Recently Michael Carr-Gregg was co-incided with a referendum at Macquarie University in Melbourne on membership of the Australian Union of Students (AUS a sort of equivalent to our NZUSA.) Below he offers his analysis of AUS and its problems.

Three weeks ago, Macquarie University Students' Council decided to withdraw from a much troubled and criticised Australian Union of Students. In what was the highest student turn out in Macquarie's ten year history, the vote was 1519 in favor of seccession, and 1236 against.

Steve Lewis, the president of Macquarie, told Australia's weekly news magazine, the Bulletin, that ".....the AUS machine devoted a huge amount of resources to this campaign. There were thousands of leaflets distributed and a Friends of AUS table manned daily. Fifteen hundred copies of a pro-AUS newspaper was distributed and outside speakers - union officials and academics were called in to help, all that and AUS still couldn't hang on to Macquarie."

So far this year, the universities of Melbourne, Macquarie and New South Wales, as well as the Swinbourne College of Advanced Education, the Sydney Conservatorium and the North Brisbane Advanced College of Education have all left AUS. In response to the Macquarie vote, the President of Sydney University, Tony Abbott, moved a motion of seccession for his own campus, and a referendum to decide the issue will be held in the second week of the second term.

To add to the ever increasing worries-of AUS President Chris Hobson, it was revealed last week that there are proposals for Monash, and the University of New England to follow suit, as well, people on Tasmanian campuses are organizing seccessions for next term. The principle thorns in Chris Hobson's side, are the Centre Unity student groups, who claim that they have tried for three years or more to reform AUS, but have been frustrated by what they see as the undemocratic structure of the Union. They have been joined in their protests by the Liberal students who are vigorously opposed to the left wing nature of AUS,

Most Australian students I spoke to, did not seem to question the need for some kind of national body or organisation, but many have recently tried to examine the accountability and relevence of the present AUS, to the average student.

In particular they objected to what they described as an increasing tendency for AUS to become a mini-united Nations, currently supporting South African Liberation Centre, Malaysian News Service, Thai Information Centre and the Squatters campaign. Many kinds of organisations have come under the benevolent wing of AUS. Having supported the PLO in 1974/5, there was still a need to debate the Israel/Palestine and Kampuchean Vietnamese situations at the last conference. AUS then came out in support of "armed struggle in South Africa."

It is only a matter of time now until the traditional left wing leadership of AUS finds itself out on its ear. But what lessons can we learn from the Australian situation? How long will it be until NZUSA is faced with the same problem? What can be done now, to help avoid this type of situation? These are the questions that our student leaders must consider now and act urgently.