NUS

Update : Forgot to add. Kids in America, Student Grant (from Sussex) and even students in the country that is Australia-minus-two-letters have been occupying themselves recently by undertaking crash courses in the nature of the repressive state apparatus. Several hours of free photocopying at the local student union after hours to Vulgar Marxism. See also : Really Vulgar Marxism.

Ah. NUS. Googling for something else, I stumbledupon National Union of Students in chaos as accusations fly (Andrew Crook, Crikey, December 18, 2009) — which, given that it appeared on December 18, and documents the squabbling that forms the staple diet of the student politician, isn’t exactly news.

But still.

Probing a little further, it appears that the failure of the Ballarat conference was corrected, possibly, by a further meeting on January 29 at the University of Sydney.

Labor factions almost destroy National Union of Students
Rebecca Barrigos
Socialist Alternative
February 5, 2010

Last December the corrupt and undemocratic practices of the student Labor factions at the National Union of Students conference in Ballarat led to the near abolition of our national union. After the supposedly left-wing National Labor Students (NLS) and the right-wing Student Unity faction collaborated to deny votes to NUS delegates from fee-paying campuses and give the right control over the conference and ballot for NUS office bearers, the NUS constitution had been so seriously breached as to require a special meeting of the union. This special meeting of NUS took place at Sydney University on January 29…

So: mad props to Labor students for trying, but greater effort is obviously going to be required before NUS is finally put out of its misery; thus ending its role as a sinecure for budding union bureaucrats and/or politicians.

Oh.

Wait.

Bonus!

Registration costs for the Conference were $725.00 (plus GST) for delegates, $825.00 (plus GST) for observers, and $925 (plus GST) for media observers.

ROFLMAO.

See also : Raising the blah, John Marsden, The Age, February 6, 2010.