Mr HENRY (4:44 PM) —Freedom of association is one of the most fundamental freedoms enjoyed by Australians, and I am sure that there are very few within this House today that would disagree with that sentiment. It is therefore somewhat surprising, although I must admit not entirely surprising, that the Labor Party should oppose the Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005.

It was certainly interesting to listen to the comments of the member for Charlton in her speech to the House just now regarding the Liberal Party’s view of student activism and student unions. She used the emotive word ‘hate’ extensively in her opening remarks, but I think it is those who sit on the opposition benches, the members of the Labor Party, who are the real haters in this House and in this parliament. Labor hates that individuals might have the freedom to choose what organisation or association they might belong to—if such individuals choose to belong to any such associations. In fact, in our communities today workers are deserting unions in droves—they are certainly voting with their feet—and I think it is the same with students: they have no great desire to belong to student unions.

It is an absolute nonsense to say that the Liberal Party or the government is opposed to students. Indeed, many students are fully supportive of the initiatives of this government because they, too, stand for freedom—freedom of association and freedom of choice. This bill does not limit freedom of association. It does not seek to abolish the student union movement; nor does it in any way impact on students’ rights to join and contribute to their student unions. It requires that this membership should be a conscious choice of the individual student. This is hardly an outrageous expectation.

The key word here is ‘choice’. Essential to, and at the heart of, the concept of freedom of association is the right to choose to belong—or, indeed, not to belong—to a union. The government is not anti student unions. Students should be, and indeed are, free to organise and develop representative structures. Nothing in that regard will be changed by this legislation. What will change is that students will be entitled to choose to do so rather than be compelled to do so. Compulsion, by its very nature, removes choice, and the idea that students should be forced to join a student union that might have little relevance to their individual beliefs, interests or needs is therefore objectionable to many people, including many students that I have spoken to over the years. It is more objectionable when those students are required to hand over anything from $100 to $600 for the privilege, without having a say on how the money is spent and without taking into account the individual’s ability to pay. Nor does that requirement take into consideration whether the student is in full-time or part-time education or whether they have a need for the student union services that are provided.

In Western Australia many students are disaffected by the political nature of their student unions. Indeed, they are disaffected with the student union office holders that are meant to represent them. An article entitled ‘Shades of racism in campus race’ that appeared on 3 November 2004 in the Inside Cover column of the West Australian newspaper helps illustrate this point. It describes the election of an African student to the office of union president and the attempt of the incumbent office holder to prevent him from taking up the role. Despite his being democratically elected, it seems that the idea that a foreigner could be the president of the student guild dismayed the acting president sufficiently for him to involve the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs in an effort to prevent the elected student taking office. Such practices bring that student union into disrepute and it is no wonder that in many cases students would prefer not to support or be associated with its activities.

The government is absolutely committed to the principles of freedom of association—and to doing something about it. In that context, it is my belief that students have the right to unhindered freedom of association, as well as to choose the services they want and the causes or organisations they wish to support. It is absolute anathema to us that students who disagree with the current compulsory nature of student unionism should be in a position whereby they face the very real prospect of expulsion from a university or even the withholding of their examination results. The Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005 seeks to address this issue and remove what is, in my view and the view of many in my electorate, an inequity long overdue for change. It will mean that from next year, 2006, voluntary student unionism will exist throughout Australia, and I for one warmly welcome that development.

Essentially, at the core of this bill are two very important provisions. Firstly, the bill requires that higher education providers should not make it compulsory for students to become members of student organisations or to pay fees for services and amenities that are not of an academic nature. Secondly, the bill provides that this prohibition on non-academic fees should not apply to goods and services that are considered essential to the student’s course of study provided the student also has the choice—there is that word again—of purchasing those goods or services from an alternative supplier.

This legislation will ensure that students, as a condition of enrolment, are no longer forced to pay for goods and services that they have absolutely no use for and, at the end of the day, often can ill afford. Membership of student unions will be optional and universities will no longer be able to charge students for services they do not use or want. Optional membership of student unions would be meaningless if students were still compelled to financially support student organisations through the levying of a general services fee. If that were the case, the question would have to be asked: where would the pressure come from for student guilds to adapt and become more relevant to the people they are meant to serve? In this context, general services fees can be regarded as a form of compulsory association by another name and I therefore welcome the fact that this bill addresses this important issue.

In a West Australian newspaper article entitled ‘Student groups condemn move to cut guild funding’ which appeared on 17 March 2005, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia, Mr Alan Robson, made an assertion that amenity fees should not be abolished because students that were required to pay them did not have to join the student guild. Mr Robson’s assertion misses the point entirely, which is that students should not be made to pay for campus facilities they do not need. Services funded through the general services fee should be run efficiently and competitively. They should meet the actual needs of students and, this being the case, they would, in my opinion, best be provided for on a user-pays, cost-recovery basis, much as happens for services provided by commercial and voluntary organisations throughout the wider community.

To ensure compliance and adherence to the two requirements imposed upon them, the bill provides for mandatory penalties for higher education providers breaching the voluntary student unionism policy. Those penalties include a reduction of the basic grant to be paid to the higher education establishment that equates to $100 for every Commonwealth supported place allocated to the provider. It is, therefore, a bill with teeth and one that higher education providers will ignore at their peril and with an eye only to the impact on their bottom line.

The effect of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005 will be to achieve a number of important outcomes. It was the 17th century European philosopher and Oxford academic, John Locke, who said that the great purpose of law is not to abolish or restrain but to help preserve and enlarge freedom. This bill achieves that high ideal by establishing and enshrining a student’s right to freedom of association. It embodies choice and introduces competition to an environment where none existed before. This means that student unions will have to ensure that they remain relevant to their membership and provide services that students need, want and value. Surely such a desirable outcome has to be welcomed by all parties. In essence, students will, of their own volition, join organisations that demonstrate they do a good job of representing the interests of their membership. And, of course, student unions will be able to recruit new members by offering relevant, value for money services to students that are prized by them and can be sustained in the long run. 

In essence, the bill encourages student unions to enter the real world, rather than continue to be closeted in a world where they exist as a fait accompli, irrespective of their performance and relevance and without any need to be seen to provide value for money. So under the bill a student body has the potential not only to survive but to thrive by being free to recruit members and offering services to students that are valued by them.

Of course, those with a vested interest will oppose the idea. After all, you do not have to work particularly hard to ensure you meet the needs of your membership, if membership of the student union is compulsory. Student guilds and others will argue that valuable community facilities, particularly in regional Australia, will be lost. They will argue that the services lost as a result of voluntary student unionism will put an extra financial burden on universities and that the quality of their educational experience will be diminished as a result. They will argue that student unions are an essential part of university life. In my considered view, these arguments really do not stack up when examined in the cold light of day.

I ask the House: is it really reasonable to force students—who most of us would agree are hardly swimming in surplus cash—to subsidise recreational and other facilities for the broader community? In my experience, few students, certainly in the electorate of Hasluck, have the resources to pay for services unconnected to their academic pursuits which, at the end of the day, are not relevant to their personal interests or to the activities they wish to pursue. As the situation stands today, many students are not even aware how their money is being used.

I also contend that those regional universities in a position to share campus facilities with their local communities are well placed to spread the cost in a way that is not always available to metropolitan campuses. If facilities are valued by students and local communities, with each contributing to their operating costs, I do not believe that it will automatically follow that voluntary student unionism will have a detrimental impact on those facilities. Nor do I accept the assertions made in the media that voluntary student unionism will damage Australia’s ability to win medals at the Olympics and other major sporting events. There is no basis for suggesting that services that are relevant and of interest to students will not continue to enjoy their support and to thrive.

Voluntary student unionism does not mean the death knell of student unions or their contribution to university life. Far from it; as I have said, services that are valued by students will continue to receive student support.  Many sporting clubs and voluntary organisations exist throughout Australia because they offer mutually beneficial services to their membership. There is no compulsion involved and really there is no reason to suppose that university campuses should operate any differently. Individuals on campuses will band together in pursuit of common objectives just as they do everywhere else in this country.

I accept that during the period from 1995 to 2002, when Western Australia embraced voluntary student unionism, as a result of the introduction by the state government of the Voluntary Membership of Student Guilds and Associations Act, some services ceased to be provided. However, the reality is that this situation reflected the change and new requirements placed upon student guilds to focus on the services most likely to be valued by their members. Students had a choice to join or not to join and many services that were initially impacted upon recovered over time as they changed and were adjusted to more closely fit with the needs of the students.

I and many students in Western Australia regard it as extremely unfortunate that in 2002 the Labor controlled state government saw fit to overturn the legislation on voluntary student unionism through the introduction of a so-called amenities fee. An opinion piece in the West Australian newspaper described this practice as an egregious denial of the right of choice and association, as well as an inevitable infringement of students’ rights. Quite rightly, in my view, the writer points out that the vast majority of students attend universities primarily to undertake academic courses and further their career prospects. So there can be no justification for hindering them from doing so by demanding payment of fees that have nothing to do with their courses.

The article goes on to assert that any university that makes the payment of such amenity fees a condition of enrolment contributes to the diminishing of tertiary education. There can be no excuse for holding the future of our young people to ransom in such an unnecessary, unwarranted and unwelcome way. If student guilds are providing essential services for students, they should be able to attract members without any need for compulsion. If they cannot do so, it means that today’s student union movement has, in essence, little relevance to its membership and therefore you have to ask the question: does it deserve a place on university campuses? I do not believe that this is the case and I therefore suggest to this House that there really is no need to enshrine student guilds as enclaves of unwarranted compulsion.

Make no mistake about it: the move to re-introduce compulsion in Western Australia, which means that every student has no choice but to pay around $100 or more to fund the student guild, was a very definite and unwelcome step backwards for the rights of students who are once again forced to pay an up-front fee for something that is totally unrelated to their academic studies. Interestingly, though, it seems that the WA student guilds may have learnt a valuable lesson during Western Australia’s period of voluntary student unionism. In an article entitled ‘Student guilds in survival bid’ that appeared in the West Australian on 3 November 2004, the then University of Western Australia guild president was quoted as saying that strategies were being discussed to make sure better provisions were made for the onset of a return to voluntary student unionism. From my point of view such pragmatism is certainly very welcome.

It is unfortunate, but fairly predictable, that the Labor Party does not seem to share that pragmatism. It seems to me that at both a state and federal level Labor is determined to oppose the right of students to exercise choice and also deny them their fundamental right to freedom of association. Opponents of this bill must surely recognise that students should not be made to pay for services they do not want.

I have heard the argument put forward that by legislating for voluntary student unionism the government is in effect making an assault on academic freedom. In my view and the view of most reasonable people, the student’s right to freedom of association by far overrides the right of a university or higher education provider to ride roughshod over it. The concept of academic freedom does not give the university the right or indeed the justification to interfere in the lives of their students in a way that is outside their mandate. This government is committed to the principle of freedom of association, and this bill will finally give students that right, which is already enjoyed by the wider community. On that basis I support this bill and I commend it to the House.