In their drive to push the Liberal Party leftward, Turnbull and his supporters have betrayed one of the Party’s fundamental annd most long-standing causes – voluntary student unions. This may not seem important to those not involved, but the battle for voluntary student unions has for years been the most intense and bitter struggle waged by Liberal University students, libertarians and others against the left-dominated State and National student unions.

Recently there was yet another vote on Compulsory Student Unionism in Federal Parliament, introduced by Senator Brandis at the PM’s behest. Opposing it should have been a test of core Liberal and libertarian values. In fact the government dragooned its own members into not opposing it. This is in spite of the fact that every state and territory division of the Liberal Party and the federal council of the party has voted to support voluntary student unionism, and most have done so for many years.

While membership may in theory be subject to conscientious objection, ‘services and amenities’ fees paid to the student unions are being restored as universal and compulsory.

Compulsory student unionism was challenged in the Senate by a motion of Independent Bob Day that called on the government to amend the Higher Education Support Act so that the Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) could only be levied with the support of the majority of students at each university campus in a mandatory annual ballot. However, Brandis, instructed Liberal senators that the party’s official position was to oppose this motion and vote it down in alliance with Greens and Labor Senators.

Compulsory Student Unionism has meant that, as the price of a University education, students have been forced to pay money into student guilds which in turn have subsidised the Federal body, the Australian Union of Students, or whatever it is called now. This has not merely had links with the far-left and, during the Cold War, with Soviet-organised international student ‘fronts’, headquartered in places like Cuba, and has also been linked with terrorism, including aircraft hijacking.

That a Liberal Government should support compulsory student unionism is both incomprehensible and beyond disgraceful. Generations of Liberal and other students have fought for voluntary student unionism and at times that fight has been quite literal – students campaigning for VSU have been beaten up and had bones broken by leftist thugs. Former Treasurer Peter Costello and ALP right-winger Michael Danby, Speccie contributors both, were among those attacked and seriously injured.

Fighting the well-financed leftists on campus calls for not only a degree of sacrifice of time and energy, but also for physical courage. Meanwhile, the Left has used money compulsorily extracted from students to finance not only political campaigns but also for the generating of leftist cadres, including many prominent in leftist State and Federal politics today and in the past. It has also provided the left with offices, computers, printers, photocopiers, transport, student newspapers etc. With perhaps a third of the student body turning over every year, accounting for the money is virtually impossible.

In one illustration of the fundamental immorality of compulsory student unionism, Jewish students have been compelled to finance anti-Semitic and anti-Israel campaigns, on and off campus.

Proponents of compulsory student unions have likened the fees to taxes. This is not a legitimate argument. Taxes are, at the bottom line, necessary for the whole community. Even if they are not supporting dubious political causes, student union fees are, as their defenders often point out, supporting sporting clubs, and other societies. Yet, in the real world, these are supported by people who are interested in them and use them. Newspapers support themselves by sales and advertising, not by taxes on those who don’t read them.

Where various State Governments have brought in Voluntary Student Unionism, there has been no evidence that students’ marks have suffered as a result – in fact they may have actually improved. Under the compulsion regime, those refusing to pay the amenities and services fee have sometimes been forbidden to attend lectures, use libraries or sit exams; lecturers sometimes being instructed to publicise blacklisted names.

There have been some courageous opponents of compulsory unionism on the guilds, but they have usually been heavily outnumbered – most students prefer to spend their leisure-time in study or sport, or, given today’s large number of mature-age and part-time students, in employment or with families. Universities today are not, if they ever were, glorified cricket, football and debating clubs, under dreaming spires. In many subjects they are ruthlessly competitive, and for serious students, study time is more important than guild politics.

Turnbull and Brandis may, by forcing compulsory student financial support of unions, be playing with a hotter fire than they realize. For generations of Liberal student activists, many of whom are now MPs or senior members of the lay party in every State, as well as the foot-soldiers whom the Party relies on at election time to door-knock, leaflet-drop and hand out how-to-vote cards at polling booths, this is a deeply-felt and emotionaly-charged issue. It is also a core Liberal value and principle.

Turnbull is going to find the Liberal bird does not fly well if he persists in his efforts to amputate its conservative wing.

It shows the depth of feeling in the Liberal Party on the issue that not one Liberal senator followed the Liberal leadership’s instruction. With two exceptions, Senators Eric Abetz and Cory Bernardi, all abstained from voting, some hiding behind screens and others speedily exiting the Senate chamber when they realised the vote was being called, as Piers Akerman observed in the Sunday Telegraph. The Bob Day amendment was defeated, the Brandis bill passed, with most Libs abstaining.

The Government possibly caved in to National Party pressure, as the Nationals see Compulsory Student Unionism as a way of subsidising country campuses. It may also have been intended as a deliberate slap in the face to Tony Abbott, who has historically been a strong supporter of the VSU campaign. Certainly it is likely to exacerbate the wound the Turnbull coup has inflicted on Party unity.

It is an issue on which many of the best and brightest in the lay Liberal Party feel deeply and emotionally, and may, come election time, have given Senator Day and other Independents a swag of votes from Liberals conscious of betrayal.