O SPRINGS ETERNAL AND EVERYBODY'S DOING IT

University orientation is taking place across Victoria this week, so I thought as a community service I would begin today with some sensible advice for students about the controversial issues of drinking and sex. My advice is simple; get as much of both as humanly possible. Follow the proud example of heroes such as Ricky Ponting, Bill Clinton and anyone involved in the NSW rugby league, and party like your entrance rank was 19.99. You see, despite allegations to the contrary, university is not about studying. Who needs an education, anyway? It's not like there are any job vacancies in the real world. Well, not unless you're qualified to be leader of the Victorian ALP. Nah, in my opinion the best thing to do is spend all your time in bed, either with a lover or a hangover, warmed by the thought that if you graduate, your parents will be really proud of you. Now, before I go on, I should acknowledge there are probably some readers out there who don't think this is completely sensible and responsible advice, and they'd be ... um, what's the word ... correct. It's a joke, stoopid, well apart from the bit about John Brumby. But it does bring me to the point of today's column: free power of the press. You see, this week the O-Week edition of the RMIT magazine, Catalyst, contained an article entitled Fare Evasion, Everybody's Doing It, which couldn't have created more controversy if it were written by Salman Rushdie and titled Fare Evasion, Why It's all God's Fault. You don't have to be Columbo to guess that the main thrust of the article contained a step-by-step guide demonstrating how to avoid fares on public transport. The irony of course is that the easiest way to avoid fares is simply get on a tram and chances are the machines won't work anyway. The article is hardly the work of criminal masterminds. Most of the instructions were things like: if caught, give a false name and pretend you are from another country. Well duh? More helpful advice would be to avoid the name Helen Demidenko. This didn't stop the article being savaged on talkback radio for being ill-informed and inflammatory. Speak about the pot and kettle, that's like Dannnniii Minogue criticising Cher for having too much plastic surgery. In the end, the article created a lot of unnecessary angst when the simplest response would have been to follow it with a story written by my Mum, entitled Everybody Might Be Doing It But, If Everyone Jumped Off A Bridge, Would You? The sad thing is this is just more ammunition for a Government that wants to destroy student unionism so much it is rumoured they are planning to replace all the current student union members with students they have been training in Dubai. Let's face it, under the current Government, student unionism has been decimated. The only organisation that has fewer members is Queensland One Nation, and they have fewer original members than the Village People. But I guess that's what we get for putting David kemp in charge of education when he doesn't even know how a beard works. The point is let's not get too carried away by the seriousness of this article. People won't do things just because they read about them in a newspaper. Well at least, I don't think they will but, just in case, let me say this: send me all your money and if you see Daryl Somers, punch him. Yes, they encouraged people to break the law but, at the worst they are guilty of clumsy humour and doubtful satire and if that was a crime I'd certainly be doing time for that cheap crack about David Kemp's beard.