Australia’s government will not be reinstating compulsory student union and athletic fees at the country’s universities. Despite calling the implementation of VSU by the Howard government “the cruellest” decision made by the his government, the Rudd government is not willing to risk the backlash of returning fees that the vast majority of students don’t want to pay.
It will be interesting to see what the government does next. They are promising to help universities to supply student services which have been hurt by the change to VSU.
I expect the government will allow universities to once again charge for non-academic (they are allowed to charge for academic services) student services on top of tuition, but students unions are out of luck.
The government has a page on Voluntary Student Unionism which includes it’s latest report.