Page 1436 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 April 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I want to go into the use of some of these fees. I remember very well, and I was at university probably more recently than, I suggest, anyone else here—
Ms MacDonald: We can’t help it that you’re a baby!
MR SESELJA: I know; it’s terrible. Anyway, having been at university pretty recently, I recall how some of these fees were spent. I was looking through some of the literature and I just want to highlight how some of these compulsory fees are spent. At one university, the university students association publication ran an article on how to get “high on a shoestring”. That is fascinating, but I do not think that was a particularly good use of my money when I was paying the general services fee at the ANU.
Then there was free and cheap beer. Cheaper beer is not a bad thing. When I was at university, I did not mind partaking of a subsidised beverage from the uni bar. But I guess the question goes to the allocation of resources. Should the single mother who is studying externally at an Australian university have to subsidise other people’s drinking? I would suggest no. I would suggest that that is not crucial and things like that need to be taken into account in considering this issue.
Another thing that has been brought to my attention is the publication from the ANU—I know Ms Porter would be shocked by it, because it is a feminist publication—called the “F word”. I assume they are referring to feminism but in the actual subsidised publications they use the other “F” word quite a bit, and I am sure Ms Porter would be very shocked by that. I am sure she would not support student fees going to that sort of thing.
The other issue on student support is that we have heard how students want to keep the compulsory fees and I note there have been rallies. In fact, I think there is a rally on today—6 April, isn’t it? There has been a media alert from the ANU Students Association, no doubt on university funds, about a demonstration at ANU Union Court. It says that students from ANU will be creating a crime scene on campus to highlight the devastating impact that the Howard government’s antistudent agenda will have on student representation and services. I understand there was a similar rally held last week and it attracted about 50 people.
If that is a measure of the support for or the opposition to these moves by the Howard government, then I do not think there is a widespread concern amongst students. Of course, anyone who has been to one of these rallies at the ANU knows that most of the people there are not students. You get a rent-a-crowd from all sorts of places, or you get people that have hung around the campus for seven or eight years, so not particularly representative. But the numbers of themselves do tell a bit of a story.
The most concerning thing for me is the fact that we have people who do not use university services subsidising those who do, and one of the examples I have found at ANU is the food services. Some of them are okay—they are not particularly cheap and not particularly expensive but about average. But I found that the poorer students do not buy their lunch; they bring their own. The poorer student is paying his compulsory student union fees and subsidising those who choose to eat from the union or those who
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .