Early next year the Federal Government proposes to present legislation to make membership of student unions voluntary. The Victorian and Western Australian Parliaments have already legislated that way.
Some have seen it as a misguided ideological pursuit of the Minister for Education, David Kemp, to silence student protest at the government education policies. On campus, students who oppose compulsory union membership fear that the student unions are political rather than pastoral and are more interested in odd causes than student welfare.
There are really two issues here. One is freedom of association and the other is the gathering and proper spending of funds for student welfare.
On the freedom of association front, it seems those opposed to compulsory membership have confused student associations with industrial unions. Perhaps it is unfortunate that students in Australia have called their associations “”unions”. If they had called them “”societies” or “”associations” perhaps Dr Kemp and the opposing students would not have noticed.
It may well be that forcing people to be a member of a student association is breach of the fundamental human right of freedom of association. That freedom must extend to the right not to belong as well as the right to belong. However, that does not mean that some students should be able to avoid paying for services by invoking a right to freedom of association.
Perhaps if the universities had just hit students with a compulsory levy, not linking it with membership of any student body, no-one would have cared much. But the bogey word “”union” has caused an ideological battle on the campuses for more than two decades. The simple solution would be for the universities to charge a compulsory service fee and to make the membership of any student body voluntary.
Of course, the university could well put the responsibility for providing the services with the student bodies and could give them the lion’s share of the levy to do so. In which case it would be wise for students to join them to ensure their money is well spent.
Stripped of a concomitant requirement to be a member of a student organisation, the levy for student services could be seen as being more like the compulsory registration for vehicles imposed on all road users or compulsory levies among some rural industries to provide research work. The compulsory student levy (whether one is formally a member of the student association or not) would be more like a system for payment for services rather than compulsory dragooning into a body whose main purpose is the pursuit of a political agenda that many might object to.
The question of provision of student services might be better addressed by some form of student-university body to which any student might seek election, irrespective of membership of student unions. The raising and spending of the levy would be a matter for all students by virtue of their being student at the university, rather than their membership of a student union.
Underlying this, however, would need to be some provision that funds from the levy be spent only on the welfare of students at that university — academic and support services, cultural and sporting events, computer and library resources and campus newspapers and radio. Spending on off-campus political causes would be properly left to voluntary student organisations.
The Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee has rejected any need to change current arrangements, however, they might have to acknowledge that some money might be going astray and some student object to compulsory membership. They need to address those matters while still ensuring that all student contribute to matters of student welfare on campus.