Monash’s unofficial history, University Unlimited, released last year, refers to student activism as part of a long bygone era. It reports crudely what it views as a monolithic change in student culture, from mass idealistic engagement with ideas of University as a place of debate, knowledge and activism to the 21st century ‘customer’, buying training in the corporate University ‘supermarket’. There is a vested interest in this ‘unofficial’ history that tries to cleanse over the dark stains of stubborn dirt behind Monash’s brilliant façade. Here I attempt to block some of this blinding brilliance to sketch only some of the many events over the last 20 years, which demonstrates placidity is conveniently superficial.
Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) was a key flank of Jeff Kennett’s (Liberal) 1993 Victorian election campaign. Up until then students paid an amenities fee, which went towards funding the student union and student services. Victorian VSU proposed to remove the ability of the amenities fee to go towards the political function of student unions, who previously decided where the amenities fee went. A Student General Meeting—a forum where all students had equal votes to decide MSA motions—was attended by 650 students on March 4 1993, passing a motion condemning VSU, followed by mass protests Victoria wide.
VSU was a disaster for the stuff we take for granted today – Lot’s Wife, Student Rights Officers, the Women’s department, and even many clubs were seen as too political to be funded in line with the legislation. On the back of thousands of students protesting, the Federal Labor Government put student unions on life support with funding from 1995-1996. When funding ran out, Lot’s Wife shut for three months. In response in May 1996, 1500 students rallied against the closure of Lot’s Wife. Eventually the MSA was left to negotiate with the University for scraps and Lot’s Wife re-opened.
With the election of the Howard Government in 1996, there were further cuts to Higher Education and HECS fees increased. Monash University decided to introduce up-front fees in 1997. A quarter of courses could be funded by lucrative full-fees, creating an incentive for the University to ramp up vocational and high-esteem courses attractive to rich students and International students. This meant the University shifted from a place where you would pursue further learning to one limited to a narrow career outcome. The Arts and Science faculties suffered cuts while the Business and Engineering faculties expanded.
On July 1997, the MSA held its ‘Corporate Free Day’ and a ‘tent city’ was constructed on the lawn outside the Administration building, continuing for much of Semester 2. Open day was heavily disrupted. Graffiti abounded on campus, particularly on the concrete walls of the campus centre, including ‘UNIVERSITIES = A PLACE FOR
LEARNING NOT EARNING’, together with elaborate murals. The cuts were not just at Monash, and activism was co-ordinated across multiple campuses, with occupations seen at Melbourne University and most notably at RMIT for 19 days.
In response to cuts to University courses, especially a restructuring of the Arts faculty, on September 23 1998, staff and students occupied the administration building, before being violently evicted by police.
In Semester 1 2004, over a thousand students protested HECS fee rises of 25% on campus. There was a failed attempt at occupying the Administration building but successful occupations of the former Vice- Chancellor’s residence (Marketing and student recruitment building) and Monash International building (now Monash College). In late 2005, students occupied Sir John’s Bar, forcing the University to give up on their effort to turn the space—that the student union had 49% control through Monash’s now defunct commercial arm MONYX— into a University function room. A recurring theme here was that the official channels of negotiation had been exhausted—the University administrators were not interested in reasoned argument.
The last Student General Meeting (before the one held recently on the 1st of May) was held on the 20th of April, 2005. It discussed the Howard government’s push for Federal ‘Anti Student Organisation Legislation’, which finished off the Victorian VSU, by completely abolishing the amenities fees that funded student unions. The last motion passed called on students to effectively go on strike, which in practise failed to gain momentum. Despite this defeat, the fact that there was grassroots support for student organisations allowed the Labor government to introduce the Student Services and Amenities Fee, still limited by its failure to reverse Voluntary Student Unionism. In 2011, there was a little-known uproar over the School of Music at Monash, with staff cut by the administration as well as the entire course on classical music. Students prepared to boycott exams and collectively fail. Under pressure, Monash ceded to many of their demands.
Overall, there is a structural problem for Universities as there has been no funding increase in real terms since 1975. Furthermore, during the same period, inequality in the University has widened as the salary of the Vice Chancellor now reaches over a million dollars. In the end, students and staff are the University rather than the upper administration, whose only interests are neoliberalism, rationalising an education ‘supermarket’ while lining their pockets. Resisting attacks to education is a struggle with no guarantees of success, but without students taking direct action a student controlled restaurant and this paper would not exist today.
