An Open Letter to Brendan Nelson from Shaun Micallef
from the University of Adelaide "Make Some Noise" programme
(contributed by Peter Oakes)

Dear Brendan,

In my day, tertiary education was free. In fact, I was paid by the Federal Government to attend university with no expectation that they would ever receive their money back - or indeed that I would ever perform any service to the community whatsoever (which I indeed didn’t) as repayment. Back then I happily parted with a few dollars to the Student Union that they might fill my pigeon hole with pamphlets I largely ignored or join a club in order to meet girls and drink an excess of alcohol. And then there was student radio and seeing films and watching bands - and let’s not forget student politics! Where would this great country of ours be today without student politics? No-freaking-where I’d warrant. Men like Peter Costello (and ladies too) and even yourself, Brendan, would not be where they are today had they not ground their teeth almost down to the gum-line gnashing at each other over the laughable divide that then separated the many factions in student politics.

Cast your mind back, Brendan, to those halcyon days when you were a young medical student dismembering your first cadaver, your eyes full of hope, your cheeks flushing with the first blush of spring, your ear-ring glinting in the flickering flouros of the lab, your ideals not yet dimmed by the give and take of the real world. Brendan - remember when Further Education wasn’t all about the course you were studying? How can we hope that the children of today will stumble blinking out of the universities of tomorrow as fully developed human beings, each with a fully working moral compass, a code of ethics, and a sense of proportion if we do not expose them to the manifold tastes and myriad scents that permeate the cloisters of learning. For if a young man or woman has never woken up half naked in a ditch, reeking of stale beer and cigarettes, their hair matted in pavlova and someone else’s yiros, how can they ever hope to lead this country, run our corporations, or captain our industries?

I ask you, Brendan, as one ex-student of approximately the same age to another.

The children are our future Brendan. Let them have a bit of fun while they can and don’t siphon off all their money into your fat pockets you bastard.

I remain your humble servant,

SHAUN MICALLEF

Revue Artist
University of Adelaide 1980-1983
Footlights Club
Debating Club
Student Union Council
Law Students Society Representative