Page 1437 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 April 2005
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drink at the bar. This is the crux of the issue: you are making people support things that they do not use.
The other thing they support, and Mr Gentleman would enjoy this—I think he stated before that he thought it was a good thing—is the marginal seats campaign run by the NUS of “Put Liberals last”. He takes some pleasure from that, and that is all wonderful, but should those who do not support that agenda be forced to subsidise that kind of activism? The answer is no. This is what it goes to. The Labor Party always talk about being about freedom of choice—except where unions are involved and then they want to make it compulsory. We have the Howard government looking to abolish compulsory up-front fees and the Labor Party saying, “No. Keep the compulsory up-front fees. We now like compulsory up-front fees.” There is a bit of a contradiction there in what we have been hearing from the Labor Party.
I support Mrs Dunne’s amendments. I am sure Mr Gentleman will have interesting things to say about them and I am sure he would support the parts that refer to the Human Rights Act and upholding the Human Rights Act. We look forward to hearing what he has to say.
MS MacDONALD (Brindabella) (3.33): I commend Mr Gentleman for bringing this motion forward and, of course, I oppose the amendments put forward by Mrs Dunne. Lots of interesting points have been made today, but not that many interesting or correct points from the opposite side, I must say. Those opposite seem to be making two arguments. The first is that the Labor Party is putting forward this motion in support of its union mates. The second argument is that we should support what the federal government is doing and go for the idea of a user-pays system within universities for students.
Mrs Dunne: No. Listen, Karin: we believe in freedom of association.
MS MacDONALD: That was certainly the argument being put forward by Mr Mulcahy, Mrs Dunne, even if it is not the one that is being put forward by you. The first argument put forward by the opposition was one that is commonly put up by opponents of student unions within universities; that is, they confuse the issue of student unions with industrial unions, and they are two very separate things. Many years ago I was on the union board at Sydney university, and I will have a few points to make about that later. I have an ongoing association with the University of Sydney Union. Because I was at Sydney university for five years and had paid five years worth of subscriptions, that entitled me to life membership of the University of Sydney Union, and I still get information from the union.
The opposition’s first claim is that the only reason we support student unions is that we are supporting our union mates. Student unions are very separate organisations from industrial unions, as you would know, Mr Speaker. The argument about freedom of association has been made by Mrs Dunne, and I think Mr Seselja argued that members of the Labor Party are all for freedom of association and do not believe in taxing people unless, of course, it has to do with student unions. But the issue is that these are not industrial unions; these are organisations that provide a service. They provide political representation, but that is a fairly small part in most universities.
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