Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to contribute to the debate on the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill 2010. I speak on behalf of the students, parents and families of Ryan and I state from the outset that I will not be supporting Labor’s bill and broken promise.

Let me be clear—the bill is not a return to compulsory student unionism.

So said the member for Kingsford-Smith in this House on 29 September during his second reading speech. Is that true, Mr Deputy Speaker? Is he correct? Is this bill not in fact a return to compulsory student unionism? This bill is a covert reintroduction of a compulsory fee and compulsory unionism. As my friend and colleague Senator Brett Mason said on this topic recently:

… if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

Ostensibly, if this bill is passed students will be compulsorily required to pay a $250 ‘fee’ each year to universities. According to the bill, this money is to be used to provide ‘services and amenities’. But how long will it take, in reality, for student unions to make a claim on this money by arguing that they are the de facto campus providers of services and amenities? Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is just a weak disguise for the reintroduction of compulsory student union fees. This is yet another broken promise, another deceitful trick, by a Labor government so entrenched in dishonesty it has, in the words of the Prime Minister herself before the public knifing of the now Minister for Foreign Affairs, ‘lost its way’.

So what is the reality for students if this compulsory fee—or, let’s call it what it really is, a union fee—goes ahead? When students start their new academic year they are met with a raft of financial imposts, most significantly a CSP debt owed to the Commonwealth. For a three-year arts degree at the University of Queensland the financial burden placed on Commonwealth-supported students will be at least $5,550 per year. Over three years this burden will grow to over $16,600. Then there are costs for books, transport, accommodation, expensive computers—the list goes on. The extra impost of an ‘amenities fee’ is seen by many students as unnecessary and counterproductive to the improvements made to student unions since the compulsory fee was removed by the Howard government in 2005, a move welcomed by students around the nation.

The student campus today is a different place compared with the one many of the honourable members present attended. And the students who attend our learned institutions are likewise very different. Not all students are the same. The reality is that students today often have to work part time, or even full time, to support themselves. They do not always need the services that are offered by the unions or even have the time to use them, and they fail to see why they should subsidise those who do. They probably do not care that much about campus politics or student activism, and many of today’s students are of a mature age or are using new technologies to study remotely or to study in the evenings. Some are staggering their study and only doing one subject at a time. Some are juggling family commitments, jobs, a tight financial budget and study. So why should these people, all with different priorities and demands, be forced to join a union organisation or pay a compulsory fee for something that they have little need for or, if they do have need for it, that can be purchased on a user-pays basis as and when required?

The Labor way has always been to charge more and provide less. This bill goes to the heart of that notion. This bill is about charging students more and imposing on the modest lifestyle of students. It is once again clear that Labor believes students belong in a union and, no matter their personal views, the union way is the only way. I am very proud to say that it was under the leadership of the Howard government that the burden and shambles of compulsory student unionism were removed and students were finally allowed to make their own choices—a choice Labor does not believe should exist.

This bill, if passed, will be seen by students and the wider community as an act of forced unionism, as a removal of the choices bestowed upon student communities across Australia by the coalition in 2005. But let us face it: Labor have a history where compulsory unionism is concerned. They introduced a type of compulsory unionism in Australia as far back as 1932, when a Labor government amended the Queensland Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation Act to give preference to union members for jobs. This virtually forced all employees working under Queensland state awards to join a trade union or face dismissal. It seems a leopard does not change its spots. In May 2007, the then shadow education minister and now Minister for Defence, said:

… I am not contemplating a compulsory amenities fee.

Was that really so? And what did the Rudd-Gillard government then do? In 2009 they broke this promise when they introduced the Higher Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2009, a bill with a specific intention: to force more than one million Australian university students to pay $250 a year, regardless of whether they can afford it or whether they want it. This was defeated in 2009, but, as we can see, Labor has not given up on this incessant and obsessive fight for a covert compulsory student unionism. Once again, it has been proven that the word of a Labor politician means absolutely nothing.

In my electorate of Ryan I have one of Australia’s most prestigious universities—the University of Queensland. When compulsory union fees were abolished by the Howard government in 2005, the union there immediately and practically addressed the new realities and went about establishing a financially self-sustainable model. The union was placed on a business footing, where the focus was on maintaining representational and advocacy services. These, in turn, were funded by the various business enterprises run by the union around the campus. Students immediately benefited. The financial burden on them was eased and the University of Queensland Union was afforded choice. The result is simple: the union is now listening to students. The union is now acting for the interests of students.

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