Our university is being torn apart. Genevieve Bell is slashing jobs and courses in the name of profit. Historic attacks on education like these demand resistance, which is exactly what No Cuts at ANU has been at the heart of. We’ve organised the biggest protest on ANU campus in decades and successfully pressured university management into stopping further cuts, but we’ll need to take things even further to win our demands. But while we’ve been building a mass student movement, ANUSA has been organising tame cat surveys and refusing to call to sack Genevieve Bell. 

The things we want as left-wing students – no cuts, sanctions on Israel, fighting for social justice – always put us at odds with our government and Vice Chancellors. There’s no amount of polite convincing that will change this. The only power we have as students is in fighting back: protesting, stopping business as usual, creating a fuss for the status quo. Bring back the heroic student unions of the 70s, fighting against the Vietnam War, or in 2014, against huge attacks on education. Student unions shouldn’t just be one part of this, but lead left-wing sentiment, and be activist, fighting bodies.