A SCHOOLGIRL carried away by police during yesterday’s rowdy city protest will be asked to explain her absence from school.

Camberwell High School student Tallulah, 15, was among those forcibly removed from a group of about 20 who refused repeated requests to leave the road outside State Parliament during the protest against education cuts.

The school today released a statement saying they did not know she would be attending the protest:

“Students are entitled to develop their own opinions of the world. However, our school policy is that students are required to be at school during school hours and are not allowed to leave during the day without permission.

“The school will be following up with the student and parents as to why we were not notified of the student leaving the school during the school day.”

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle this morning slammed the actions of a teenage schoolgirl who was carried away by police during the protest, saying “it was wrong for her to be there”.

“I never like it when I see children protesting in that way, I think it’s inappropriate,” he said on 3AW radio this morning.

More than a dozen people were arrested when the protest against the Federal Government’s Budget changes to higher education turned nasty.

“I think it’s wrong for her (the girl on the front page of today’s Herald Sun) to put herself in that situation, I think it’s most regrettable that police have to intervene in that way. I mean who likes seeing a schoolgirl being dragged away by police officers?”

Cr Doyle said that although the teen had a right to protest, the girl’s effort to change Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s education policy would have been better received in written form.

“If that young woman had sat down and from her honest perspective written directly to the PM to say ‘here’s what I think about your Budget, here’s why I don’t like it’, I would be much more inclined attention to pay attention to that to see her being dragged away from a protest,” he said.

Cr Doyle also expressed his hatred towards the protests affect on the city’s traffic.

Yesterday, thousands of angry demonstrators choked city streets, blocking traffic and forcing the suspension of tram services for several hours.

“I’ve always said when you start impinging on other people going about their business then you’ve got to ask some questions.

“They have the right to protest but it’s not the same sort of protest as what you’d expect from the socialist alliance or the greens, and I just hate it when those protests gridlock the city.”

Many Victorians also viewed the student protests outside Parliament House as “pointless” and “shameful”.

“These protesters are not protesting cuts to students, they are simply whipping up activism against the Liberal Party,” reader, Jason, said.

“We didn’t see a single student protest when Gillard’s Labor Government cut university funding in their Gonski reforms. So, so much for looking out for students interests. I get sick of the pure unadulterated Labor/Greens activism that pretends to be a separate cause while posing under the guise of “concern” for students or the environment or whatever other excuse these anti Liberals dream up.”

“What exactly do protests accomplish? Absolutely nothing from my observations. Why would the Government take any notice anyway? Maybe you should learn to do things the hard way. Your parents probably had to,” Glen said.

Fellow students also took issue with the small minority of protesters who give a bad name for the rest of them.

“I work full-time and study full-time, and pay my HECS debt. These protesters make me sick and I’m ashamed to be put in the same category as these students,” Stefan said.

Police had to move in and remove a group of protesters - some teenage schoolgirls in uniform - from tram tracks outside State Parliament.

The group had defied several police warnings to leave the Spring Street sit-in before officers acted.

Fellow protesters had also urged them to leave.

Victoria Police’s Inspector Paul Binyon ­expressed his disappointment at the clash, saying protesters hadn’t kept to an agreement about how they would behave.

“I was surprised at the age of some of them,’’ said Insp Binyon.

“One demonstrator’s parents actually turned up and took their child home.”

media_camera Police carry away a teenage protester. Picture Jason Edwards

And federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne also weighed in, questioning the sincerity of protesters.

Teen protester Tallulah said she didn’t shy away from the cause.

“The budget cuts are wrong,’’ she said.

“I want to go to university and I don’t want to pay through the nose for it. If these fees get too high, I may not be able to go to university, which I want to do for my future and for my family’s future.”

Another girl, 16, dressed in the uniform of Brighton’s Star of the Sea College, was also among those police took away.

She had earlier told the Herald Sun she wasn’t afraid of being arrested.

The teenagers were among dozens at the rally, many carrying schoolbags and dressed in uniform.

One said there were as many as 30 students from her Footscray school at the protest.

“By the time we go to university, how are we going to pay for it?” she said.

Williamstown High School student Simona, 16, turned up with several schoolfriends.

“I think that whatever university a student decides to turn to should be purely based on their entrance (score), should be purely reliant on their score, as opposed to how much money they have,” she said.

“Education is a right. It’s not a privilege, it’s a right.”

Her friend Alice, 17, said: “I am here today because currently we are under the reign of an oppressive, ignorant, idiotic government.”

Under the Abbott Government’s higher education overhaul, universities will be able to decide how much to charge for degrees and students will have to begin repaying their government tertiary education debts sooner.

media_camera Students unite at the Spring St sit-in.

Money given to universities for each course will also be cut.

La Trobe University student union president Rose Steele, who helped organise the ­National Union of Students event, defended the right of high school students to protest.

“I think it’s really important that secondary students are here, because secondary students are going to bear the ­absolute brunt of the deregulated system,’’ Miss Steele said.

“They are going to be the ones who will be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.

“We will be coming out again and again.”

media_camera Police confront thousands of protesters at State Parliament.

The Melbourne rally, which was one of several nationwide, began at the State Library about 2pm with a symbolic burning of the Federal Budget, to the cheers of onlookers.

Some protesters carried banners reading “F--- fee hikes”. Others read “Pyne, don’t be a grub”.

But Mr Pyne said demonstrators should acknowledge the taxpayers who subsidised their tertiary degrees.

He said: “They (the protesters) should be buying a big bunch of flowers and a box of Roses chocolates, and finding a household near where they live where there’s nobody there with a university degree, and knocking on the front door, giving them the flowers and the chocolates, and saying, ‘Thank you for paying for 60 per cent of my university degree, so I can earn 75 per cent more than you over my lifetime’,” Mr Pyne said of the protesters.

“I take all their protests with a pinch of salt,” he said.

media_camera Police speak to a secondary school student at the protest.

Members of the National Tertiary Education and Maritime unions were among the protesters.

Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt and federal Opposition education spokesman Kate Ellis addressed the crowd.

The protest had initially been well-behaved, but things turned ugly when students rushed a wall of police outside State Parliament to try to break through the line.

There were also clashes in Canberra, and in Sydney where about 1000 people descended on the Town Hall.

One man there was arrested when a flare was lit.

He was bundled to the ground by about six police officers as he picked it up off the road and held it aloft.

Victoria Police confirmed that 13 people had been ­arrested at the Melbourne rally but did not release details.

All were released pending summons for obstructing a roadway or footpath.

wes.hosking@news.com.au

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