*
VSU = the total phaseout of the bucket in the Arts Common Room, i mean, do they even have a Common Room anymore? They got rid of the whole Science faculty, now Uni is just a rite of passage for rich poofter metro boyz/galz before ending their Summer Of BayView with a guaranteed job down at a frickin mortgage brokers….
seriously, when I drive thru town on Prosh Day, see some chick with Cowboy Hats (ie = costume = hilarity = not!) and not a single goon bag within hurling distance, I am left shaking my head at the Hitler/Howard Youth of Today - sorta like how Mandela says that everyone should be liberal (little L) in their youth and then grow up to be cantankerous old "back in my day" conservative busybodies, Baby Jesus cries for Young Liberals…
but maybe Imogen has the 411…THE 199411 LOLO!)!)!)!)!!Q@#@!#$CAPRANT
Taco says:
As a current Union employee, can I comment off the record?
I'd like to point out effects of VSU weren't really felt in 1994 in WA. See state legislation…
CAAAAATFIIIGGHHT! says:
*R-R-ROOOOWWWWWRRRRR!!!*
Dem's [cat]fightin' words!
And where do you get off, starting up your own website, calling it "kilbot.net", adding new features and shit, and then you insist on us having to look at your gawd awful mug avec toupee? Just shameless…
Got eat some cat-arse!
killer says:
* sorry everyone, I deleted some comments by Lu which may make Big Daddy Catfight's comments a little ambiguous. Over three or four comments she said that I was a "cat-arse" as an editor (which I agree with) and that I am arrogant for having posted a picture of me (which may be the case). If these comments came from anyone other than Lu I would leave them for further debate, but given that she is a well known shit stirrer I have decided to once again remove anything she posts to this site.
Now back to VSU.
ms lee says:
Kirstyn Lee, UWA, with a uni career that spanned both pre- and post-VSU (my CSU O-camp was decadent, to say the least). Bachelor of Laws/Sciences, Pelican Editor 1999
1) Reduction of campus activities, and loss or diminution of Faculty Societies, diminished political activities. Orienting of guild goals to stereotypical or dollar-based notions of 'student life' in order to justify existence. Loss of bursaries for many student rep positions meant that poorer or working students had a diminished capacity for involvement, resulting in unrepresentative proportions of 'richer' students in the guild, and a prevailing largely a-political hegemony, instumental in the current one-party system at UWA.
2) At Pelican, the negative effects were obvious: advertising (up to a third of the paper in my time, with me fighting to keep it down) with flow on effects in terms of content; increased pressure from the Guild (capital G) to become a guild mouthpiece as they seek ways to reach students (censoring guild-critical articles); higher expectations of professionalism from the paper, excluding lots of students and adding to pressure on individual editors; less frequent updating of equipment;
Unfortunately I also think there were some positives: the paper became more relevant and only started being distributed properly when VSU came in. Before, it would sit around mouldering under the stairs, and lots were thrown away. This is obviously symptomatic of general mismanagement. Resolving the tension between the need for effective management and some professionalism, while keeping the paper firmly in the hands of students is difficult to achieve.
6) I think student media should become more relevant and better managed prior to the introduction of VSU, because sadly inefficiency is often embedded in old-style student unionism. I couldn't believe the rorting that was going on at CSU campuses/campi?? when I went to the Student media conference.
killer says:
"As a current Union employee, can I comment off the record?"
Of course Taco, but I can't see how your comments would upset your employer.. unless of course you are going to say that VSU is a good thing.
killer says:
Also, thanks for your words Kirsty.. I'm going to add that to Tony Merryweather's great article from 2001 (reproduced below and without his consent) and my comments (which will be submitted at the last minute as usual).
–
VSU article by Tony Merryweather
–
"Let me just say something about your nemesis, the National Union of Students. It's always been the campus extension, I suppose, of the socialist level of the ALP. And this year [it] will acquire, I am informed, 1.2 million dollars from student fees of affiliated universities. It is this compulsorily extracted money which is being used, more often than not, by NUS to campaign against the Coalition at successive elections . . . Let me be quite clear, NUS exists only because of compulsory student unionism, if we defeat that compulsion then NUS' life blood will dry up accordingly."
-Peter Reith (then Minister for Workplace Relations and Small Business) 7/7/99 Speech to the Australian Liberal Students Federation, 50th Anniversary Federal Council
In 1996, the Mount Lawley campus of Edith Cowan University was an exciting place to be. There was always something going on to keep you there, whether it be a band blasting something out at lunch or the packed tavern where you knew some of the bar staff or just because someone from the Academy of Performing Arts decided to give an impromptu performance. And even if you happened to be snowed under with work, home seemed like a far less stimulating place to get it done.
This was already two years after the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism to Western Australia by the Court Government and to the outsider everything seemed pretty rosy. The next year however, an entirely different mood swept across Mount Lawley ECU. Suddenly guild members weren't getting what they had paid for in the past two years and the life seemed to be draining out of the place. Bands only played once a week, Academy students who had worked at the tavern and helped to bring the whole campus together were no longer employed there, and students didn't have the reasons to stick around any more. Why the sudden change? The Keating Government had been defeated in '96, bringing to an end their Student Organisation Scheme (SOS) which had propped up university guilds against the onslaught of VSU.
Without the SOS, the young ECU student guild, without the financial strength of the UWA and Curtin guilds, and with no financially strong university administration to pick up the slack was, within a couple of years, almost completely crippled. The student life that it had helped to create in its short history had to be put to one side in order for the guild to fight for its survival. And so, the grassroots of the alleged nemesis of the ALSF, the 'anti-coalition campaigners', were on their knees. Peter Reith and the rest of his like-minded pro-VSU peers had succeeded in their mission. But their cynical VSU legislation had done far more damage to ECU and the other universities as a whole than it had to any left wing student campaigning. Not only had campus life been drained, but two of the fundamental building blocks of any university, educational standards and student services, were severely damaged.
Due to VSU, a weakened ECU Guild was not able to help out their cash-strapped university when it was forced, due in part to decreases in government funding, to cut key welfare areas which were not profit-driven. These services could have been transferred over to the control of a healthy guild, but instead there is now the extraordinary situation at the Bunbury Campus of ECU where no welfare or retail services are available. The view of the conservatives - that guilds work against, rather than with their university - does not recognise that it should in fact be a healthy co-existence.
Whilst able to maintain core welfare services since 1996, the UWA guild, which operates most of the university's services (unlike at ECU), has still had to scrap or cut back many of its non-profit services, even with assistance from a supportive university administration. To make the guild economically viable in the VSU climate, there have been 28 job-losses from a staff of 110; the Sexual Assault and Referral Centre has been lost; there have been cuts to Guild Departments which cater for specific student sub-groups such as postgraduate students, international students and mature age students; the Guild Education Research Officer has been lost; the Text Book Subsidy Scheme has been scaled back; and the Guild Computer Lounge has had to be scrapped. These are just a few of the cut-backs to university services and student representation brought on by VSU at a university where the guild still managed a 43 percent student membership in 2000.
In 2000, there were roughly 14 000 full-time equivalent students at the four ECU campuses. Of those, little more than 1500 paid the $20 then necessary to become guild members! In 1998, the $75 that it took to become a member was already the cheapest in the nation, so last year's membership requirement could be seen as little more than a show of support. Despite the fact that the 28 full-time ECU guild staff members that existed before VSU numbered just one last year (appointed by the University Administration), they still managed to block a little-known move by the University to introduce up-front fees across the board in an understandable (given ECU's economic situation) but short-sighted attempt at immediate monetary gain.
While the guild blocked up-front fees, it was too busy fighting for survival to stop the university from cutting back on the sciences and the arts, and couldn't affect the problem of tutorial class sizes, an affliction which is obviously extremely detrimental to a student's ability to learn. Units with small tutorial sizes which were conducive to learning have been scrapped while those with overcrowded tutorials continue on as is, because they are bringing in the cash. It's all about economic viability, whether it be for the university or the guild. For the guild, economic viability is a priority because of VSU. For the university it is partly because of VSU, but largely due to federal funding cuts by a government that seems hell-bent on privatisation of universities and the introduction of up-front fees.
What may be the most alarming trend with regards to VSU, the accompanying cutting back of student services and the inexorable push towards up-front fees, is the growing pressure placed on those students coming from a lower socio-economic background. They are the ones most likely to be in need of free or subsidised on-campus support services and they are the ones who will be unable to pay up-front fees for courses. The effects of VSU stretch far and wide across Australian society. As 2001 ECU Guild President Steve Spain postulates, "It fundamentally impedes the development of the nation as a whole."
The guild isn't a branch of the Labor Party as Peter Reith and other supporters of VSU would have us believe. The health of the guild is crucial to the well-being and morale of Australian students, academics and the universities themselves. Until VSU is repealed in this state, WA campus life will continue to suffer, the welfare of students will continue to wane, and the standard of education cannot possibly improve. Quality education will increasingly become the exclusive domain of the higher socioeconomic strata. The newly elected State Labor Government have the repeal of VSU on their agenda, but who knows how long it will be before Mount Lawley ECU returns to the glory days of '96?
-Tony Merryweather . Pelican Student Newspaper . Volume 72 . Edition 01
badger says:
Yeah onya CAAAAATFIIIGGHHT!, way to go sticking it to all them sons of bitches down at the mortgage brokers - at least you're keeping it real huh?
KL says:
While not completely relevant, it is nice to know that Alan Robson (VC at UWA) knows that Nelson is a tool and that VSU is a fundamentally flawed concept.
Check out page 4 of this pdf:
[url=http://www.publishing.uwa.edu.au/uwanews/2005/uwanews20050404.pdf
UWA News[/url]
KL says:
Uhh sorry:
[url=http://www.publishing.uwa.edu.au/uwanews/2005/uwanews20050404.pdf]
UWA News[/url]
KL says:
Freakin' heck, Alan has just sent out an all-staff email telling everyone to support the students and Guild at an anti-VSU rally tomorrow. Alan is on the warpath! The quote that gets me is this:
The amenity fee levied by the University, funds the provision of a wide
range of important services to students, with 70 percent of the fee
being allocated to the UWA Student Guild and 30 percent to the UWA
Sports and Recreation Association. The funding supports educational
assistance and study skills support, childcare, financial assistance and
advice, counselling services, student representation and advocacy,
on-campus catering, and a range of sporting and cultural clubs that are
recognised as such an important part of campus life. [b]It expressly does
not (and cannot by Statute) go towards the support of political causes.
[/b]The Guild has to provide an annual, audited account of expenditure to
the Senate and an explicit assurance that funds have been applied to
approved purposes.
Einstein Returns! says:
On an aside, Killer you should check out page 7 onwards of that same UWA News. Especcially page 9. I'm thinking this could be your next career move… giving this bogus chump a run for his money. I've heard your German accent… All you'd have to do is say Schnappi a few times and jot down some meaningless physics equations. Easy…
Mrs_D says:
Another excellent point made by Alan:
"The Federal Minister for Education has questioned why all students
should pay for these services if not all use them equally. This is in
fact no different to the taxation system, or the system of local
government rates, where members of the community pay collectively for
essential services whether they access the service or not. Providing
such service is an accepted part of running a society for the greater
good."
Dear Minisher, I want my tax money back that was used to send aussie troops to Iraq cos I didn't and still don't support that service.
Badger Killa says:
Hey, I'm here giving jobs to charity cases and doing my bit by rocking the system internally, whilst Doctor Stoner here is "living the dream maaaan" of his 8-year Comparative Couches of Greater Dalkeith study, and now finds himself the gimp of some deranged dildo factory worker…I keep it well real dude, like Simon Cowell!
Giovanni Torre says:
Univeral Student Unionism I support, but it needs to be regulated.
- Capped fees that can only grow with inflation or referendum.
- Quartely budget statements to the student body.
As for NUS, it should be abolished and replaced with a 76 member national committee of reps elected from each student union council and every university education collective. The committee would meet twice a year and coordinate national campaigns via phone, fax and email.
The saved affiliation fee money could be spent by individual unions on text book subisidies, cheaper and better food, welfare services, counselling, Sexual Assualt Referral Centres, student activism, free legal advice, free tax advice etc etc for students.
Let's say student unions pay $60,000 in annual affiliation fees.
$60,000 times by 38 is a lot.
killer says:
I would like to see compulsory union fees set at $3000 and put on the hecs bill ($30,000/$39,000 it's all the same really)… The money could be used for all those things that Giovanni mentioned plus all the things I wish I had when I was a uni.. like
- Syzygy playing in the tavern for 254 consecutive days.
- Shade cloth over the walk ways.
- A Guild casino on Rottnest.
et cetera
Adm Goat says:
<img src="http://adamconnors.net/network/images/favicon.gif" width="16" height="16" align="left">Wow kilbotnet, queer indeed that I would, completely by chance, come here today for a visit and a cuppa tea. Ten years after being the Ed of Grok at Curtin, I'm too tired from work to actually deconstruct, instruct, or indeed tuck into me noodles. Paying off debts, you see, never lets you be. And itchy eyes isn't just from putting student papers to bed. Where did I get my drive, my deathwish, my bladder control? Student press, funded by student unions, to fight for student/yoof rights probably. But as the other WA campi know, Curtin went the mass commercial route in the early 90s, UWA OWN(ed) so many resources they could, and probably still can, ride out a baht-style devaluation (but wasn't there a Hungry Jacks on campus story in there somewhere?), Murdoch kept swinging but sorted a palacial new student area — from all accounts financially viable — and ECU simply died ('97-'98?). As I can only really comment on the wee 27k student campus of Curtin, yes, our trusty publishing crew was at complete loggerheads with the tightarse guild who were bent on commercial interests and doing things such as stacking the branch against any form of Women's Dept. (a crime), but we publishers substantiated our stories (which should be the way, anyhow), kept a church/state divide, flirted but didnt give out. Apolitical was the buzz word, if not the centrist tome. But publishing suffered only in the time we spent substantiating "what the kids need" to hired bean counters, which turned out to be useful. And it survived. If you're looking for your archtypal services commercialisation pre-terror VSU petri dish, check out Curtin 1992-on. I've not kept up with it since, really, but I suppose it's still there (though my 1994 Website has gone. Heathens!). It goes without saying that non-VSU campi are going to get a huge shock as they struggle to keep essential services and still throw a good party (pun intended). Only one tip here for publishing as far as I recall: let the services/guild/unions show financial accountability, and the uni will welcome a free press. It's a freakin' fight. Guerilla warfare even. Fight.
fancy dave says:
You're tired, Adam?
We'd never have guessed.
But let's stop a minute…
Is the depoliticising of student life really an isolated incident? I'd suggest the whole world (nearly, or at least on the surface) has lapsed into morbid commerce, with nary a thought for welfare or genuine communal concern.
If there's a problem, surely there's somebody who's PAID to fix it, by the person with the problem, with the MONEY they earned solving another problem. This cold, instrumental view of humanity is at the core of our enemies hearts, comrades. They are all around us, driving their cars and trimming their lawns and wondering when the lefties are going to wander off and die.
Fight indeed.
hamish says:
Hmmm. As a tertiary student for nigh on 11 years now, there are bubbles of dark, filthy pestulent opinion simmering away somewhere on this issue. I have to say though that I think Dave's right. Someone said (Taco?) the other day that the New Way at the union was to refer to students as "customers"? mad as hell
[b]There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast interwoven, interacting,
multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars![/b]
etc
THAT'S AN AWESOME PHOTO OF FANCY AND KILLER.
Who's the genius who took it?
KL says:
Lou took that photo at Jock and Ali's wedding. Nice isn't it? Good colours.
KL says:
I mean Mrs D took it.
Barney says:
Arrogant self-aggrandising fucks.
Happy Friday, everybody!! :weirdo:
KL says:
that's the spirit, Barns :D
Barney says:
Cheers, KL! I hope everyone knows I was referring to Killer and Fancy for having their photo linked, as opposed to Jock and Ali…
Steve Edwards says:
From my extensive experience as the most eloquent NUS delegate in history, I pronounce all Guilds must be immediately sold off to Monsanto. That's not negotiable. Meet my initial demands then we'll talk.