This year, Curtin University have made radical changes to the cost of parking for students and staff, including:

• Increasing the price of green parking bays to $3 per day.
• Allowing both staff and students to park in staff (yellow) bays, at a premium price of $4 per day, to increase to over $6.60 per day by 2017.
• Increasing the price of orange 4 hour bays to $1 an hour, to increase to $3 an hour by 2017.
• Increasing staff permits to $700 a year, with permits being phased out by 2017.
• The most unfair change however is that parking will now be charged in tuition free and exam weeks, where previously it was only charged during teaching weeks.

There is no reason to charge for parking during non-teaching weeks, it is simply revenue raising. Because there are no classes on, the car parks do not even come close to capacity during this time, so Curtin cannot claim that charging for parking in this time is to reduce congestion.

Students are already stressed enough during teaching free weeks catching up on lectures, finishing assignments and preparing for exams. We don't need the added pressure of paying for parking and dealing with the temperamental CellOPark app when we're about to sit an exam.

We know that staff are annoyed about these changes too. If enough students and staff raise our voices about it we can get the University to back down on charging for parking during tuition-free and exam weeks, and send them a message that we are not OK with the price hikes.

The first study week starts on April 6th, if we can put enough pressure on Curtin then we can get them to back down on these changes before then.