Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Much older. There is a fundamental problem with the bill. The argument has been going for 30 years and it has always been about stopping money compulsorily acquired by student unions from being used for political causes. And the problem is that this bill still does not prohibit that. There is nothing to stop money being compulsorily acquired from Australian students being used for, for example, trade unions, for the Your Rights at Work campaign or for those very trendy anti-globalisation groups—the hoodie wearers who run around trashing McDonald’s and Starbucks. There is nothing at all to stop that money, which is compulsorily acquired, being used for those purposes. That is the great failure. Even under the terms of the bill, there are no effective enforcement mechanisms or sanctions—none at all. The bill fails firstly to enforce itself, as there are no sanctions, and, secondly, it certainly does not stop the compulsory acquisition of student money for political causes. After 35 years, this lot have learnt nothing. They are still mired in the mid-1970s with this collectivist sludge.