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Year View| Summary| Highlights| Month View| Thursday 25 March 2004 (Day View)

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25.03.2004 – Thursday 25 March – HECS Increase & Protest

4pm

• The UQ Senate decides whether to raise HECS, and if so by how much, today. The rabid loonies at uni have, with their useful lack of anything resembling intelligence, decided that blockading the building in which the UQ Senate is going to meet until quorum expires and the meeting is invalid is the best way to avoid paying more for their “education” (for want of a better term). I decided to go along for some fun.
  There were a several hundred slavering protesters blocking the doors, a few of whom weren’t militant lesbian, but carried signs complaining about the impact an increase in HECS would have on the queer community instead. There may have been some normal students there somewhere, but I couldn’t see any. There was also a surprising lack of anti-Iraq signs, or perhaps they were just hidden behind the various unions and the gay community’s signs. I suppose we should all be thankful the rate of genetic mutation isn’t faster.
  I ended up with the twenty or so humans there, surrounded by the mire, protesting against the protesters. We were “young liberals” or something apparently, and although I don’t have any political affiliations or leanings, anything that wasn’t “them” had to be good – and it was fun (and easy) to have a bit of fun at their expense.
  They were all quite happy, thinking they’d successfully prevented the senate from meeting, although who knows whatever good that would have done – it’s all a stupid publicity stunt and just makes normal people think they’re idiots, but the senate held a telephone hook-up from another boardroom. They have now approved an across the board increase in HECS by 25%, exceptions being granted for education and nursing.

Night

• Clint and I headed into Indooroopilly and had dinner. We were considering catching a movie but there wasn’t much showing.