“No student should be forced to join a student union or to pay for political activity by student unions.”

Spot on, fellas- but they forgot to mention the fact that students should not have to pay for childcare for other people’s kids, nor copious amounts of alcohol during and after O-Week.

Wre,

I agree with what you said, but I would add- most of the people I know using Uni sporting facilities are non-students. Anti-VSU folks usually forget that a good squash court is an excellent revenue generator, outside the student community.

“I am convinced that my experience was not isolated.”

Your experience is far from isolated, I’m glad my last two years at Uni will be with the Howard Governments gift of VSU.

“You're a clown remote centreman- go back to political science 101 and read Locke and Mill”

And read some Nozick while you’re at it, centreman. People need to stop forcing others to slave away and steal the benefits for themselves.

Laurie,

“Presumably, preventing Unis from charging non-academic fees will lead them to having a higher proportion of full-fee domestic & international students (just to have some cash without Govt strings attached), which will result in less and less opportunities for kids without a rich Mummy and Daddy to go to Uni, as their merit places will gradually dry up.”

I disagree. HECS prices can afford to be raised and used to partly fund Universities. We’re often told that a student in medicine faces a $100,000 debt following their graduation, and while mostly exaggerated, its still a fair price. Most doctors will spend that on their spouse’s car. I believe the real problem is in the excessive amount of mature aged students not paying their way, and accumulating massive amounts of debt with no chance of even paying half. We need choice and standards in our uni’s, not an everyone pays-at-the-door, let anyone in, French approach.

That said, if Uni’s are having financial problems- try making some cut backs:

http://heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17130674%255E25717,00.htm

When I read political philosophy Locke and Mill had not been hijacked by the neoconservatives. The neocon-wre line is a misreading from the Thatcher Reagan era, which Australia is still stuck in while the rest of the world has moved on. More evidence about reasoning skills.
Stewy remembers Robert Nozick. The rest of the world forgot him because his political philosophy (1) bore no resemblance to any real society (2) made the existence of any political society impossible.
We cannot get any consistent or coherent argument out of the neocons. Their appropriation of classical liberalism is a dishonest grab for intellectual legitimacy. The article has it right, Nelson's legislation is illiberal.
As for the cheap abuse of me as a "clown", the irony is that there is nothing in the least funny about the distortions of reasoning and idelogical ranting in these postings. Resort to abuse is a pretty good sign that the opponent has been nailed on the argument.

The article brings up a great point - that it is not the government's job to regulate private organisations. Any issues with a particular organisation should be taken up within the confines of that organisation. The government telling universities how to run their affairs is like the UN telling Australia how much it should tax its citizens. It has no right to do so. If you don't like compulsary unionism, either try to persuade the university to change it, or don't go to that university.

Compulsary VSU is actually a form of regulation, which, despite what some may think, actually runs contrary to a liberal economic ideology.

GT I understand your position. But where you and I differ in our thoughts is that universities should be considered strictly as 'private organisations'. Yes I realise they are private, and I also realise they need some degree of autonomy over their everyday affairs. However on a public policy issue like VSU, a government must regulate. Similarly for example a government must regulate the distribution and availability of places (and HECS), and ensure that suitable people do not go to university but rather gain a trade or similar.

It was becoming far too easy for universities to sit back and reap the massive financial benefits of compulsory 'student service' payments. If you don't believe these financial windfalls exist then a look at the books of most universities in this country will persuade you otherwise! Many chancellors were content to put up with their offices being violently occupied by far left 'student politicians' if it meant maintaing the benefits of compulsory payments.

I maintain that students should not be made to pay for services that simply do not exist. Nor should students find themselves funding the political activities of student activists! If fees can't pay for toilet paper and other similar amenities then universities are at odds with primary and secondary schools that incorporate the basics into their fee structure.

Finally remote centreman, if you are dissappointed with being called a clown then you shouldn't cast aspersions about the reading and writing skills of others. I am a neo-con Howard supporter I guess, and I am throughly used to far left individuals like you screaming, shouting and throwing tomatoes as soon as the realisation dawns that your views are in the minority.

The problem is that student politics and services have been mixed. This suited the interests of both university management and student politicians. Both groups have only themselves to blame for the flawed legislation.

The government rightly sought to protect students' right to freedom of association but failed to draft a bill which allowed institutions to continue to charge legitimate fees for non-academic services.

The major failing has been that of the institutions. They should have accepted that it's wrong to force students to join political groups, and should have developed fee structures which separated non-academic services from student politics and representation. Because institutions failed to do this they've been landed with an imperfect piece of legislation.

Presumably university staff can access services (cafes, gyms etc) without being forced to join staff unions. Why couldn't that same principle be applied to students?

"The article brings up a great point - that it is not the government's job to regulate private organisations."

Fair enough. But a lot of public money is being thrown into Australia's Universities. You have to reconcile the two. If they want to be private, they need to stop leeching off the tax-payer. Until that happens, I dont see why voters should not be able to say, 'we want VSU' in our (essentially government) Uni's.

That said, I believe public education should be available to all who earn it (paid for at least in part by the individual). Public Uni's should be forced to make Unionism voluntary, unless voters decide otherwise.