Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I might have, but equally a student might also use the services provided on campus. You cannot test a proposition by whether or not you may or may not use services. But I do rise to support the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009 and take this opportunity to reflect on my university life, as so many other members have, and reflect a bit on this matter, which is a bit of an ideological battle between the two parties.

When I look back to my time at university—I went to the Salisbury campus of the University of South Australia—it was a very working-class campus, actually. There were many young adults from the northern suburbs and a lot of country kids from towns like Kapunda, where I grew up, who travelled in. It was an accessible campus for people who wanted to travel from the mid-north. There were a lot of REC students and, in particular, a lot of them came from the Iron Triangle, from places like Port Pirie, Whyalla and Port Augusta. So it was a very accessible campus. It was a campus where I made a lot of really good friends, like Gavin Rudge, Sondra Mettner, now Lyons, and Lee Odenwalder, who is now a Labor Party candidate for the state parliament of South Australia for the seat of Little Para. So it produced hopefully a few Labor politicians.

In this campus, the student union really was central to campus life. It ran the cafeteria. Most importantly, it ran the bar, which was an important area for social engagement. It ran O week, which was always a lot of fun, but it also ran a lot of important student services—small loans, child care, support services and the like. I knew a lot of people who probably would not have made it through university, or their lives at university would have been much more difficult, had they not had access to those services.

The student union was not party political. It was not part of the National Union of Students. It was a dissenting campus and existed on its own in splendid isolation, unconcerned with international politics, unconcerned with extreme ideologies. I cannot remember anybody ever discussing foreign affairs at the bar of the student union. I cannot remember anybody really discussing politics. I do not know what was going on at other campuses, but evidently we were missing out. But there was no sign of extremist ideologies at Salisbury, and perhaps that is because it was a bit of a working-class campus. We were much more concerned with bread-and-butter issues. We were concerned with HECS fees, and I remember protesting out the front of Trades Hall, of all places. This was before I was a member of the Labor Party, but I remember protesting there about some of the HECS rises. I remember being very concerned about the levels of Austudy, so I think things do not change so much. A lot of students find it very tough to get by with the level of HECS fees charged by the previous government. Often they have to work. They find it very difficult indeed.

Towards the end of my time at university most of the student activism was aimed at saving the campus itself, because unfortunately the management of the University of South Australia decided to close the Salisbury campus. It was a great tragedy, in my opinion. It is just adjacent to my electorate, on the very edge of the electorate of Makin. The campus is now closed. The sports oval was turned into a retirement village—a very nice retirement village, but it fills me full of sadness whenever I go there. Its old buildings are now a very good private school, Tyndale college. I went for a tour there recently, and I must say I got a bit misty eyed when we went up to what is now the teachers lounge but was the old bar. The decision to close that campus was, in my opinion, a tragically short-sighted decision. It undermined the ability of so many of my constituents to attend a local campus. Given the fact that the northern suburbs is the growing area of Adelaide, we now find that students often have to travel very long distances—one or two hours, sometimes one way—to Flinders University or the University of Adelaide. It places great burdens on their studies, their work and their families, and often rural families face having to send their kids to Adelaide.

That is not new; it has gone on for a long time. My first girlfriend, Annette, was from Mildura. She was staying in the accommodation down at Flinders University around the same time that the member for Barker was there. I made good use of the university bars even if he did not. My point is that Adelaide universities need to take some account of the prominence of the northern suburbs and, hopefully, take the opportunity to boost the Mawson Lakes campus of the University of South Australia and the Roseworthy campus of the University of Adelaide. Roseworthy has a tremendous history. It is one of the oldest agricultural colleges in the country and has just had a significant boost with the opening of Adelaide’s first vet school. I think they have taken their first students this year and a terrific new building will open in early 2010. There is a very keen group of students and lecturers there so it is a really positive thing.

In the main, my experience with student unions was that they did their job, that they were not particularly overly political and they existed to help students no matter what their status. This bill really does ensure basic student support services of a non-academic nature—bookshops, counselling, sports establishments, clubs and food. Frankly, I am staggered that people could oppose student representation and advocacy—it is hardly controversial. Yes, there is a small compulsory fee but, as I have said before, fees are just part of life. It is part of adulthood and I think most students learn that. There is a loan facility to help pay for the fee. The fee cannot be used to support political parties or political candidates. That last point is very important.

When I looked through some of the contributions made by members opposite, I was particularly concerned when I read the member for Mayo’s contribution. He spent a great deal of time talking about what he called ‘Labor Inc.’ which, in his fevered imagination, is the link between student unions and the state Labor Party. He made a number of references to my time in this House and at university. I ran for student union office only twice, losing miserably both times. He also reflected on the member for Adelaide, the member for Kingston, Senator Don Farrell, the state member for West Torrens, Tom Koutsantonis, and my good friend Peter Malinauskas and his brother Rob Malinauskas. He suggested that we were all from some student union training ground.

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