Fair Fares Rally - 2 pm, Wednesday 2 September 2009, Outside the State Library of Victoria

During the winter holidays, the Fair Fares campaign has been given a new breath of life. The Graduate Student Association should be proud of its efforts in Semester One to launch and sustain a public campaign demanding public transport concessions for international and graduate students. The petition campaign we coordinated resulted in over 10,000 students’ and supporters’ signatures that were presented to a representative of the Premier during a successful protest. The petition was the centrepiece of the Fair Fares campaign and gave thousands of students a voice, where previously that voice had been muffled and muted. In the cover letter I wrote with Melbourne University Overseas Students Service (MUOSS) President, Sarah Quek, we spelled out the compelling case for transport concession equality.

The rally organised by the GSA on 29 April, at which the petition was presented for tabling in parliament, voted near-unanimously to call another demonstration to maintain pressure on the state government. In June, it was felt by the GSA, and other groups we worked with to build that demonstration, that the time was ripe to recommit to our campaigning efforts. We can now announce that the coalition of groups involved in the initial rally has expanded, re-branded, and is embarking on a renewed effort to win public transport concessions for all GSA members. This group has called itself the “Concession Card Coalition” (CCC) and is meeting weekly to develop a broader-based campaign. The CCC involves student representatives from an impressive array of student organisations.

Following the enormous protest of over 4,000 Indian students in late-May against violent attacks in Melbourne, the floodgates of public debate well and truly opened on the subjects of discrimination against international students and their rights. Suddenly, governments, the public and community sectors, universities, and even some sections of the private sector (most notably, the private colleges that flourish in the Melbourne CBD), have bent over backwards to appear concerned about international students. In some cases this concern has been genuine, in others cynical, but the climate of alarm raises the possibility of achieving genuine reforms in this arena. The “International Student Strategy”, adopted at the recent July meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in Darwin, foreshadows this possibility¹.

Much of the response to attacks on Indian students has been focused on law and order measures and public relations exercises like the State Government’s Harmony Day March held in Melbourne on 12 July, laneway cricket matches between Victoria Police and Indian students, and government delegations to Delhi. The Victorian state government has, however, carefully avoided addressing the most prominent structural disadvantage that it presides over: transport concessions. By contrast, the organisation of Vice-Chancellors, Universities Australia, in its “Action Plan for Student Safety”, explicitly calls for the provision of transport concessions and for the availability of “sufficient affordable and secure accommodation” for international students².

Universities Australia, and our own Vice-Chancellor, Professor Glyn Davis, have been welcome supporters of our campaign efforts in recent months. Professor Davis sent greetings and regards to the Fair Fares rally in April. This is not a usual practice for student demonstrations, and for this we are genuinely appreciative. But to be true to our argument, we must also acknowledge that many universities also benefit from the structural inequality imposed on international students, chiefly through the collection of massive tuition fees (in excess of $14,000 per student annually at many institutions). While this is a problem endemic to the Australian higher education system, Vice- Chancellors should acknowledge such issues surrounding international students, or risk being labelled “the pot calling the kettle black”.

Three months after receiving the initial petition and cover-letter from our campaign, the Victorian Premier finally responded formally by letter. Unfortunately, our petition was not accepted by Parliament because we failed to ask signatories for their residential address (a requirement of Parliament standing orders), but we feel that we still made our point. A renewed effort by the CCC to gather an additional 10,000 signatures will come to fruition shortly. The issue will persist at one level because the inequality persists, but also because the CCC is determined to keep it on the public agenda. Transport concessions have recently gained media attention on the instigation of Melbourne City Council, but also because the GSA released the Premier’s reply letter to the media³.

In our initial letter to the Premier, Sarah Quek and I argued that the Commonwealth Health Care Card was an inadequate way to assess student “need”:

University of Melbourne researcher and author of a recent report concerning international students and community integration, Kate Shaw, has written in The Age about the ongoing separation of international and domestic students and problems associated with treating students differently. Shaw writes that “perpetuating distinctions between students is not only unnecessary, but contributing to the problem”⁴.  But what Shaw points to is, in reality, a double-edged sword. On the one hand, international (and graduate students) require specific services and targeted assistance. On the other, the distinction created can contribute to prejudice, according to Shaw’s thesis.

In his reply to our initial letter and petition, the Premier outlined only two substantive arguments against the provision of transport concession equality. First, in response to our assertions about the inadequacy of the Health Care Card provision, the Premier argues that this concession (excuse pun) “ensures that part-time undergraduates and all postgraduates on low incomes are able to travel at concession fares on public transport”. He further asserts that, with the recent addition of a range of professionally-oriented Masters degrees to the list of eligible courses for qualification for Commonwealth Student Income Support (Austudy, Youth Allowance), these students would receive a Health Care Card and therefore be eligible for concession travel.

On the issue of transport concessions for international students, the government remains unwavering. Despite acknowledging a desire to “target” concessions to those in “genuine financial need”, the Premier would not engage with our argument that many international students indeed fit this criterion. Indeed, he would not enter into any argument concerning equality for this group of students. He merely states that the public transport system is already partially subsidised by the State. The problem here is that it implies that international students are already being subsidised and, by further implication, that they are not pulling their weight. This is farcical when you consider the extensive financial contribution that these students make to the whole higher education sector in Australia. The University of Melbourne’s most recent strategic planning document makes this reality plain, pointing to the current necessity of cross-subsidising teaching and research with “international and domestic (graduate) student fees and other sources of revenue”⁵.  

Am I eligible for concession travel on public transport?

We have been delighted and surprised at the broad-ranging support for the Fair Fares campaign. The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA), an organisation to which the GSA is affiliated, has actively supported our endeavours, and is a partner in the new CCC campaign group. CAPA undertook a study of all states and territories in Australia concerning the degree of transport concession equality, and in its media release claims that Victoria is the “nation’s worst”⁶.  (See a summary table of transport concession eligibility across Australia.)⁷

As previously mentioned, the Melbourne City Council has also been supportive of the cause, emphasising Victoria’s “competitiveness as an international study destination” and the vitality of Victoria’s International student “industry”⁸.  At the GSA, we have avoided promoting this as the central issue—after all, equality shouldn’t have a price tag attached to it. But, nonetheless, there is truth to the claim. As John Ross from Campus Review argues, “Concession fares are seen as a relatively inexpensive way of shoring up goodwill in an industry that netted $4.5 billion to Victoria and $5.3 billion to NSW in 2007–2008”.  And he is absolutely correct. The question remains as to why the Victorian government has so stubbornly stuck to its flawed policy. Perhaps an unwavering position has become a point of pride for Transport Minister Lynn Kosky and the Premier? Or perhaps our student organisations have yet to mount the case and mobilise the base to the extent that is necessary to win. Time will tell, but one thing is for certain, the GSA intends to fight on.

    
Paul Coats
GSA President

 

1.  Council of Australia Governments’ Meeting Communiqué, 2 July 2009, <http://www.coag.gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/2009-07-02/docs/20090702_communique.pdf>; Sandra O’Malley, “COAG Aims to Support Foreign Students”, The Age, 2 July 2009, <http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/coag-aims-to-support-foreign-students-20090702-d6bd.html>.

2.  Universities Australia Action Plan for Student Safety, 9 June 2009, <http://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/content.asp?page=/news/media_releases/2009/uniaus_media_09_09.htm>.

3.  Clay Lucas, “Push for International Student Concession Fares”, The Age, 9 July 2009, <http://www.theage.com.au/national/push-for-international-student-concession-fares-20090709-de3m.html>.

4.  Kate Shaw, “Cultural Change Impossible if Cultures are Divided”, The Age, 9 July 2009, <http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/cultural-change-impossible-if-cultures-are-divided-20090708-ddcv.html?skin=text-only>.

5.  The University of Melbourne, “Revising our Strategy”, May 2009, p. 16.

6.  “Student Concessions on Public Transport—Victoria Nation’s Worst”, CAPA media release, 28 April 2009, <http://www.capa.edu.au/mediarelease/2009/student-concessions-public-transport-victoria-nations-worst>.

7.  Table sourced from the CAPA website, <http://www.capa.edu.au/transportconcessions>.

8.  “Concession Fares Needed to Support Melbourne as a Study Destination”, Committee for Melbourne Press Release, 28 April 2009, <http://www.melbourne.org.au/media-centre/media-releases/post/concession-fares-needed-to-support-victoria-as-a-study-destination/>.

9.  John Ross, Campus Review, 7 July 2009, p. 1.