Students Protest Higher Education Bill Outside Parliament House
Ellie Stephenson reports.
Students gather outside Parliament House.
Around one hundred students gathered outside Parliament House yesterday to protest the Higher Education Bill, which was to be voted on in the Senate yesterday. Students travelled from Sydney, Wollongong and Adelaide to join activists in Canberra in opposing the Bill. This occurred as Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie and Senator Stirling Griff confirmed they would support the policy, likely allowing it to pass.
Students argue that the Bill will make higher education less affordable, threaten the tertiary education sector and punish disadvantaged students. While the Bill is ostensibly intended to encourage students to pursue ‘employable’ fields, opponents suggest that it is unlikely to influence students’ decisions about their courses, however it may deter working class young people from attending university in the first place.
The protest was hosted by the ANU Education Activism Network and chaired by ANU activist Wren Somerville and National Union of Students (NUS) Queer Officer Dashie Prasad. Standing in front of a banner reading ‘make education free again’, Prasad opened the rally by arguing that the Bill perpetuated economic inequality and will “further cement classism into our communities… this Bill does nothing to help our average students.” They added: “This Bill will disproportionately impact First Nations communities, people from rural and regional areas, low SES backgrounds and particularly women and queer students”.
Shane Mortimer, a Ngambri Elder and casual lecturer, performed the Welcome to Country. He discussed the plight of casual teachers, which was echoed by ANU casual tutor Layla Steed. She spoke of “decades of underfunding to the sector, which has seen staff to student ratios decrease, class sizes increase, contact hours decreasing and work hours for academics increasing massively”, describing the proposed cuts as “staggering”.
SRC President Liam Donohoe “between today’s shameful fee hikes vote and tonight’s absolutely callous budget, today, the 6th of October 2020, is probably going to go down as a new low for a country and a government which I thought couldn’t get all that much lower.” He took aim at Centre Alliance Senators for supporting the Bill, which he argued will abandon students who need the most support, describing their move as a “stunning betrayal”.
Donohoe went on to critique the government’s tax cuts and military funding, arguing that government funds would be better directed at services like social housing and welfare. He noted that government expenditure has added billions to the national debt, suggesting that this refutes scaremongering about Australia’s deficit and means we can afford to provide people with a decent quality of life. “This is a clear attack on the poor, this is a clear win for the rich, and we can’t fucking stand for it”, Donohoe stated.
In a statement to Pulp, Donohoe said: “it’s as simple as this really - they’ve got the money to afford free education for all of us. And yet, 20 years from now, I’m going to be taxed more than some rich prick… simply because I had to use HECS to pay my fees while they were able to pay upfront”. He emphasised that it was a political choice from the government to force students to pay exorbitant fees for their education and to experience the harms of being in debt.
Ali Amin, the NUS Welfare Officer, framed the Bill as an attempt to make students and staff bear the burden of the COVID-19 crisis. He said it “pins the responsibility not on Vice-Chancellors but on students and staff” but that protestors should make it clear that “they can’t make us pay for their crisis”.
Jack Mansell, USyd Education Officer, described Centre Alliance’s politics as a “right-wing political project” centred on “propping up their own careers”, making yesterday’s decision “unsurprising”. He also took aim at the NSW Government’s restrictions on the right to protest, which have meant several student protests at USyd have been shut down.
Dylon Tomosai, the 2021 Education Officer at the University of Wollongong, encouraged students to continue fighting for their education, saying “even if the Bill wins today, we will never stop fighting back for what we deserve. We deserve free education.”
Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie, who is opposing the Bill, appeared at the protest. She told Pulp: “the Bill’s a dog’s breakfast, and what it’s going to do is make you pay more. You’ve got to remember that a lot of these people up here, these politicians, some of them got their education for free, and what really annoys me is right now, you’re going through a tough enough time with COVID-19, you’re all struggling at university, especially you young guys… they’re going to make you start paying for that COVID-19”.
She continued: “You’re going to start doing the heavy bloody lifting… so all those billionaire, millionaire companies out there, and all those people not paying their tax, why aren’t they going after them first, why are they going after you students?”
Incoming SRC President Swapnik Sanagavarapu told Pulp that the Bill is “disgraceful” and “callous”. He criticised Centre Alliance’s “farcical concessions” in exchange for their support of the bill and maintained that “the real power is in the streets”, committing to maintain the student movement for free education.
SRC Education Officer Jazz Breen said that USyd activists had come to Canberra to protest because “it is honestly just an attack on students that is being pushed through under the guise of economic prosperity… all it does is push poor, working class students out of the degrees and careers that they want to do.”
Women’s Officer Vivienne Guo focussed on the impact of the Bill on female students, arguing “it will disproportionately affect women, it will affect poor people, it will affect already disadvantaged communities”. She pointed out that taking away HECS for students who fail half their first year subjects will be particularly harmful for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.
The rally concluded with chants of ‘Strike, occupy, shut it down, burn the system to the ground’, ‘Bullshit, come off it, our education is not for profit’, and ‘no cuts, no fees, no corporate universities’.