“National Party senators are threatening to block the federal government’s legislation to outlaw student unions, potentially derailing one of the prime minister’s ideological ambitions,” the Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday. Obviously the rest of the Nats are unaware of the embarrassment their leader John Anderson has suffered at the hands of the University of New England Student Union. No wonder he’s giving up.

“University of New England council has expelled a Young Liberal student who passed himself off as a Green and handed out beer while spruiking near a voting booth on student election day,” The Australian’s Higher Education supplement reported back in May . “Wade McInerney, president of the UNE student union, has also been banned from voting or standing in student elections until November next year.”

The union has been placed into administration and its board suspended. And guess who the little dears made patron? Not their local MP, Independent Tony Windsor, but the member for the neighbouring seat of Gwydir, John Anderson.

The HES has had a number of colourful reports on the UNE Union – as has, more embarrassingly, the local media. What seem like jolly japes on campus go down as either obscenity or thuggishness with local punters.

Poor Ando. No wonder he’s giving it away.