A lively and important discussion developed when the Western Sydney University and Macquarie University Rank-and-File Committees (RFCs) hosted an online public meeting last Saturday to fight for a unified campaign by educators, students and working people against the Albanese Labor government’s cuts to international student enrolments and university jobs.
The speakers outlined the connection between the restructuring and sweeping job cuts throughout the country’s 39 public universities—now totalling more than 3,500 in the past 10 months—and the underlying pro-corporate, pro-military reshaping of tertiary education in Australia and internationally.
Chairing the meeting and speaking first, Macquarie RFC and Socialist Equality Party (SEP) member Carolyn Kennett explained: “The latest round of job cuts are the direct result of decades of underfunding by governments of both stripes and the massive cuts to international student enrolments by the Albanese Labor government.
“The reactionary move to cap enrolments was accompanied by the government scapegoating of international students, by falsely claiming that overseas students were responsible for the worsening housing affordability and cost-of-living crisis affecting working-class households.
“At the same time, the ‘Job-Ready Graduate’ package introduced by the Morrison government, but continued under Albanese, is one of the factors in the decline in domestic student enrolments… The program is designed to push students into priority and skills courses to meet the needs of the corporate elite.
“Both mechanisms are being used by the Labor government to deliberately apply financial pressure on the universities, in order to restructure them to align with ‘national priorities.’ These priorities were set out in last year’s Universities Accord report.
“That report insisted that both teaching and research must focus on serving the requirements of the corporate elite and the development of a war economy. That included meeting the needs of the AUKUS military pact and military-related industries in preparation for a US-led war against China.”
Kennett warned that worse was to come. “From January 1, each university’s funding will be tied to a ‘mission-based compact’ as proposed by the Accord report, setting out how the university will contribute to Labor’s ‘national priorities’.”
Kennett said university workers want to find means to fight the job losses, as illustrated by a 99 percent vote at Western Sydney University (WSU) for strikes against management, which is threatening to axe up to 400 academic and professional jobs.
“But the leaderships of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the other main campus trade union, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), have opposed any unified action by university workers and students, just as they did when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, permitting the destruction of more than 17,000 jobs.”
Kennett said the union apparatuses have sought to blame individual vice-chancellors for the job destruction, blatantly trying to politically shield the Labor government. Pseudo-left groups, such as the Macquarie Socialists and the WSU Socialists, were actively involved in the union coverup, even handing out NTEU leaflets at WSU.
“In order to defeat the wave of job cuts and the elimination of courses for students, it is essential to build new organisations independent of the unions—rank-and-file committees—to fight it.
“These rank-and-file committees can link up with workers in Australia and worldwide through the International Workers’ Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.”
Youp, a Newcastle University student, spoke on behalf of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), the SEP’s youth movement. “Universities today have become corporatised, for-profit degree factories for the sake of producing job-ready graduates, and research that wins funding and gets good metrics,” he said.
“This has come about by a process over the course of the last few decades, driven by government policies not just in Australia but globally, and the market forces of capitalism at the same scale.
“It comes at the cost of the student experience. Courses in all disciplines have been cut down or cut entirely to fast-track students and limit things to what is needed for employment…
“The scapegoating of international students is part of an effort to promote a nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment in Australia. At a time when Australia is preparing for a US-led war against China, the government is making out international students to be the enemy, the majority of whom are Chinese.
“The militarist agenda at the universities requires a suppression of free discussion and student life in general. This has been particularly stark with the repression of protests against the Gaza genocide. Across the country, the protest encampments were shut down by force and threats…
“The IYSSE states that the attack on learning and democratic rights, for the sake of war preparations and profit, can only be fought by a combined movement of students, university staff, and the working class more broadly.
“The problems go beyond individual universities and even this country. It is a wholescale phenomenon with a deeper root in the capitalist system. For this reason, the struggle for good-quality education is also a struggle for socialism.”
The final speaker, Mike Head, a member of the WSU RFC and the SEP, said the attack on universities could only be understood within the global context.
“Internationally, governments are transforming universities to both satisfy the narrow vocational and profit requirements of the corporate oligarchs, and to construct war economies. This is in preparation for potentially catastrophic wars, particularly against China, which successive US administrations have designated as an existential threat to American global hegemony.
“As part of this offensive, governments around the world are taking unprecedented measures to suppress opposition, starting with the banning of protests against the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, while setting precedents for wider suppression of free speech and democratic rights, particularly anti-war dissent.
“The Starmer Labour government in the UK is presiding over the elimination of 10,000 university jobs this year, also driven by international student cuts...
“The Trump White House is threatening to defund universities that do not silence opposition to the Gaza genocide and align with Trump’s fascistic and militarist agenda.
“Last week, in a major capitulation to the Trump administration’s attack on democratic rights and academic freedom, Columbia University in New York announced that it has agreed to pay more than $220 million and implement broad changes to its admissions policies and academic programs, along with a crackdown on student protests.”
The actions taken by Columbia had vast implications for free speech and democratic rights, not only on campuses. As WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North wrote in a statement on X in March:
An American Trumpian version of what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung—the official subordination of intellectual and cultural life to Nazi ideology—is being implemented by leading “liberal” American universities.
Head said the Labor government in Australia was pursuing the same underlying agenda.
“Earlier this year, the Albanese government also advised universities to comply with a Trump administration questionnaire threatening to cut off joint funding for research unless their projects served the needs of US foreign policy and military objectives. At least 11 universities have suffered research funding cuts as a result, which will mean deeper job losses.
“The five-page questionnaire featured questions such as: ‘Can you confirm that your organisation does not work with entities associated with communist, socialist or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs?’ …
“Both the NTEU and CPSU are silent on the fact that, while starving the universities of funds, the government is pouring billions of dollars into military spending, and backing the Gaza genocide, the criminal attacks on Iran and the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine…
“Despite widespread opposition among educators and students, anti-genocide academics are also being witch-hunted in order to intimidate any dissent. That includes Macquarie University scholar Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has had her $870,000 ARC Future Fellowship grant suspended at the behest of Education Minister Jason Clare…
“To fight this agenda, there has to be a unified struggle by staff and students across the country against the job cuts and restructuring. This requires the formation of rank-and-file committees of staff and students at all universities, completely independent of the trade union apparatuses.
“This battle cannot be waged on the campuses alone. The only basis for the defence of democratic rights is the political mobilisation of the working class—the vast majority of the population—independent of all the capitalist parties and based on a socialist program.
“This is part of a broader, necessary struggle against capitalism itself and its program of ever greater corporate wealth and a turn to war.”
A lively discussion and resolution
Participants in the meeting raised important issues, welcoming the opportunity to speak, both via the Zoom chat and in person. “What is the point of having an NTEU WSU members’ vote if the NTEU delegates do not do anything about communicating this to WSU management?” a WSU worker said.
She also asked if university workers could legally strike outside “the auspices of the NTEU.”
A staff member at Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology commented: “We have a similar experience with NTEU at Swinburne. NTEU does not want to fight anymore, even when members are screwed. They always say they do not have enough resources for small universities.”
In response, the speakers outlined the transformation of the trade unions into industrial police forces, using Labor’s anti-strike “Fair Work” laws, which the unions had helped draft themselves, to suppress struggles and enforce the dictates of the corporate elite. Rank-and-file committees had to be built to organise independent action.
A retired high school teacher commented: “It seems that these reductions in staff and faculty areas at university will have a serious filter-down effect on the secondary school system, particularly for students with academic aspirations, especially in the Arts and Social Sciences.”
Sue Phillips, the national convenor of the Committee for Public Education (CFPE), the educators’ rank-and-file network, agreed. She explained how the former Gillard Labor government’s NAPLAN testing regime was already narrowing the school curriculum.
Cheryl Crisp, the SEP national secretary, joined the discussion, pointing to the vast implications of the fascistic Trump administration’s global trade war and assault on public services and free speech.
The meeting voted unanimously for a resolution from the IYSSE calling on all students, staff and those who defend civil liberties to oppose the disciplinary measures by the University of Melbourne against four students, two of whom were expelled and two suspended, for their involvement in a pro-Palestine protest on campus.
“University management’s decision marks a further shift to outlaw political free speech on the campuses and in society more broadly,” the resolution stated. “It is connected to the Anthony Albanese Labor government’s assault on basic democratic rights, under the fraudulent pretext of combating ‘antisemitism.’”
For further discussion, contact the Committee for Public Education (CFPE), the educators’ rank-and-file network.
Contact the CFPE:
Email: cfpe.aus@gmail.com
Facebook: facebook.com/commforpubliceducation
Twitter: CFPE_Australia
Facebook: facebook.com/groups/opposeaeusellout