About 600 of Sydney’s 150,000 high school students stayed away from school and demonstrated in the city yesterday.
The students outside the Town Hall,on September 20,1972.Kevin John Berry
Students gathered in front of the Town Hall at midday and their numbers grew in Hyde Park an hour later.
Then they marched down Macquarie Street to the Education Department building in Bridge Street,chanting:“What do we want - student rights. When do we want them - now!”
About half the students wore school uniforms,and at Hyde Park many of them lit small fires and burnt their school ties.
The scene at the Town Hall as the students listen to speeches.Stuart William MacGladrie
The others wore an assortment of casual clothes - long frocks,mini-dresses,jeans,T-shirts and thongs.
The boys and girls came from about 50 schools in the metropolitan area.
Members of left-wing organisations distributed literature among the crowd,and observers from the Council for Civil Liberties,wearing armbands,were present.
Greg Adamson,18,of North Sydney Boys’ High School,led the meetings and the march,using a loud hailer.
A student from Asquith Girls’ High School,Dianne Fields,18,told the crowd the students wanted freedom of appearance,ideas and expression,no “degrading” corporal punishment,more finance for schools,equal opportunities for all students,and an end to segregated schools.
Other speakers at the student meetings included Mr George Petersen,Labor MLA for Illawarra,Mr Frans Timmerman,editor of the student journal “Tharunka” at the University of NSW,and Mr Gary Foley,a leader of the Black Moratorium group.
Dennis Garnsey,13,had taken over a key role in the campaign.Peter John Moxham
The demonstration was intended to be part of an Australia-wide series by its organisers,the Melbourne-based Education Action Group.
On Tuesday the NSW Minister for Education. Mr Willis,said he believed “an organisation called the Socialist Youth Alliance is pulling the strings and hoping to use secondary school students as puppets.” The alliance,he said,was “the Australian branch of a Trotskyist-Communist international body.”
Yesterday Dennis Garnsey,13-year-old self-styled Marxist from North Sydney Boys’ High School,and co-ordinator of the Education Action Group,said politics had nothing to do with the strike.
Mr Willis told Parliament yesterday that he and the Education Department’s head office had taken no notice of the students’ action.
“I am confident that matters of this nature can he safely left in the hands of school principals to deal with according to individual circumstances,” he said.
In Melbourne,more than 200 students marched through the city to a meeting. In Brisbane 150 marched.