Heavy Police Presence Shuts Down Fee Hikes Protest

Ellie Stephenson reports.

A small, socially distanced protest at the University of Sydney was broken up by a disproportionate police presence yesterday afternoon. The action, which was part of the National Day of Action against Fee Hikes, saw ten protestors fined for breaching COVID-19 regulations. Several others also received move on orders and were briefly detained by police. 

Riot police, police horses and a long procession of police cars arrived to suppress the protest, despite the fact that the protestors wore masks, used hand sanitiser and were socially distanced. Students criticised the hypocrisy of the heavy-handed response to the demonstration, given that in-person classes and lectures with similar numbers of people are occurring. 

Protestors chanted “cops off campus” and “cuts, job losses, money for the bosses” before dispersing soon after the start of the event. A GoFundMe has been started to pay for the protestors’ fines. 

Students later confronted Vice Chancellor Michael Spence outside ABS. They asked him “how do you sleep at night when your salary could pay for 10 000 casusal staff hours” and chanted “Michael Spence is the 1%”. 

SRC President Liam Donohoe told Pulp that “the SRC condemns the police brutality at today’s National Day of Action. The student body has justifiable objections to the government’s attacks on the higher education sector, and to deny them the opportunity to publicly articulate those objections is not only draconian, but outright absurd given many of them have attended in person classes this week.”

He added, “We express our full solidarity with all students arrested or fined, and will continue to fight these attacks no matter how brutal or violent the police want to be. We encourage all students to attend future actions and also to contribute to fundraisers to pay off fines.” 

The event was endorsed by Unions NSW and NTEU NSW and was a part of the National Day of Action called by the NUS, demanding an end to the Federal Government’s fee increases and funding cuts, and supporting fully funded higher education and the #maintaintherate campaign.

This comes after the Federal Government has proposed a suite of education reforms which have been widely viewed as harmful for staff and students alike. They include fee increases for many courses and a punitive approach to failing students. The Government has also failed to provide adequate COVID-19 support for the tertiary education sector, with significant job losses and course cuts. 

Image credit: Swapnik Sanagavarapu.