The Wire

While uni students have held protests across the nation over the last few days, angered at plans by Education Minister Brendon Nelson to get rid of compulsory student unionism, those in Victoria and Western Australia may well remember the days of voluntary membership. The governments in those states abolished compulsory unionism over a decade ago, before reinstating the practice because the experiment wasn’t working. The current President of the Western Australian branch of the NUS Suzie Byers says voluntary student unionism had a crippling effect on student life at the time. International students make up 25 per cent of the uni population, but National Liaison Committee for International Students in Australia spokesman Aditya Tater says a loss of services will also mean a loss of students. Flinders University senior politics lecturer Dr Haydon Manning says Brendon Nelson’s move was a long time coming.