Hello students new and old,

I am Jarra Hicks, a 3rd year Development Studies student. I am privileged to be tackling the challenge of co-president at NUSA (Newcastle University Students’ Association) this year, along with a lively and dedicated character, Jack Thieme. Get to know my face, ‘cause I’m one of the 31 students on your NUSA Council. Some of us are in shared positions, and there are still some vacancies. Were represent student needs, views and concerns on campus. Yep, that’s you too!

Briefly, I am a person dedicated to leaving the world a better place. I believe strongly in justice and equality and have a passion for social justice and environmental issues. As you may have guessed, I was elected as part of a group of students representing the broad left on campus.

NUSA does many things around campus and within our broader community, some things more immediately visible than others. But in one way or another, these things affect you – NUSA has lots of fun and active interest groups, from the Latin dancing club, to the environment collective. NUSA also offers a many services to students, including help when you may have a grievance... as well as photocopying and free condoms (which are otherwise not cheap!). NUSA organizes many great events of fun, celebration and education.

But hidden under all these layers of bright colours and fun, NUSA also performs a more serious role. We collectively represent student needs to the university – because of this role, you are still able to able to use the facilities of the Huxley Library and Warabrook train station. If not for our student organization, we would get NO collective say about the things that happen right here on our own campus!

More broadly, NUSA facilitates students’ collective views and perspectives on current political, social and environmental happens in our community, country and world.

Many tragic events have taken place in our country in the past year or so. Student fees have increased, Centerlink is temperamental and inaccessible and more and more students have to work casual jobs to support themselves. It is the working poor (students) who will bear the brunt of the Howard governments’ Industrial Relations Reforms. The governments’ decision to implement Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU), or as I prefer Anti-Student Organisation Legislation (ASOL), in July this year is indicative that they also want to shut us up!

The introduction of VSU is clearly political. Under the guise of ‘choice’ and ‘democracy’, the Howard government had introduced a piece of legislation aimed at choking student voices, both on our own campuses and as members of the broader community. So it is that students will no longer be required to pay a General Service Charge, and at first thought, this may seem great. However, if student loose their Council, not only will they loose a host of services and interest groups and collectives, they will loose their collective ability to raise their voices. This means tough luck if the government want to raise our fees (again), or if your course is cut, or if the Uni want to close a library, etc..

And so, here it the choice that every student is presented with: support the organizations that support you and join your Students’ Association, or be alone in a ‘democratic’ that wants to shut you up! Anyway, enough ranting! I have committed this year to seeing our Students’ Association overcome and fight the challenge of VSU, and to keep our Uni a fun and active place to live and learn. If you want Uni to be a stage in life that is about more than education – that is about fun, meeting people and growing as a whole, some and see what NUSA has to offer. NUSA cannot just represent you, we need your input and involvement! Its up to you, we are here because you are.

Cheers,

Jarra Hicks.

Pres Part 2

Welcome to the New Year and the Newcastle University Student Association. In December 2005 the Federal Coalition successfully pushed through the Senate the Higher Education Blah Blah Blah Bill (it’s just too long and odious for me to bother with). By the time you read this, the Bill will have been back to the House of Representatives where the Governments overwhelming majority will effectively guarantee passage and voila, we will have our very own anti student organization legislation.

Students have long been campaigning against waves of attempts at introducing non compulsory student organization membership in the 70s, 80s and the 90s. The noughties wave was resisted long and hard by students in Newcastle, in concert with a student led, national campaign, but alas, the Liberals finally got their way through the power they hold in the Senate.

The status quo has been, and remains for this semester, that it is compulsory for the university to collect a General Service Charge and unless you opt out, which you can do when you enroll, you automatically belong to the various student organizations on campus, i.e, UNU, NUSport, NUPSA, and li’ll-old NUSA. (I say li’ll because we only get 16% of the GSC, $32 out of the $182 GSC, the smallest slice of the pie, and have next to no other revenue).

The legislation, also known as Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU), will be implemented on July 1, 2006. Since we don’t expect a 100% uptake in membership, we student organizations will be down on operational revenue, so at the risk of mentioning the bleeding obvious, some changes will have to be made. By the way, for those that were here last year, did you notice the differences that were already being made as some student organizations were tightening their belts in anticipation of VSU? Did you notice how much longer we had to wait in line for a computer in the Information Common after the UNU had to close the Cyberlink computer labs? Or did you notice that NUSA free lunch went fortnightly rather than weekly as we had to curtail some spending? And was I imagining that there was less free lunchtime music towards the end of the year?

So what changes will be made at NUSA? This question is important but will have to defer to some introspection on our part, to some more fundamental questions which we have to ask of ourselves. As the co-president of NUSAC ie, the council charged with the governance of NUSA, I will be facilitating a lot of navel gazing; re-assessing of what we are and what we do. This is a necessary process if we are to know how we should adjust to a voluntary membership base. Clearly we will maintain our fundamental aim of representing, advocating and providing support for students. The challenge lies in the interpretation of this aim and how we go about fulfilling it. One interpretation is that as student representatives we focus our attention (and spending) solely on student needs as they arise and are presented here on campus. And there is plenty to do on campus as witnessed by the overwhelming student grievances that were made last year, or the ongoing representation made to maintain and upgrade public transport to Uni, or the demand for the vegetable boxes supplied by NUSA at wholesale prices. Much to do and more that could have been done for and on behalf of students. However that would still be a precise but narrow interpretation of our mandate. The other interpretation is that as students we are part of a broader society. It’s a perspective which recognizes that students do not live in a bubble. What affects society affects us and what affects us affects society. So this interpretation has a social conscience which recognizes that our student struggles are part of a broader social struggle. Though we may do it economically hard as students at times, it still recognizes that the privileges which we enjoy from a globalized economy are at the expense of lives that have been alienated, often disrupted and generally exploited. Not to forget the price paid of a depleted and polluted natural environment for our privileged place in the sun.

I identify with the latter interpretation. Despite all the criticisms we justifiably have about government policy on education, think of it in a global context. Compare our education with the Global South, or even some richer nations. I think that we students have claimed a lot of rights and privileges, just by having access to a comparatively high standard, comparatively equitable education. I want to see a student association that meets the core aims of its mandate, that being helping to develop an enjoyable and equitable university experience, but is also able to develop and practice a social conscience for a better, more just world.

I’m excited about this transitional year. It’s offering unprecedented challenges that have the potential to bring out some of the best in us. It is going to give us an opportunity to engage with students in ways that we might not have before. In doing so I hope we can empower students to participate in the struggle for a better world.

VSU… bah! …bring it on. You’ll be hearing more from us.

Jack Thieme

Jack.Thieme(AT)studentmail.newcastle.edu.au