Candidacy!

So I've nailed my colours to the mast, and launched an Independent campaign for NUS Delegacy.

First things first: this will be difficult. In order to be elected, I'll need 1/8th of the total votes in the NUS election. This might not seem like such a long shot, given I've previously managed to snag a bit less than 1/4 of the votes in Arc Board elections.

But this time, I'm all alone, against at least two organised campaigns.

Voice is running, of course. I was speaking to Os (who is running for President again), and was hopeful of getting a position with Voice for undergrad rep (electorate A), and potentially for NUS as well. However, it looks like the two Labor factions have stitched up a deal, locking out independents for the most part. I've yet to hear from any of the other Indies hoping to run for Undergrad Rep or NUS spots, but I'm not expecting all that much.

Socialist Alternative will almost certainly be campaigning as well. As the undergrad rep positions have been expanded to 12 (up from 6, after the Post-Grads split off), I wouldn't be surprised if they get a few positions on SRC next year.

Potentially, the Libs will also be running, though I'm not at all certain. Last year they worked with Unity, but Unity's back in Voice now.

I really do hope Voice wins the SRC election, and does so resoundingly. It's a good coalition. I can't be happy that Unity's involved, and still don't understand why there was any discussion with them. What were they offering? What threat could they truly pose to Voice?

But for NUS, well, the last few days have just re-confirmed my hatred for backroom deals. I'm not usually one to talk up my own record, but I have worked my arse off to try and make things better for UNSW students. My degree is all kinds of wonky due to putting more work into SRC than essays. I've been pushing reforms for an Equity Committee for a year now, and every single person I've spoken to about this has thought it a good idea, and something that should happen.

My 'reward', so to speak, is to be sidelined and not spoken to. Perhaps I thought my achievements didn't need to be said. Or perhaps it was simply that I was coming up against the forces of the NUS factions, and a confirmed Independent isn't something they want spoiling their deal-making.

Enough of it. I want to go to NUS, to try and make it better. Or if it can't be made better, to at least have tried. That's why I'm standing for election, as an Independent. My 'campaign page', such as it is, is located here.

As I said to start off, this'll be very difficult. But it's much easier to stand as independent on the NUS ballot, as it's separate to the rest of the ballots, and all candidates are listed.
Once I find out who the other candidates are, I may indicate my preferences. But it's very wait-and-see thus far.

Post-semester catchup

Well, I suppose I've been neglecting this. Nothing since the Board elections here, despite several things being of note. So let's go through them.

1) At the Arc AGM, the Post-Grad Council was created! Despite last-gasp attempts from one particular Board Director, who was opposed to the PGC for reasons I simply don't understand, it got voted through by well over the 75% required. I'm not yet sure just when and how the Council will be formed, but it will happen.

2) As a result of the above, Anh Pham will no longer be an OB on the SRC, as his position (Post-Grad Officer) has been abolished. Depending on how negotiations go with the PGC, he might end up holding an OB position there, or might not. His opposition to the PGC's creation, and unexplained absence from the AGM, don't exactly promise much.

3) Barring some really quite bizarre situation, Jess Mobbs will be the next Chair of Arc Board. The two other Directors who could run for it (Simon Bruck and Matt Ward) have both indicated they will not be nominating. In Simon's case, he's pissed off most of the Board with his actions regarding the PGC (see 1 above). Matt says he's much more interested in getting onto the Yellow Shirts OT.

4) As Jess will be vacating the position of Women's Officer, there will need to be a new OB coming onto SRC. I haven't heard anything about who that might be, or whether an election will be held early next semester, or anything like that. There's likely to be at least one other OB change for second semester, but I'm not at liberty to discuss that right now. Will likely be resolved one way or the other in the next week, and if anything happens it'll be on here.

5) It's almost conference season! The many and varied student politics conferences will be held over the winter break. In the standard organising process of student life, most of them are being held simultaneously.
Queer Collaborations (QC) at the University of Wollongong 5th-9th July
Students of Sustainability (SoS) at the University of Adelaide 4th-8th July (the same week)
NUS-CAPA International Students Forum, University of Tasmania, 4th-7th July (... the same week)
EdCon (NUS mid-year conference) at the University of Tasmania, the same week, but only 7th-9th
Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) at the University of Newcastle 14th-18th July (the following week!)
In addition, there's also various factional pre-conferences before EdCon. Just how EdCon can be held at UTas is a mystery to me, given that last I heard UTas wasn't an affiliated campus. Very odd.
Strangely, only the International Forum is listed on the NUS website as occurring. At least theoretically, these are all supposed to be linked into the overall NUS framework - why wouldn't contact details at least be given? Not even EdCon?
There's also usually conferences for other groups - ALSA (law students), Amnesty etc. I don't know the details for any of those.
Plus there's actual education conferences.

[update] UTas are indeed affiliated, as of the December NUS meeting/January SGM.

Factional Futures

The following follows on from several previous posts, outlining the various factional standings. I'd suggest reading them first.

At the moment, NLS and Unity seem to be matched in power stakes, with SAlt holding the balance of power. The Big-I's look to have been absorbed into NLS - while this may not be formally true, the two groups are close enough.

Had Unity not undergone a state-to-state war at the January SGM, they would probably hold a great deal more positions than they currently do. They probably couldn't have seized national Presidency, but certainly several states worth. Time will tell whether these state rivalries will cause a collapse in Unity's structure, or whether they will be sorted out.

NLS is also looking like it might well split soon. This won't be a simple state-by-state split - it's far more fundamental. The differences between the 'hard' and 'soft' left go down to basic ideology.

The names themselves are perhaps misleading - the 'hard' left are generally a lot nicer in my experience, trying to help everyone. What they are 'hard' about are issues such as queer rights, women's liberation and indigenous rights.

The 'soft' left, I've found to be much more aggressive. Less prepared to compromise, less prepared to work with others. Less prepared to stand up for solidarity, more wanting direct control.

To step into UNSW, this division became apparent last year, around the time of working out the Voice ticket. Hard left got Welfare (James Still), Soft got Education (Helen Samardzic). In the past, these two positions were overseen by a single officer, and it was often seen as a stepping stone to Presidency. That hasn't been the case for a few years now (the last being Phuong Au, President in 2008), but the association is still strong in people's minds.

Both Helen and James have indicated an interest in becoming President next year. Both have been working with people on- and off-campus to try and get support for this. If NLS remains part of the Voice coalition, they can't both go for it - they would need to first get endorsement from UNSW NLS. That is, as long as NLS remains a single faction. Shoud it split, Voice will suddenly get a lot more interesting. And probably wouldn't remain in existence.

As for other factions: SAlt are looking up. I'm not happy about this, seeing as how I disagree with some of what they push, and have major issues with the methodology.

I truly believe a left-wing, non-Labor, non-Marxist faction is needed. To fill the void that GL left, something new needs to emerge. But I'm not sure it will - many if not most indies have switched off from NUS, after being ignored for so long. The main uni student environmental group, ASEN, was removed from the NUS Environment OB position at the January SGM.

Something needs to be done. We need a voice at NUS that represents non-party uni students. And we need it to be heard. Much as I hate to admit it, being a committed indie, despising the concept of the party structure - I think we need a Faction.

Independents, of all kinds

Next we come to the most confusing part of NUS, the two/three/four/many ‘independent’ factions.

The Independents (Big-I’s) started out as a split from Labor, because Natasha Stott-Despoja didn’t get preselection for an NUS position. So she started her own faction. For a time, the Big-Is ruled the roost in WA, simply because the other factions couldn’t be bothered to cross the Nullarbor.

Not around at UNSW, obviously.

It’s difficult to tell if they’re around right now. Over summer, they worked so closely with NLS they might as well have been absorbed.

The WHIGS, well, whether they even exist depends on who you’re talking to. Right-wing independents? East coast independents? Just a bunch of High Tories at USyd who managed to convince people that they’re actually a faction? The best description I’ve heard is that they’re Liberals who Want to participate in the NUS process (unlike ALSF).

At UNSW? Well, a group of right-wing indies were part of the Unity/ALSF coalition at last year’s elections. But I’m hesitant to call them WHIGS. Mainly because they didn’t.

If you can’t tell whether they exist, you can’t expect me to say where they’re going.

East Coast Indies are sometimes bundled up with WHIGS, sometimes not. Most of them are from regional universities, many of which aren’t able to pay affiliation fees to NUS. So while they’re around, they don’t have much power at NUS beyond drawing attention to issues of constitutionality.

The independents (small-i’s, indies) aren’t a faction. They’re anyone who hasn’t joined a faction. Small i, because they aren’t the same as the (confusingly named) Big-I Independents. Sometimes includes East Coast Indies, sometimes includes WHIGS, sometimes includes GL. It depends what you accept as being a faction.

Obviously, they’re active at UNSW. Our president is one, so am I. Small-i’s have held the balance of power on our SRC for a few years now, and currently form a majority on council in their own right.

We’re not going to go away, because a lot of people don’t want to join factions. But on the other hand, it is very difficult to get anywhere in NUS without joining. Calling yourself an indie is inviting you to be recruited. For a lot of faction members, the concept of being indie doesn’t even exist.

Socialist Alternative (SAlt)

SAlt, I’ve already annoyed with my last Tharunka piece. Far left Marxist radicals, very in-your-face, gung-ho, black-and-white. Apparently a few years back they were part of GL, but split. The split looks to have done them good – they’re the most influential non-Labor faction these days. They currently hold both Queer NOB positions, yet seem unaware that there’s anything more to Queer Activism than fighting for marriage equality.

AT UNSW – you know they’re here. You hear them. They’re active. They’ve always got a stall going, even on Open Days. I suppose you could call them the ‘opposition’ on the SRC to Voice, in that they hold three voting positions on Council.

Where are they going? They’re influential, but very, very divisive. People typically either love them (mainly members) or hate them. I admire the passion, but I disagree with some of the goals, and also the methods. But in terms of NUS, they mobilise voters. And so gain votes, gain positions, gain power.

A note on terminology: Sometimes you hear them referred to as 'SA'. I've avoided this, as SA is also the abbreviation for the political party Socialist Alliance. SA and SAlt are opposed at both the theoretical level and in practice. So instead I'm trying to popularise SAlt as an alternative name.

Grassroots Left (GL)

GL have been an important minor player in NUS in the past, but don’t seem to be around much these days. They were made up of unaligned ALP members, greenies, environmentalists, queer activists and other groups who tended to work from a collectivist mentality, rather than hierarchical bureaucracy. For a number of years, they usually held one or two NOB positions through deals with NLS. However, this came unstuck at the 2008 conference, where NLS instead favoured Socialist Alternative, leaving GL with nothing. A lot of GL abandoned NUS following that, others lost courage and belief.

I’ve never found any evidence of a functioning GL group at UNSW. We’ve had a lot of student politicians who would most naturally fit within that faction, but for one reason or another never joined.

Where are they going? Well, are they even alive? I know a few True Believers, but in most people’s minds GL is dead and buried. Maybe another collective-based faction will emerge, but it won’t be the same group.

Australian Liberal Students Federation (ALSF)

ALSF, as the name suggests, comprise members of the Liberal Party. They are not supporters of NUS, and have pushed for the organisation to be disbanded. No-one from ALSF, to my knowledge, has ever held a position in NUS. However, their preferences have occasionally led to unexpected outcomes, such as at the 2006 conference (where a far-left Independent candidate became General Secretary, instead of the expected right-wing Unity candidate).

ALSF exists at UNSW, but only barely. Similar to the federal Libs, there was something of a civil war last year between ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ members of the faction. They’ve participated in SRC Elections, in 2007 by themselves, and last year in coalition with Unity.

Where are they going? I suspect they’re still laughing over the chaos that was last year’s NUS conference. Alternately, they’re annoyed none of their NUS delegates went along to the SGM in January, if only to call for a quorum count – which, I am led to believe, would have caused NUS to become legally defunct.

Student Unity (Unity)

Student Unity (Unity), despite the name, are the other main ALP faction – this time for the right-wingers. Under the ‘sweetheart deal’ between NLS and Unity, Unity get NUS General Secretary in return for supporting NLS for President. They usually also get the Welfare NOB, and a few other, ‘minor’ roles.

At UNSW, they’re around, but not in a major way. Up until 2005, they held Presidency and a majority of positions on the Guild (pre-Arc). Indeed, either NLS, Unity or one of their predecessors had held Presidency every year from 1992 until 2009. But nowadays, Unity are somewhat dampened at UNSW. Until last year’s election, they were part of the Voice coalition, but didn’t manage to secure the same deal again. So instead they formed an opposition ticket in a coalition with Liberals.

Where are they going? At last year’s NUS Conference they nearly seized Presidency. At the Special General Meeting of NUS (held in January to make up for the fact the December meeting completely failed to do anything) they came close to taking control of several state bodies, the deal only falling through because of internal Unity personality clashes. As a single bloc, Unity are looking close to taking full control of NUS. But there are internal clashes yet to be worked out.

National Labor Students (NLS)

NLS are one of the major groups. Born out of a merger between two former Labor groupings (Australian Labor Students and National Organisation of Labor Students, for those keeping track), it broadly contains those student politicians more inclined to the ‘Left’ of the ALP. By tradition, they always get NUS Presidency in labyrinthine deals, as well as several other of the National Office Bearer (NOB) positions (in particular, Education NOB).

As far as UNSW is concerned, they’re a big player. Before this year, NLS (or a predecessor) had held presidency since 2005. They’re part of the ‘Voice’ coalition which holds a majority of the SRC positions.

Where are they going? It’s a bit confused. Over last summer, it looked like NLS was about to split into two factions, ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ left. From where I sit, it looks like these tensions have been muted a bit, but they’re definitely still there, bubbling under the surface.

Ideas about NUS - Affiliations

This, and the next series of posts, were submitted to Tharunka for the next issue (#3). I've done a bit of editing to make it more presentable for this format. I'm not yet sure how much of this will be in the print edition, hence my posting the full-length article up here.

The Thinking Snake’s Guide to NUS

rory thomas

Last time I wrote, I presented a snake’s eye view of the members of our SRC. The SRC represents students at UNSW. It links up with other unis, both directly (eg our president talking to the president at USyd) and via the National Union of Students.

If you talk to students about NUS, you’ll get a finite range of responses. Some people will be absolutely effusive about it, regarding it as the best thing since sliced bread. Others hate it, and think it is complete and utter garbage. Then there are those who dislike the methods used, but still regard the concept of a national union as worthwhile.

Of course, these three groups are dwarfed by the group of students who will simply shrug at the name, say they’ve never heard of it, or might think you’re talking about the National University of Singapore.

NUS claims to represent every university student in Australia. Or at least, it draws representation from every affiliated undergrad university student organisation (there is a separate national body for Post Grad students, called CAPA). Arc@UNSW is an affiliated organisation, through the SRC. Similarly, USyd students can get access to NUS through the USyd SRC, Newcastle Uni students through NUSA, etc. (For quickness, I will henceforth refer to ‘student organisations’ as ‘SOs’)

Affiliation can be a big deal. Whether and how much money an SO pays in affiliation fees determines much of the pecking order at NUS. Smaller regional university SOs are usually less able to pay fees, so get less say in how NUS works and what it does. Several SOs are completely unable to pay any fees – so are without say as to what NUS will focus on.

This may well seem to you a sensible system. He who pays the piper calls the tune and all that. But in the age of Voluntary Student Unionism, it can become somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy: a small SO collects less money from members, so pays less to NUS, so NUS gives less attention to that campus, so the SO gets less attention, so gains fewer members, lather, rinse, repeat.

Affiliation, as such, can be a major issue for an SO. If you aren’t getting anything from NUS, why maintain membership and continue paying large amounts of money? Particularly if you need to keep all your money on-campus simply to avoid bankruptcy?

The other side of the NUS coin is, of course, the factions. The next series of (short) posts will look at the various factions currently operating: who they are, where they sit, what they're doing, and where they're going.

ideas

I've got a few different ideas for what to write about in the next little while. So I thought I might as well see what people want to see (and, by-the-by, work out who's actually reading this).

1. 'What is a councillor?'

2. Explanation of the factions - where they come from, where they're going. Probably a series of posts.

3. 'what is a small-i'

4. looking at how the SRC fits into the overall Arc structure

5. looking back over the fiasco that was last year's NUS conference, then the various deals and collapses involved in the SGM. This one I'd like to leave a bit, see what else comes to light. Plus I would be very surprised if one of the Tharunka editors doesn't write about it themself.

6. explanation of the SRC election methodology - forming tickets, the process of voting, 'what is a valid vote' etc. Almost definitely a series of posts, way too big to fit into one.

7. The proposed Post-grad council - who's in favour, who's against, how the whole shebang is meant to work, and why it's all taken so long.

8. Anything else you'd like me to take a look at?

Let me know.

SRC 2010

[the following has been submitted to the first issue of Tharunka for 2010. I thought it may as well get out a tad earlier]

"'University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small'" - Henry Kissinger

For better or for worse, student politics is often likened to a festering snakepit. It is brutal, harsh, full of various ever-changing alliances and cults-of-personality.

So it’s no surprise that many of you reading this will have no interest whatsoever in being involved in politics at UNSW. You may well wonder what relevance these petty squabbles and power-plays have to your own life. But is that the only attitude? To ignore it and leave it to the student politicians? There are many things at uni which could be improved – are you going to leave it to those few people who ran a week-long campaign to try and fix those problems?

At the very least, it’s good to know who these people are, so if you’ve got a problem you can know who to harangue to try and fix it. Elsewhere in this publication, you may have found Office-Bearer reports from your Student Representative Council. These will, of course, have been written to show the SRC in a very positive light, inspiring confidence in those SRC members. But they won’t tell you very much about them as people. Or even much about them as politicians.

So here I am, one snake amongst many, giving you the gossip on student politics, UNSW-style.

To start with, there’s the Factions. These are mostly (but not always) linked with Australian political parties. They aren’t quite the same as ‘tickets’, which are what run for election (which will be covered in a future column). At UNSW, on the current SRC, we’ve got: National Labor Students (NLS), composed of leftwards-leaning members of the Labor Party. There’s also Socialist Alternative (who you may well have encountered shouting various things around campus by now).

Outside of the current council, we’ve got Student Unity (a misnomer of course, they comprise right-wing Labor members), the Australian Liberal Students Federation (the Young Liberals, more-or-less), as well as a few people calling themselves WHIGS (right-wing ‘independents’).

Most of the current SRC is non-factional (indeed, this has been the case for a few years now), referred to in student-politics-speak as ‘small-i independents’ (to distinguish from the ‘big-Is’, a West Australian faction). Bear that in mind whenever you hear people talking about the ‘Labor-dominated SRC’.

So now, we can move to looking at the people themselves.

First up: Osman Faruqi, SRC President, ‘small-i’. The first non-Labor President since the early 90s (so you can imagine that people in both Labor factions are somewhat taken aback). He’s quite nice, as far as SRC snakes go. Since he’s non-factional, he’s also significantly less likely to pay attention to what the National Union are likely to be saying.

Jelena Samardzic (also known as Helen) is the Education Officer. She has made clear her intentions to become the next President (for NLS). What is less certain is just what she intends to do in her current role. Her immediate predecessor was more interested in filling out his CV than activism – will this tradition be continued?

James Still holds the Welfare role. He’s been very active over summer, printing off a new version of the Cheapskate’s Guide. We will all be watching to see whether his enthusiasm continues throughout the year, or whether he burns out (as did his immediate predecessor).

Ben Noone and Nicola Karcz are sharing the role of Environment Officer. The Enviro role is usually shared by two people. Sometimes they get on and do a lot of fantastic activism together. Sometimes, they do not.

There are a group of positions sometimes referred to as ‘Equity’ roles – they represent special interest groups, typically groups that historically have faced persecution. Jess Mobbs as Women’s Officer, Shuang (Samantha) Guo as International Students Officer, Marita Morgan as Students with Disabilities Officer, Felicity Lee and Anna Khan in Ethno-Cultural, April Long and Peta MacGillivray sharing the Indigenous Students role, and Nick Atkins and Squish Ramsay are the Queer Officers (the last of these I hold in a special place – a student politician snake who keeps snakes!). The Equity Officers are usually devoted to their special area, and do good work in it. If they don’t, they may well find themselves replaced by someone even more passionate.

And then we come to two particular roles. These roles aren’t necessarily problematic, more to do with the individuals holding them. You see, Anh Pham as Postgraduate Students Officer and Rebecca Hynek as COFA Campus Representative are members of Socialist Alternative. And the thing about SAlt is, they often fight for good things. But the methods they use are nasty. Attacking the individual, repeating mantras instead of engaging in debate, ‘with us or against us’ attitude in general.

Pham and Beck may well rise above this usual method of SAlt behaviour, which I hope occurs. But I cannot be confident of this.

If you’re over at COFA, then you get another group of Office-Bearers as well. In this snake’s experience, COFA OBs are inspired and full of fun. They have miniscule budgets, but great ability to make the money work.

So those are your Office-Bearers for 2010. Then we’ve got Councillors, both Undergrad and Postgrad variants thereupon. Councillors usually aren’t that noticeable. The role is notoriously undefined; it’s not quite clear who they represent. They generally fall into three groups.

First off, you’ve got the up-and-comings who didn’t manage to snag a position as office-bearer. Next, you’ve got the old hands, staying on for an extra year. Then you’ve got the randoms, people who got the position simply for being in the right place at the right time.

And why am I doing this? Well, I’m just another snake slithering around this snakepit. I was on Council for two years, first as a Tharunka editor, then an Office-Bearer. Maybe I'm waiting for another chance to get involved. or maybe this snake is sick and tired of the whole shebang, but can’t quite muster up the courage to let go. Time will tell.