What SRC party are you a part of and what position in the SRC are you running for?
I’m running with Left Action Free Palestine. I’m running for the position of education officer.
Can you explain your party’s stance towards the SRC and any goals that you have?
Well, as Left Action, we think that the SRC should be used as an activist body. What that means is we actually want to fight against university management when they do things that aren’t in the interests of students. For example, you just look at the cost of degrees, the cost of renting on campus, and so on. There are all of these issues that students actually have to take up.
Our perspective is that these universities are run as businesses, if we actually want to win things, we have to pressure them and fight against them, campaign against them, rather than just trying to work with them.
The point of Left Action is that we want the SRC to be an activist body, a fighting body, that takes part in every campaign around every left wing social justice issue that comes up on campus or off campus, and to try to make the university a better place.
This year we’ve seen a bunch of activist SRC campaigning around the country and around the world. We’ve seen massive student general meetings for Palestine that have happened all across Australia. We’ve seen The Gaza Solidarity encampment that was led by the SRC at USyd, as well as various other ones around the country.
And then we’ve seen student unionism revive, in the United States, as well around the issue of Palestine. That’s what we want. That’s the vision we want for SRC, is of fighting activists, and left-wing bodies.
Why are you running for Education Officer?
The Education Officer position is an important one for SRC. All across the country, this is a position that can be used to run left wing activist campaigns that actually fight for students rights on campus, fight for better education, and at UNSW that’s what we need to see more of. I’m running, hopefully to get an activist into that position and use it to build the campaigns on campus.
What are you hoping to sort of achieve in this role?
There’s a lot we can do. For the last two years Cherish Kuehlmann has had the education officer position and been able to use it to launch a bunch of left-wing campaigns. These include fighting around housing, cost of living, and then over the past 12 months, fighting around Palestine and the weapons ties that our university has.
So I want to keep up those fights. There’s a lot more to be won. Obviously we haven’t had any sort of real cost of living relief from either the university or, government and so on. And all of those weapons ties are still there.
Are there any changes that you want to see on campus?
Affordable housing is a key one. Housing is so incredibly expensive at UNSW. From just doing quick research online, the average in the area for student housing, is something like $990 a fortnight for a student. It’s completely unaffordable for anyone studying. These are the sort of things the university should subsidise. There’s nothing to say that instead of running student housing for profit, our university couldn’t just turn around and say, ‘well we’re going to subsidise it with student fees, we have all of this money that is coming from students paying for their degrees’, and make them cheaper. We’re demanding $100 rents per week, which is a very possible thing to be done.
And things like cheaper meals on campus. It’s basically impossible to get a meal under $10 on campus. So changes that actually would matter a lot to the students, change the sort of cost of being a student, but then also bigger picture stuff, like fighting for free education for international students who are heavily exploited here at UNSW.
Why are you going for an actively protesting approach as opposed to working together with the university?
Well, the reality is, both the government and university management have done nothing for students over the past. And university management, like I said, is just constantly being run like a business. You think of the changes to courses and education that have happened at UNSW over the past few years. It’s things like trimesters, which was about pushing students through the education system faster, and saving money. There was a bunch of course cuts in 2022. There are course cuts happening all the time. This place is run as a business, so I think if the organisation of the university is run as a business, it therefore has counterposed interest to students. The interest of this business is to make money. The interest of students is to get a decent education. That means you have to actually stand up and fight against them, campaign against them, and so on.
How would you go about engaging with students to then reflect what they want in your role as education officer?
There’s heaps you can do. Part of the way we run campaigns has been trying to mobilise lots of people with protests and so on, but then just getting out there and talking to people. Actually doing stalls, not just online surveys where you don’t talk to students, but getting out there and actually seeing what issues matter to people. Trying to connect with them.
It’s been working pretty well so far. A lot of the things we’ve been raising, like I mentioned, the hundred dollar rent caps, cheaper food on campus, more affordable transport, it all really hits home with people and it’s a great way to start. But obviously with the position I want to keep up that approach of trying to talk to as many students, get a feel for what’s actually affecting them and how to fight it.
And then how do you sort of go about working with other people who might not have the same view as you all?
There’s people who have completely counterposed views who just support the profit run at university. Obviously we don’t have that much of an interest trying to hold hands with them and figure out a way to move forward if they have completely counterposed interest to students.
But we want to involve as many people in campaigns as possible.
It’s really good when other forces on the SRC do actually join our campaigns. And so a lot of this year we have been making arguments to them.
Obviously we don’t see eye to eye on lots of things. Some of these students are the Labor party and so on, but there are a series of concrete things that are affecting students that we should work together on.
A lot of students don’t really know about the SRC or are invested in it. Would you agree with that? And why do you think that is?
I think most people don’t know that the SRC actually exists because a lot of the positions are run in a very bureaucratic way. Many perspectives of people on the union is to just get into a room with upper management and try to convince them that students are feeling a particular way, and therefore upper management should change things about the university. They routinely get ignored by upper management of the university. There’s a lot more you could do to build the presence of the SRC. I think actively engaging in public campaigns around left wing issues is the key way.
That change will happen.
In terms of the SRC being known as a force on campus, I think over the past two years it has become more known than it has been earlier, and a big part of that I think started in 2023 when we started running housing campaigns through the education office and spreading the word that there is a student SRC that is fighting for students on campus.
Do you have any other experience in the SRC?
Technically at the last SRC meeting I was elected as a counsellor to fill a vacant position. I’ve been to SRC meetings before and now technically am a counsellor.