Candidate Statements!

Candidate policy statements for the upcoming UMSU elections (Sept. 8-12) are out. There's the wacky, the jovial and the more moderately sane. It's hard to stand out in such a pile of 'vibrant and inclusive' or 'radical and progressive' or 'FREE MARKETS!' But here are some of the greater gems coming out of this round of student political-hopefuls.

"NATALIE TAVASSOLI (STOP 2AM LOCKOUT, STOP ALCOPOPS TAX)
Hey I’m Nat, and this year I’ve decided to run for president to stop the 2am lockout which is ruining Melbourne’s nightlife. In my role as president of the student union, I will lobby the government non-stop until this disgraceful law is repealed, and students are free to go out without being locked out of their favourite venue."

Can you say feeder ticket?

"CHRIS LEWIS (YES!)
Each year the student union receives over $10 million from the uni itself."

This is not true. If it were, the union would barely have noticed VSU since pre-VSU budgets were not much bigger than $10mil.

"ADAM MCKEE & ANDREW KEMP (LIBERAL)...
1. Reduce carbon emissions by riding a whale to work instead. On the way, harpoon an environmentalist."

With an attitude like that, they're sure to win the Environment office.

"ROSALIE DELANEY, MARK A. PEART, MAX KAISER & LORENA SOLIN (ACTIVATE)...
We’re a welcoming and inclusive bunch as seen in the vibrant Arts Department we’ve run this year. Farrago has been a radical magazine in the past, and we want to reinstate its role as an engaged and enlightening publication...
...no one wants to see Farrago turn into a cover-to-cover partisan propaganda arm. But we do want a magazine that engages with the student community holistically rather than patronising it with inaccessible in-jokes and arrogant, divisive tirades that besides offending people are irrelevant, and even detrimental, to student culture and unionism."

None of these candidates were Arts Officers. To say that they want to make Farrago both a radical magazine but not to turn it into cover-to-cover partisan propaganda that is never allowed to be detrimental to student unionism is a contradiction. Rosalie Delaney, however, has been doing well recently and won an appeal to overturn the conviction for her role in the G20 protests.

"GILLIAN KILBY, BHAKTHI PUVANENTHIRAN, ZOE-ZORA SANDERS & YOSHUA WAKEHAM (INDEPENDENT MEDIA) ...
Of the parties vying to run Farrago, only Independent Media has an unwavering commitment to genuine political and ideological independence."

That is to say, independence from ideologies other than that of media independence. It only forms paradoxes if you're a postmodernist.

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Centrelink Weddings

So the NDA happened and wasn't as bad as it could have been; in fact, it was actually quite good.

I Olivia, take thee, Rupert, to be my legally-wedded husband, to have and to hold you whenever a government official is nearby, for better or more likely for worse, for richer or more likely for poorer, in sickness and in health, to support, witness and co-sign all Centrelink applications, until graduation do us part, and be thankful we figured out how to work the system.

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A Shopping List

So, there is a National Day of Action next week. It is, as usual, demanding a shopping list, which I will proceed to critique in order.

1. NO FULL FEES: Over 60 undergraduate degrees now cost over $100, 000. Universities can now offer unlimited full-fee places. We demand that the government abolish this inequitable, user-pays system in favor of more accessible education.

Full fees are an important part of the income of Australian universities. To take it away without replacing it with adequate commonwealth funding is ridiculous. Besides, the government is already phasing these out and universities are already moving into a more defensive stance. Has anyone seen the size of lectures lately?

2. SCRAP VSU: Hundreds of vital student services have been destroyed or at risk because of anti-student organization legislation. Make sure that you have a voice, and that your campus is more than a degree factory – demand the Government scrap Voluntary Student Unionism.

While I'm not a big fan of VSU, I don't think that the anti-VSU campaign has been built well. The average student isn't seeing their troubles tying into VSU - they probably don't use any of these services anyway. Student services are designed to help the disadvantaged which makes them, more or less by definition, 'unpopular'. (By this I mean they appeal to a small 'market' of students)

3. DECREASE HECS: Australian students now pay the second highest fees in the OECD after the 2007 25% increase. Students graduate with crippling levels of debt, up by 1100% since the 1990s. We demand that the government reduce HECS to more equitable levels.

Good luck.

4. END STUDENT POVERTY: 1 in 8 students miss a meal regularly because of lack of money. 1 in 2 students report that their studies are adversely affected by financial stress, and over a third of students work more than twenty hours a week. We demand that the government make Youth Allowance, AusStudy and Abstudy fair and accessible.

This is a good point. Unfortunately, NUS leaves the best till last where it can be ignored easily. It is also unlikely to be successful, given that the government isn't exactly showering education and youth with money right now. Still, I suppose it is good to raise the point.

The shopping list protest model of student activism continues to disappoint. The only issue here that really deserves a protest might be student poverty, but the rest deserve more careful and considered lobby work. Perhaps it is because by the time a student ends up in a position of power in NUS they're so old and disconnected from the average student that they really have no idea who it is they're supposed to be representing.

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USyd News

So, semester 2 has started and I'm behind on my reading already. Apart from my course-related reading, I've failed to notice not one, but two editions of Honi Soit being launched. 814 has a few very amusing articles and I'm yet to get to 815... So USyd has a new VC, which 814 satirises as being obsessed with Oxford. I know the feeling, everyone is obsessed with Oxford, it's a prerequisite for heading up an Australian college or university. US Ivy League obsessions are merely supplementary compared to the Oxford obsession.

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Yale Defamation Case

Yale Daily News reports:

"With the help of a subpoena issued six months ago, attorneys for two Yale Law School students have succeeded in unmasking several anonymous users of the Web forum AutoAdmit whom the women are suing for defamation."

For some background on the AutoAdmit case see Feministe. The gist of it is that a bunch of law students decided to post pictures of and make degrading comments about female students. They got sued. From YDN:

"One of those authors was “AK-47,” who, in 2007, posted that women with one of the Yale Law students’ names “should be raped” and said they were “gay lovers.”"

I think that if someone were publishing comments like that about me I'd be pretty displeased to say the least. It's a good thing for their student paper to be covering this story.

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