VSU VSU VSU **Long post warning**

If I was invited to a protest today, I would have gone. Not that we have to protest because as of next Semester, a glorious thing called Voluntary Student Unionism takes effect! And not a moment too soon I say.

Let me tell you the events of the past 72 hours.

Saturday morning I sat down at my desk to do an on-line assessment which was due at 5pm today. I went to log on to uni and discovered that my web access to uni was denied. With a sinking feeling, I pulled out my fees letter which I had looked at a week ago and realised I had misread it. For while all my other uni fees are due this Friday, my student union fees were due last Wednesday.

And so, because I hadn't paid my union fees, I was denied access to any of my university work areas including the ability to complete assessment.

I am an external student, and my student union does jack all for me. Once a year, I get a 18 page black and white magazine that is basically a propaganda leaflet about how great the student union is. And for that I pay $105.60 a year.

I can understand having restrictions places on university access if you haven't paid subject fees, but really, this is ridiculous.

So I paid by Bpay straight away on saturday morning and emailled the uni saying I had paid and needed access to the web again as I had assessment due Monday.

Nothing. Of course no-one is there over the weekend so I suspected it wouldn't get attended to until Monday.

Monday morning - no emails.
I rang outreach services (for external students) and re-explained my predicament - even taking full responsibility for the fact that I had misread the letter. The guy basically said Bpay can take a couple of days to come through and web access can't be reinstated until it does. I asked if there was anyway I could get it back up today - could I pay again right now some other way and get my earlier payment refunded when it came through.

He said he wasn't sure if it would get processed and web access reconnected again today but would check with finance (put me on hold). Came back to me - "Sorry that line is busy. You could always ask your lecturer for an extension." At which point I politely commented "And you wonder why people want voluntary student unionism. Fair enough if these were subject fees, but for the sake of a $50 union fee, I am not able to do assessment. This really is ridiculous".

Short silence on other end of the phone.
Then "I'll just try finance for you again".

No luck again so he gave me their direct number and we parted ways.

Then I rang finance.
While I was on hold, I emailed my lecturer explaining the situation, and was met with the expected reply - due to the delivery method of assessment there are no extensions. (It's web based computer managed assessment so I completely understand the logistical nightmare it would be to allow certain students extensions and not others). I was impressed by his very quick reply - top mark there.

Got through to finance and re-explained the situation. They said I should email them with my bpay number and student number and they could reinstate it but it might take a few hours. It was 11am.

I kept checking the web log-in and my email.
Nothing
Still nothing
Still nothing.
I'd even sent the email with an urgent exclamation mark against it and noted that I had on-line assessment due at 5pm.

Finally, at 4:35pm I rang finance again. This time I got a lovely lady who reconnected my straight away and I got the assessment done with 5 minutes to spare!

I hate meaningless student unions.
Bring on VSU.
Thank you Tony Abbott.