Staff and students at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville and Cairns have refused to accept course and job cuts proposed by the university鈥檚 management.
The highlight of the campaign was a 120-strong student-led rally on April 30 at the Cairns campus, the largest student protest action in more than a decade at JCU. Students also joined the community protests called by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch on April 27.
Politics in Australia, so dominated by the major parties鈥 conservatism, it is turning people off participating in the political process聽a survey by the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University has found. However,聽it also shows more people are moving leftward in their political attitudes.
A man waves over a roughly boarded fence, as a guard walks intimidatingly in front of it. A group of refugee protesters, sweltering in the hot sun in Leonora 鈥 a two day drive from Perth into the desert 鈥 wave back and yell 鈥渁zadi鈥, the Farsi word for freedom.
I am one of the protesters and I am filming the protest.
One week earlier, just before the start of my second year at university, I opened an email from an activist group advertising a 鈥淐aravan of Compassion鈥 to Leonora detention centre.
A few days later I was on the bus, barely knowing one other person.
After an appeal process, described by activists as 鈥減lagued with allegations of corruption鈥, the University of Wollongong (UOW) has overturned the election result for the Wollongong Undergraduate Students鈥 Association (WUSA).
The elections, in which more than 1500 students voted, the biggest student participation in many years, was hotly contested between the Liberals, standing as Revolution, and a broad left group Save Our Union. It followed a year of uncertainty over whether the student union would be closed down.
Staff at Victoria University (VU) are bearing the brunt of the latest attack in what is an industry-wide push by university managements to wind back conditions in the sector.
International students in New South Wales face higher cost of living expenses than their counterparts in other states. This is one of the reasons students at Western Sydney University (WSU) have decided to launch a campaign calling on the state government to grant them public transport concessions.
鈥淣ew South Wales is the only state where international students do not have the same rights as domestic students and cannot access the same facilities,鈥 Daniele Fulvi told 91自拍论坛 Weekly.
Angered by the latest round of cuts, staff at Victoria University (VU) held a protest outside a university council meeting on November 2.
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) national president Jeannie Rea told protesters she had worked at VU for 20 years. She said that more than 100 people have lost their jobs at VU this year, with another round of redundancies still to come.
Students at the Milperra campus of Western Sydney University are angry that they are being left in the dark about the university administration鈥檚 plans to close their campus and move it to the Bankstown CBD by 2021.
Delegates to the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) National Council, the union鈥檚 annual conference, condemned Murdoch University and Victoria University managements鈥 anti-union attacks and called for enterprise agreements to be terminated only where workers and unions agree.
The Queensland parliament has given its stamp of approval to another corporatisation measure for universities on October 10. A new law reduces staff and student representation on university councils or senates and changes other parts of the seven universities鈥 power structures in favour of management.
University managements, headed by their vice-chancellors, have been pushing for years for their governing bodies to have less staff and student representation. These are the elected members of the councils.
An increasing number of employers are asking themselves why they should have to abide by the terms of an Enterprise Agreement with their workers and unions, when it would cost less money if they didn't. Many have come to the conclusion that they should simply escape the obligations of their agreements.
Staff at James Cook University in northern Queensland 鈥 at least half of whom are employed casually, and often infrequently 鈥 have rejected a management proposal for an enterprise agreement at the university. Of the 54% of staff who voted, 58% voted against the proposal in the non-union ballot held over September 13鈥15.
National Tertiary Education Union members mobilised in the brief one-week consultation and balloting period to secure a vote nearly three times their own numbers.