They're angry, loud and determined. A new generation of activists united against a government they say is disempowering students.
The government's recently announced budget includes the deregulation of university fees, and changes to fee repayment interest rates.
For high school student Lawson Tanner the budget was a call to action.
"I'm 16 and I thought, I have to get out there and protest for that and then I got to the rally and I loved it. I thought, it's fantastic that we can stand up for our rights like this,” he said.
In the month since the budget, student activists have staged a series of public acts to fight proposed changes.
These include jostling Julie Bishop at two university events in Sydney, and heckling Sophie Mirabella during a university appearance in Melbourne.
Last month, a student activist group interrupted a taping of the ABC's Q&A program. Ridah Hassan took part in the Q&A demonstration on live television.
She says she felt compelled to use more confrontational tactics to get her message to the government.
"The Liberals have upped the ante against students, against the working class, against poor people, pensioners, so we've sort of upped the ante in response to that,” she said.
“They just lie to us all the time, like blankly, they don't care. So I think that reasoning with these people is fruitless. I think the way to put pressure on them is through direct action."
Deanna Taylor is the President of the National Union of Students. She said there'd been a big increase in student rally participation.
"We have seen a massive peak in interest in students wanting to get involved in stuff that's happening on campus, but also the National Union's national campaign, we saw the largest turnout at our national day of action that we've seen in decades,” she said.
Hall Greenland was one of the student activists who led the so-called Freedom Ride of 1965, campaigning for Indigenous rights.
He sees the same tactics being used today.
"We heckled, we jostled, we demonstrated, we sat down,” Mr Greenland said.
“We took direct action when we could and so on. And today students are doing the same kind of thing."
However Hall Greenland believes the new generation of student activists are more focused on matters that personally affect them, rather than broader issues which were at the centre of protests in the 1960s.
"There are no Vietnam wars going on now. The Afghan war has wound down, Iraq and so on. I mean, students still are interested, but there are no big crucial world scale battles going on like Vietnam."
While the focus may have changed, Deanna Taylor from the National Union of Students says the interest of students in bringing about change remains strong. She says they're determined to persevere.
"We've got more and more people wanting to participate, we've got more and more people aware that there are things radically changing in higher education,” she said.
“So we need to be careful that we're not assuming that the end goal of every protest is an immediate 180 change in policy direction. We are not naive enough to believe that the minister is going to overnight change his position."
Share
