The National Union of students (NUS) education officer, Anneke Demanuele, has invited Greens senator Lee Rhiannon to address the annual NUS Education Conference to be held next week in Brisbane.
The decision to invite Rhiannon was made following the outrageous attack made upon her by the Greens national party leadership yesterday. Suspending Rhiannon from the party room is clearly an attempt to silence her left wing opposition to supporting regressive Liberal party policy on education. As Demanuele has stated on behalf of NUS, this is cause for great concern for students and those who want to defend public education:
“Rhiannon has played an important role in ensuring that the Greens consistently side with students against neoliberal attacks. The Greens have stood with us in opposing the various attempts by the Liberal government to saddle students with greater debt and to reduce public funding to higher education. They also stood with us in 2013 when the Labor government attempted to cut billions of dollars from higher education funding. And it is only the Greens who have reliably opposed cuts to student welfare.
“Rhiannon has always been the most steadfast on all of these questions, never wavering even when other members of her party have. In her role as the Greens education spokesperson she was by far and away the most active and sincere supporter of students in federal politics. Over the years she has spoken at many student rallies and conferences, has given material support to our campaigns and has never hesitated to denounce both Liberal and Labor attacks on students. This has been part of her broader commitment to standing up for the oppressed and for a more equitable society.
“Perhaps because of her uncompromising and outspoken support for students, the Greens leadership removed her from the education portfolio in 2015. Despite this, Rhiannon continued to stand with us and she endorsed the ‘Make Education Free Again’ campaign that NUS is running this year.
“The latest attack from Richard Di Natale and the right wing leadership of the Greens has once again been in response to her staunch support for a decent education system. Rhiannon recently opposed the support that the Greens gave to the Liberals Gonski 2.0 package. This package cuts 19 billion from education, in comparison to the former Gonksi package and it leaves millions of dollars of public money in the hands of the richest private schools.
“NUS condemns the Greens support for the Liberals education package and their attack on Rhiannon for opposing it. We are also extremely disappointed with the conduct of all of the other Greens MPs and senators who have endorsed the party leadership’s actions. It is of great concern to NUS that the days of relying on the Greens to take a principled position on questions of education may well be over and that they have moved so decisively against their single best representative on these questions.”
“We stand unequivocally with Lee Rhiannon and will be making this clear at the NUS education conference. In addition to inviting her to address all of the conference attendees, left wing students will be moving a motion in solidarity with her at the conference.”
The NUS education conference will take place over July 4th-7th at University of Queensland. Lee Rhiannon has accepted the offer to attend the conference. Queensland Greens senator Larissa Waters will also be attending the conference.
Sophie Johnston National President | National Union of Students
