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

Very novel. The student union was forced to become relevant to the wider student body. They seized the opportunity and are now thinking smarter and working harder to produce good outcomes for students. I do not see that the experience at the University of Queensland should be in any way unique. They are a shining example of what can be done with a bit of enterprise. The UQ student union is now accountable, transparent and much more efficient, whereas previously this body was plagued by allegations of waste and mismanagement. These benefits for students would have never been realised if the Howard government had not moved away from the previous 30-year-old ‘dinosaur’ concept of compulsory student unionism.

A common thread in Labor’s argument against VSU is the notion of a campus culture—the university experience. Labor needs to honour its pre-election pledge in 2007, a commitment made by the shadow minister for education, ‘to ensure that students, if they so choose, can voluntarily organise themselves into representative organisations and to allow students, if they so choose, to make voluntary contributions to those services’.

I will conclude where I began. The Labor Party is not in touch with the needs of students at universities across Australia in 2010. Labor’s attempt at compulsory unionism is a farce and this bill must not be supported, in any form. We on this side of the chamber have every faith and belief in the decisions students make. Students can drink legally, drive legally and vote. They should be able to choose how they spend their money and which organisations they join. The Labor Party instead believes students should be forced to pay and be made to join a union. This is an indictment on a party very out of touch with reality. Ultimately, this bill is about legitimising a form of extortion and it is representative of yet more broken promises from Labor. Just how many more promises are they prepared to break, I wonder?

The coalition will continue to stand up for students and defend their rights on campus, in particular their right to make the choice about what organisations they support and what services they want to use. I urge members not to support this bill. It is bad policy. It is morally wrong. Labor members opposite and Prime Minster Gillard stand condemned for yet another broken Labor promise and for pushing ahead with this attempt to burden students further. I urge honourable members to put the interests of students first. It is for these reasons that this bill should not be supported.

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