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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (21 April) . . Page.. 1115 ..


MR BERRY (continuing):

ratepayers of the ACT, and I accept that. Is it particularly good for me that I pay my rates and taxes to ensure that these things happen? Not really. I might find it embarrassing; nonetheless, I pay them each year because I am compelled to. I do not protest loudly about it, except when I represent my constituents.

The arguments that Kemp and all of those people take up are clearly ideological arguments about the collective. They are concerned about student unionism because, like unionism everywhere else, the collective voices are much stronger than the individual ones. The collective voices in the universities do have a political position on a range of issues, and so they ought to. It would be a shallow university system that did not have an avenue for the development of intense political ideas. It so happens that student unions generally defend the university education system, and defend it strenuously, and they usually attack conservative governments because conservative governments notoriously are not as committed to it as are left of centre or leftish governments in the scheme of things. I am not surprised that student unions contribute to anti-Liberal campaigns. The thing that does surprise me is that they do not contribute more because of the attacks on the university system. Yes, there would be people with a Liberal bent who are forced to contribute to student unions. I do not have any difficulty with that. I have been a union member for all of my working life. Sometimes one agrees and sometimes one disagrees, but once you are part of a collective the collective instinct and spirit are more important. That is what John Howard and his cohorts on the hill seem so committed to attack. They got stuck into the industrial unions in this country to try to water down their collective instincts and spirit. That will not work. In fact, it fires them up in the end run and that, in many ways, may be a good thing. This attack on student unionism will not work, either. But it needs the interest of the community to be directed to it.

I have a press release here that Costello once opposed Kemp on voluntary student unionism, the Tasmanian Liberals opposed voluntary student unionism, and the Young Libs rejected Kemp's VSU. Kemp is an ideologue - there is no question about that - and this is an ideological attack on the rights of students and the ability of students to argue their case, both politically and in the campus context, for whatever they choose to argue. Yes, it is about the provision of services and Mr Humphries has focused on the provision of services to distract attention from the real argument here. Whilst the services and so on that are provided by student unions are extremely important for students, because they are provided at discount rates and so on and so forth, the real issue here for the Liberals is collectivism and their intent to undermine it, because it has been the collective spirit of workers, students and others throughout history which has stood up against exploitation by the people whom the Liberals tend to support. It is collectivism which is the issue under attack here. It is not just student unionism; it flies right across the board and it is an issue of concern.

Mr Speaker, universities are the engine room of ideas. They should be also the engine room of protest about political issues and that ought to be encouraged. Of course, if you undermine student unionism, this engine room will not have so much fire in its belly. That is what the attack by the conservatives is all about. The student unions can marshal a strong collective voice on a range of issues. They can marshal a strong collective voice on political issues, if they choose to. I must say that I have seen them yell at Labor governments in the past as well. I must say also that they had my sympathy, because some things that were happening were not things that I particularly agreed with. If you


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