In 1996 Tenenbaum wrote:
During the past decade, an all-out offensive has been underway against public education. What were considered to be basic, and even permanent, rights are being trampled underfoot as both state and federal governments cut funding, close down educational facilities, slash research grants and demolish conditions.
It is only just one generation ago that the Whitlam Labor government introduced free tertiary education, making university education accessible, for the first time, to working class youth. Labor’s measure was hailed as a major step for social equity, the ushering in of a new era.
But this was to be a very short-lived era. Only a decade later the Hawke and Keating Labor governments were introducing fees– first to overseas students, then, in 1989 on all students in the form of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme.
While the tertiary student population has grown, staff numbers and facilities have fallen behind, resulting in notorious over-crowding, shortages of books and materials and a general decline in conditions. Academic staff face a cut-throat struggle to survive, with tenure and job security a thing of the past.
The 25 years since this was written have verified all the warnings made in this pamphlet and its call for a counter-offensive of working people in defence of public education.