More than 300 students and staff from the University of Western Australia, Curtin and Murdoch marched to Parliament House in Perth on 21 October against a proposed merger of the three public universities. ABC reported the protest on the building’s steps. This is a street event, not a merger already voted and not a law in force.

Last week the state government announced a steering committee to look at whether combining the three would be worth it, to make Australia’s largest university, with more than 100,000 students. Western Australia has four public universities; the fourth is not in the package. Tertiary education minister Tony Buti said no commitment had been made and a merger would go ahead only if the business case stacked up. A study, not a decree.

Curtin and Murdoch immediately called the idea expensive and wasteful. UWA vice-chancellor Amit Chakma praised the plan’s “aspiration”. At the protest, Curtin guild president Dylan Storer called for affordable student housing, better teaching and support, not a corporate restructure. 6PR had quoted him before the march on the same cost-of-living points.

An incoming UWA guild councillor, Rojin Didari, spoke of the French protests as an example. After the march Storer distanced himself: he did not agree, and most people there would deplore violence. The Perth protest is not the unrest in France.

Buti did not address the rally: he said the invitation came only the day before and that, in the same slot, he was introducing an overhaul of the state’s discrimination laws. He asked students and academics to keep an open mind and accused guild presidents of cherry-picking. That is a minister’s position, not a vote on the merger.

On Tuesday the Liberal party room voted to reject the proposal, whatever the business case. The Greens oppose it. ABC notes Labor would need at least three crossbench votes to pass a bill. That is political arithmetic, not a bill already adopted. The closed fact is the march: more than 300 people at parliament, against a merger still under study.

Image: Steelkamp, Parliament House, Perth, February 2022, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; the 2022 building, not a photograph of the 21 October 2026 protest.

Sources consulted: University students and staff rally against proposed UWA, Murdoch and Curtin merger - ABC News; Proposed university merger sparks student protest at Parliament - 6PR.