I am surprised no one picked this up and screamed murder: The Victorian Transport Minister has proposed an amendment to the Equal Opportunities Act to ban complaints by international students over transport concessions. International students, once the amendment is passed, can no longer argue their case over discriminatory grounds (which I presume is, perhaps, the only ground).

This trinklet of news passed by with little furore, less the action taken by the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV) - I am figuring that students were mostly either too carried away with their semester break, too busy with their assignments, or perhaps they have given up with their little ‘concession discontentment’.

Full-fee transport is inevitable, and until the public transport sector starts making a proper profit, the foreigners will always be on the bad side of the equation. Perhaps, this will require a serious structural overhaul - for example, fixing the fare evasion problem and having to hire less tram inspectors, or maybe just having trains run on time.

However, banning discontent is just not the way to go. Shutting people up is just such a demonstration of administrative power. It makes us appear little different from our corporate giant, shiny-towers cousin in the East.

Perhaps, being an international student myself disqualifies me from this statement - but I am certain my Australian (read: ‘White’) relatives, ironically from the before-mentioned East, will agree that, while disagreement is one thing, a complete cap over the matter is questionably authoritarian. Is it fair to have rights to ‘freedom’ so easily taken away?

Note: The author does not actually take public transport… Perhaps he should be banned from representing international students on this issue.

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