Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, Senator Birmingham, you are absolutely right. Students are seen as being mature enough for all these things apart from one: whether or not they want to contribute to the student body in a circumstance where students are—in general terms—free to make all other decisions, as, might I add, they should be.

I come back to where I started, and that is that this is a breach, yet again, of another Labor election promise. Mr Rudd was so desperate to go to the electorate at the last election and say: ‘Basically, I am a John Howard lite. Compulsory student unionism is not on the agenda with me. I’m really an economic conservative at heart. In relation to that, I don’t support compulsory student unionism’ and on you go. But Peter Garrett did let the cat out of the bag when, in an unguarded moment, he spoke the truth. He said, ‘Don’t listen to what we say; look to what we will actually do when we get into government.’ This is a classic case that bears out, in a bizarre way, the integrity of what Mr Garrett said. But the integrity of it showed that what he was saying at the time was, in fact—unfortunately—the truth. It is a very adverse reflection on this government that they are now going back on a very strong commitment that they gave before the last election on students and compulsory student unionism.

I hope and I trust that this Senate will have the courage to again refuse the repeal of this legislation—in other words, have the courage to give students the right of freedom of choice on campus. It is a bizarre thing when you reflect on it: universities ought to be the hotbed of diversity, of individual thought and of individual action. But here we are saying: ‘We won’t allow you through the gate of the university unless you are willing to be marked like sheep, all with your university union tag. We will put the tag of your student union membership in your ear. Sure, we have dressed it up as a services and amenities fee, which the university is going to collect and determine how it is going to be administered.’ Does anybody honestly believe that the student union body will not have a say in its administration and how that money is going to be spent? Of course not.

In the past, the vice-chancellors of this country, much to their great shame, acted as the most highly paid shop stewards in this country. They were the enforcers of compulsory student unionism. The student union had no power to enforce it; it was the vice-chancellors, acting as shop stewards, who forced the students to pay. If the union could not convince you to join, the vice-chancellors stepped in and said: ‘Sorry, sonny or girlie, no degree for you. Your results are withheld until you pay that fee.’ That has been a blot on our universities for generations now. I pay respect to the Court government in Western Australia, who removed it first. It took the courage of the Liberal Court government and then the Liberal Howard government to have that changed and have it removed. It was a blot that was removed without any diminution or denigration of the intellectual standards of our universities and without any denigration or diminution of the integrity of the degrees that were produced. Our students have not been disadvantaged on the world market where the quality of their degrees is concerned. This has been one of those terrible sweetheart deals where big institutions deal with a big student body and trample the rights of individual students. When it comes to those issues, we on this side will always stand unashamedly on the side of the individual students, and that is why we will be opposing these measures