University students undoubtedly have a lot to stress about. The looming threat of fee deregulation, an over saturation of university degrees leading to minimal jobs and if they’ll ever make enough to pay off their HECs fees.
But one issue trumps them all and we’re eternally thankful we have The University of Queensland Liberal National Club to bring it to our attention.
In the latest edition of officeholders motivated purely by padding out their resume arguing about inconsequential topics, the UQLNC passed a motion to make it a crime to criticise the Queen.
That’s right; they want to reintroduce sedition laws. You may remember such laws from the 1940s – 1960s, but not past 1961 because that’s the last time someone was prosecuted under them.
The incredibly important motion was in retaliation to the launch of a republican movement on the campus – read: not the real world – earlier this month.
BuzzFeed News reports that the push is coming from a faction of the club who support the former club president, Kurt Tucker – yes, the man forced to resign last month after declaring he would be a Nazi Party member if he was lucky enough to be alive in 1930s Germany.
The topic probably hit peak niche issue when everyone realised literally no-one criticises the Queen.
The majority of us wouldn’t dare criticise Queen Elizabeth II so it all seems a bit irrelevant, in our humble opinion.
One student described the sedition motion as “ridiculous” to BuzzFeed News.
“We’re worrying about our HECS debts, whether we’ll ever be able to afford a house, and the undersupply of full time jobs in Queensland,” Sinéad Canning, UQ student and Young Greens member told the publication.
“No wonder the LNP’s youth vote is tanking.”
Yeah probably that and the fact they’re electing Nazi sympathisers.
This isn’t the first time the club has made headlines.
In 2014, they hosted an asylum seeker themed pub crawl. Really. It was to celebrate their supreme overlord Tony Abbott’s 100 days of no boat arrivals under the ‘Stop the Boats’ border protection policy.
I mean it seems highly insensitive, but then we just keep coming back to that whole Hitler thing and it all just falls into place.
I’m sure the UQLNC doesn’t need me to point out that many asylum seekers fleeing persecution are doing so because they criticised their government, thereby breaking sedition laws used by heads of state to suppress dissent.
Or maybe they’ve been so busy accosting people with flyers they haven’t realised the irony.