Comments Off on Rush for ANUSA completes the trifecta of Gay iconography in this years StuPol election
14 years after their divorce from ANUSA, the Woroni Board of Editors have realised that life really has never been the same since the split. Being forced to report on SRCs and routinely talk to StuPol hacks without having any actual power has finally gotten to them.
Presenting: Rush for ANUSA 2024. *insert Charli XCX and Chappell Roan joke here*
Charlie Crawford (Editor-in-Chief), well known ANUSA wonk*, is convening the ticket and running for ANUSA President. Crawford is running on a platform of putting Red Bull in the Marie Reay water fountains and permanently muting those people in course group chats who ask questions you can find on the Wattle page.
Sarah Greaves (Deputy Editor-in-Chief) is the ticket’s pick for Vice-President. When asked what drew her to the role, Greaves expressed a desire to change the BKSS “I’m sick of all this off-brand bullshit, I want real Nutri Grain”. Greaves also cited the role as VP as a good opportunity to grow her LinkedIn network.
Raida Chowdhury (News Editor) is running for NUS Delegate, on a groundbreaking platform of vowing to abolish the NUS once and for all. She cites her experience live tweeting NatCon 2023 and being pestered by political party hacks as “one of the worst weeks of [her] life”. Her approach to bringing down the almost 40 year old national association remains nonetheless unclear.
Arabella Ritchie (TV Editor) is the ticket’s candidate for Treasurer. Her policy involves abolishing ANU Observer, and buying an ANUSA Boat to match the Ute. When asked about their platform, which is sure to be controversial, Ritchie said “ANUSA boat parties would slap”.
Jasmin Small (Art Editor) is Rush’s Clubs Officer candidate. She promises to allocate the entire ANUSA budget to Clubs. When asked whether the rest of her ticket is onboard with such a sweeping change, Small declined to comment.
Claudia Hunt (Content Editor) is controversially running for both Education and Welfare Officer. When asked what prompted the bold decision, Hunt responded “do people even really know the difference anyway?”.
Bella Wang (Communications Editor) is the natural pick for General Secretary – in their media release the ticket claims that the whole role of the General Secretary is to communicate things. Wang vows to abolish all general meetings, following the trend of shortening meeting times because people are snowflakes and too busy.
Cate Armstrong (Radio Editor) is running for Undergraduate Member of ANU Council (UMAC), bucking the trend of presidential candidates being the typical pick for the role. If elected, she promises to livestream all ANU Council meetings on Woroni Radio. When asked what stood out to her about the role, Armstrong responded “I heard council members get a parking spot right near Kambri”.
Phoebe Denham (Managing Editor) has recused themselves from running as they fear it would be a conflict of interest. Famous ANUSA hack, Denham did not want to get involved this StuPol season, and declined a media comment. They promise to hold down the fort at Woroni and position the Association well for when the two organisations inevitably remarry.
It remains to be seen what this means for the future of Woroni SRC Tweeting, and for journalistic integrity on campus generally.
Voting opens at 9am on the 30th of September. Check your university email for more details.
*wonk: a person who takes an enthusiastic or excessive interest in the specialised details of a particular subject or field, especially political policy.
#satire
What is it about the current tertiary education system that makes it so unfit for purpose? Maybe I just picked the wrong degree, but if what I’ve described is the recipe for success, our definition of success is surely very, very wrong.
The Australian writer Judith Brett considers this very question in her book Doing Politics: Writing in Public Life. She writes that over the past few decades, during her time as both a student and a professor, she has watched the tertiary education system change for the worse. She writes that what was once a temple of imagination, creativity and ideas has become nothing more than a hollowed-out shopping mall, littered with bad cafés, flashy signs and price-gouging bookshops.
Reflecting on her own time as an undergraduate, she writes that today, “students are offered far less than we were, and they have to pay much more for it.” She laments a system which used to encourage the creation of ideas, rather than their codification into checklists and commercialisation into products. She summarises that today’s universities reward work that is “cautious and uninteresting, producing no new ideas.” She writes that students and academics alike are made to focus on what their superiors want and will be likely to reward rather than what is actually valuable.
The regrettable truth of tertiary education in Australia is that it is just another public good that has been corporatised by neoliberalism, an ideology that measures success according to concepts that have no meaning in a university setting. Words like ‘productivity’ and ‘efficiency’ and that old dreadful poisonous phrase ‘economic rationalism’ have corrupted how we value thought and have reduced our universities to nothing more than another JB HiFi, Target or Big W. The success and standing of a university are no longer measured by the value of the education it provides or the ideas it creates but by the money it makes, the useless theories it sells and how many students trade their souls for clerkships in a race to the bottom. No matter how useless the course, how great the disillusionment or how hopeless the search for employment becomes, the university will get its due. The debt many of us carry around our necks for decades will see to that. It is our souvenir of a road to nowhere.
So the question has to be asked, how do we change this? The answer must be to remove money from the question of tertiary education in its entirety. Only the creation of a universal and costless tertiary education system where money is not the primary motivator can foster the imaginative, creative and original thinking which the world requires. One of the many mistakes of neoliberalism is its defining assumption that everything can be monetised. By its very nature, thought is incapable of being accorded a monetary value. How can you measure essays in dollars? How can you rank ideas according to their financial value? It is simply ridiculous. Yet this is exactly what modern tertiary education does. The fees you pay represent your financial value to the university. Not the value of your ideas, your imagination or your intelligence, but the value of your simple attendance. There is no longer any incentive to engage or even to educate students, just a base motivation to attract them with flashy marketing and then keep them in the store for as long as possible as the fees roll on and on and on.
If cost-cutting, profit-making and corporatisation were no longer the foundations of tertiary education, checklists would be abandoned and soulless courses would be dropped. Universities would be free to reward careful, considerate and quality research which actually added something to the public debate. This would not only enrich the quality of tertiary education but also broaden its base, reducing the gap between rich and poor, young and old by offering students a more equal access to quality education. When universities become something more than callous superstores, they will no longer sell a simple product, but will be free to engage, to inspire and to truly educate.
Surely I can’t be the only one who feels like this. I can’t be the only one who has found tertiary education nothing more than the brutal education of an idealist. I can’t be the only one who feels like it’s all one giant waste of time and money. I know a return to free tertiary education is ambitious. I know it sounds impossible. I know that creative solutions are not easy. But we live in times that demand creativity. The day will come when our generation is called alone to solve the seemingly unsolvable problems of our time, passed down by mediocre and gutless politicians for decades. We will overcome the climate crisis. We will create a society free of crippling socio-economic inequality. We will arrest the slide into populism, oligarchy and autocracy. When that time comes, the world will need imagination more than ever. It will need leaders who are unafraid of the bold, the original and the unthinkable. It will be us who turn the impossible into the possible and broaden the horizons of humanity once more.
But we will not get there with a tertiary education system which rewards unearned characteristics, punishes creativity and turns the possible into the impossible. We will not one day be fit to lead if we allow our imaginations to be limited by a grading system which resembles nothing more than a glorified checklist. The only way to prepare our generation and future generations for the world to come is to create a system which inspires, which fosters imagination and most importantly, looks like the world which we want to build.
With Disraeli’s quote in mind I ask you all, students of ANU, do you feel full of light? Do you feel free? Are you really learning? Does your university look like the world you want to build?
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
Read Part I here.
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Comments Off on In Defence of Protest Politics: the Strategy of Climate Action for ANUSA + NUS
Editor’s Note: This articles expresses the views of the authors and not of Woroni as an organisation.
Woroni’s article (of September 16) analysing some of the policies of Climate Action for ANUSA + NUS consistently returns to a theme in their criticisms of the lack of “achievability” or that we, Climate Action for ANUSA + NUS have not spelt out the exact “mechanisms” by which we intend to achieve our demands. In the final paragraph, the article argues that protests would be detrimental to our cause as we would spread fatigue and drain morale. These arguments amount to a dismissal of the politics of protest. This article is a response to Woroni and a defence of the activist strategy of Climate Action for ANUSA + NUS.
Student power
The ANU Students’ Association has no power or authority over any of the day-to-day functioning of the university. That privilege belongs to the University, the network of department bosses and managers grouped around the millionaire Vice Chancellor, Brain Schmidt. These university bosses have overseen and directly profited off the absolute gutting of our quality of education through mergers, course cuts, staff casualisation or just outright mass sackings. They’ve profited off inviting private companies onto campus to sell overpriced food to students or take over the running of the on-campus health clinic.
But the Vice Chancellor and the rest of university management do not just oversee the ANU, they are tied by a thousand threads to all other sections of the Australian Government and industry. The university managers are always attentive to the needs of Australian business profitability, which can often be the driving force of their attacks on students, as courses that don’t get adequate research grants or generate “job-ready graduates” are cut in favour of courses that streamline the kind of skills that Australian capitalists are looking for.
Clearly, in the face of the overwhelming attraction of material interests, neither the most pleading nor the most rational student arguments stand a chance of convincing them in the other direction.
So if students have no authority to govern the university, and very little capacity to lobby those who do have the power to act against their own interests, what do we have left? All we’ve ever had is the social power of protests to force the university to act.
Student campaigns that have succeeded in winning their demands were the campaigns that mobilised students in protest, not the ones which most clearly spelt out the mechanism by which the university would meet its demands. They involved rallies, speeches, marches, teach-ins, occupations and a multiplicity of other protest tactics. These were about drawing in wider and wider layers of students actively into the process of politics and using that mass to disrupt the normal functioning of the university. By these tactics, students could create a crisis for the university and force them to resolve it by meeting the demands. This is what was able to defeat increases in student fees on multiple occasions, it’s what won the establishment of the first women’s studies course at ANU and it’s how students contributed to the campaigns against the Vietnam War, South African Apartheid and Indigenous oppression. This approach is what it would take to win things like the removal of Julie Bishop as ANU Chancellor, full divestment from fossil fuels, or the changing of the name of the Menzies library.
In all of these campaigns, the starting point was a broad-based sense of anger at injustice, not the perfection of a highly rational plan for the implementation of the demands.
The obsessive focus that student politics now has on more “achievable” (read conservative) aims of masterfully negotiating with uni management or simply treating ANUSA like a business to service students is a reflection of the decline of left-wing activism on the campuses. As long as ANUSA carries on down this path of service provision and collaborationism, it will only entrench that decline of left-wing activism.
The Transformative Effect of Protest
The final paragraph of Woroni’s article is potentially the most damning rejection of putting any resources into building protests at all. If it is true that students do not want to attend protests and those who do invariably become demoralised and fatigued, then there is essentially no hope for campaigns to be built like the ones we outlined.
Thankfully, this is not the case. Mass demonstrations are often inspiring for people facing issues as enormous as the climate crisis, oppression or even just the neoliberal university. The spirit of collective defiance and solidarity that rallying creates can transform the people involved. Undoubtedly, almost everyone involved can think back to the massive marches for marriage equality towards the end of the campaign, or the enormous climate strikes in 2019 to remember the electrifying and empowering effect of protest.
Even just this year, thousands were moved into anger and protest at the potential passing of the Religious discrimination bill and later the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the US. Many young women and LGBTQI+ youth were empowered and confident to lead the march, lead the chanting and make defiant speeches in ways they had never done before. These marches, in concert with similar demonstrations around the country, pushed back on the confidence of the homophobic and misogynistic far-right to wind back the rights of the oppressed. We are not just talking about a subsection of students on campus, but the powerful politicians, bosses and lobbying bodies that are seeking to dismantle the gains made by the Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation movements. Not to mention those in positions of power who already defend their right to be bigots, like the Calvary hospital bosses, who receive public funding but refuse to offer abortions because of their bigoted beliefs. To separate these issues from “student life” is arbitrary; students are affected by these attacks and ought to be part of campaigns against them.
It is true that rallies are not always as big as the ones we’ve mentioned. Often campaigns that went on to win against seemingly insurmountable forces, such as the anti-Vietnam War protests, began with a very small but determined minority of activists. What mattered was their political orientation. It was the people in these campaigns who always waged a concerted political argument with students about the importance of protest politics who could inspire and lead broader layers over time to build up to the enormous moratorium marches. They didn’t squander their energies in the cul de sac of “lobbying” and co-optation or the impotence of lowered horizons. Radicals were able to win positions in student unions and turn the resources towards mobilising student power against attacks from the university or broader social injustices. There they could build up confidence and defiance amongst the student body to assert their rights in greater and greater numbers.
The current status quo
The alternative strategy that ANUSA has pursued for decades has had a much more corrosive effect on the morale of students and the oppressed. The incumbents in this election, running as Power in Community but representing a continuity of personnel with every incumbent ticket for at least a decade, have run the student union in a way that has placed activism secondary to lobbying and negotiation. ANU students have faced some of the largest attacks on their education through a procession of course cuts, staff sackings and funding cuts, but they have been left to face this alone without a clear lead given by their student union. Even in the face of the CASS degree cuts this year, it took months after the announcement before a protest was called at all, whilst priority was given to a series of consultation processes.
The other major ticket, Action! for ANUSA, offers no alternative, touting their “experienced negotiators” and making no case in their policies for ANUSA to undertake any activism whatsoever.
The field for this election is crowded with student bureaucrats who represent the same conservative strategy for ANUSA as it has followed for many years. The status quo represented by these other tickets, much like Woroni’s article, has consistently encouraged students to lower their expectations, to trust the processes of lobbying at work behind closed doors, to not expect a radical alternative and certainly not fight for one. Climate Action for ANUSA + NUS is the only ticket with a strategy to revive radical activism and win ambitious demands for students, workers and the oppressed.
Nick Reich and Wren Somerville are representatives of Climate Action for ANUSA + NUS.
The ANUSA Probity Team recently released their report on the 2022 student election. It summarises any contentious issues in the election, such as Grassroots’ announcement of their ticket in violation of ANUSA election rules and the controversy around Divorced Dads for ANUSA. However, the probity report also details each ticket’s finances, and it reveals a clear correlation between ticket success and the amount of money they spent.
In summary, Grassroots ANUSA spent significantly more than any other ticket, with their actual expenditure being $1,048, followed distantly by Blake Iafeta who spent $330. Grassroots ANUSA went on to win nearly all positions for which they put up candidates, and they now quite firmly control ANUSA’s executive, along with a substantial number of General Representatives. Blake Iafeta failed in his bid for the presidency, but ultimately won a General Representative slot.
Though other tickets spent money on their campaigns, it was substantially less than Grassroots, yet closer to Iafeta, as the graph above shows.
This is not to say that more money spent on campaigns must cause a better electoral result; it could be that tickets which are more committed contribute more money, but such commitment is evident to, and supported by, the student population.
However, ticket expenditure likely plays some role in eventual success, especially when tickets dedicate most of their money towards Facebook advertisements. The graph below shows that tickets that allocated the most towards advertising performed significantly better in the election.
This is not new in student elections, and using Facebook ads has been a common tactic for several years. Nonetheless, it could suggest that finance is playing a large role in ANUSA elections, as opposed to policy debate.
Additionally, a majority of these funds come from the candidates themselves. The highest contributors were Christian Flynn – the 2022 President – and Blake Iafeta, who budgeted $335 and $330 respectively. Each of Grassroots ANUSA’s candidates for executive positions injected $65, and Chido Nyakuengama, the 2022 Vice President, contributed $200. In fact, the only ticket not to use candidate funds was Get Going for ANUSA, which relied entirely on funding from the ANU Liberal Club. This raises concerns around the accessibility of ANUSA elections: are wealthier students who are able to put more money in the ones more likely to win? Some students have echoed this concern: the General Secretary for 2022, Ben Yates, reported worries amongst polled students about how “advertising created equity issues…” in the election.
Yates’ report also revealed how a major complaint from students during the election was the “…sheer quantity of campaign material.” While the election is open to all, some students are not interested and where once they could avoid campaigners on Kambri or candidate debates, sponsored ads on Facebook are far more pernicious, and for some, far more frustrating.
The ANUSA Probity Team recently released their report on the 2022 student election. The report also details each ticket’s finances, and it reveals a clear correlation between ticket success and the amount of money they spent.
Comments Off on How the ANU Spent $603,093 of Your SSAF Money This Year
If you’ve ever gone to a club’s event to snack on some pizza, snagged a goody bag (or two) during O-Week, or used any services by ANUSA and PARSA, chances are you’ve already paid for it. Every year, full-time and part-time students pay around $300 and $150 as a Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF). Pooled together, this fee amounts to roughly 5.5 million dollars that ANUSA, PARSA, ANU Sport, Woroni, ANU Observer, and the University then spend on student services.
University regulations require each student organisation to report how they spend this money. But three recipients, all university organisations, do not have such reporting requirements. The only public information on how the ANU spends over 10% of the SSAF pool are fourteen dot points on the SSAF webpage. Following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, we now know where the money goes.
The Finances
The three university organisations that receive SSAF income are: Student Engagement and Success, Student Learning and Development, and Research Skills and Training. I derived the figures below from each organisations’ 2020 SSAF bid estimates, mid-year financial updates, and their published allocations. They do not reflect exact spending, as the 2020 finances are only finalised at the start of next year, but they show how the university has allocated SSAF money to these organisations.
Three-fourths of the University’s SSAF funding goes to Student Engagement and Success (SES), totalling $440,225. SES spends around 70% ($305,325) of its SSAF on salaries for ANU staff, with two-thirds of this going to casual student positions, and 30% ($134,675) on program costs. These program costs include SET4ANU ($41,973), Griffin Hall ($28,000), Learning Communities $22,000), Student Research Conference ($15,000), ANU+ ($12,000), ANU Wellbeing Projects ($10,000), and the First Year Experience project ($5,927).
While the FOI documents do not show how SES distributed salaries this year, its 2020 SSAF bid notes an estimated breakdown in salary costs for 2019. Staff allocations include a professional full-time Student Wellbeing Co-ordinator ($122,000) and student casuals for learning communities ($58,000), the Student Research Conference ($42,000), orientation and transition ($17,500), Set4ANU mentoring ($45,000) and ANU+ ($27,498). Additionally, $8,000 was allocated to a Wilson Security bus driver for O-Week airport pick up. The 2019 salary estimates total $322,000, resulting in a $16,675 discrepancy to the 2020 SSAF allocation. In response to an email enquiry, the University did not confirm why there is a discrepancy but noted that there are differences between estimated and actual costs.**
Student Learning and Development (SLD) receives over two-thirds of the remaining amount, totalling at $112,868. SLD uses SSAF money to fund the Writing Centre ($81,868), English Conversation Groups ($15,500), ANU Undergraduate Research Journal ($8,500), and International in Focus ($7000). SLD spends 90% of their funding on student salaries, with the Writing Centre hiring six postgraduate students and the English Conversation Groups hiring three undergraduates. The ANU Undergraduate Research Journal costs pay for an Assistant Editor ($5,200) and cover other copyediting costs. The International in Focus program highlights international career opportunities for students, with SSAF funding covering conference costs.
Research Skills and Training (RST) receives $50,000 for the Thesis Bootcamp Program. In their 2020 SSAF Bid, RST notes the success of the program in helping doctoral students, especially in targeting vulnerable students at substantial risk of dropping out. RST ran this program with PARSA until 2019, when the association cut funding to the bootcamp programs. Due to COVID-19, RST delayed the camps until November and December, but estimates they will spend all $50,000. RST spends 88% of the camp’s costs, totalling $44,000, on catering and other minor items, with ANU Staff volunteering time and taking no salary. RST spends the remaining $6000 on running online journal and thesis writing bootcamps.
The Implications
We should not have to FOI the university to know how it spends our SSAF money. Yet, it is unsurprising that we must. ANU centrally manages the entire SSAF allocation process, with negotiation, bidding and distribution occurring in closed meetings between the University and the bidders. The University’s decision this year to do away with the SSAF bidding and allocate SSAF funding on its own projections is disappointing but not surprising given the overall lack of transparency.
Does the ANU have something to hide? Not really. Prior to 2020, SSAF bidders could scrutinise each other’s bids. The FOI documents do not show any fraud or mismanagement by university bodies. Some of the proposals even address student needs that other organisations have not prioritised. In comparison to most other universities, an 89% SSAF allocation to student-run organisations is exceptional. Yet, a potential reason for the University’s wariness is that transparency brings unwanted scrutiny.
A trip through the Woroni archives will unearth a decade of articles and debates on SSAF expenditure. Every ANUSA election, candidates clash over four-digit SSAF spending. Students regularly scrutinise student organisation budgets, whether through unfair calls to defund them to serious questions over corporate sponsorship. The financial transparency that these organisations provide even allow for in-depth critiques of their financial positions. While a few organisations receive more scrutiny than others, there is at least some scrutiny by students. That is not the case with the University’s spending.
In 2019 ANU Council minutes, the ANU maintains that its current method of consultation is adequate. If a student is not happy with SSAF allocations, they can email dissatisfaction to the relevant university executive. Yet, in a document publishing student feedback to SSAF allocations, the University barely engages with much feedback, with most comments ‘noting’ a response. In contrast, student organisations respond with detailed and empathetic comments. Notably, published responses for 2019 and 2020 are missing. Similarly, in an email inquiry, the ANU confirmed the survey helps guide priorities for SSAF expenditure. But they did not respond to ANUSA’s claims that the survey was irrelevant as SSAF expenditure for 2021 was already pre-set.
The Higher Education Support Act 2003 stipulates guidelines on how the University must formally consult student organisations on SSAF expenditure. In response to ANUSA’s claim of being ‘kicked out of the room’, the ANU stated it underwent several stages of informal and formal consultation with all SSAF stakeholders. The 2020 ANUSA President, Lachlan Day, noted that the ANU changed this year’s SSAF process to address delays in transferring funds and to acknowledge the difficulties of COVID-19. He maintains ANUSA’s position that bidding must take place since that, while the ANU sought feedback, it did not partake in ‘genuine’ consultation.
For 2021, ANU Council is deciding on a new SSAF process to distribute funds. This agenda item, however, was marked confidential. In comparison, the Council publicised the 2019 SSAF process. The 2020 Undergraduate Representative on ANU Council, Lachlan Day, confirmed that Council discussed a new SSAF process for 2021 but does not know why it was marked confidential. He notes that the ANU notified all SSAF receiving organisations and they gave feedback for this proposed process.
Advice from the Department of Education indicates that the SSAF allocation must be ‘transparent in process; visible; and consultative.’ Yet, this year we have seen no bidding, a pre-set allocation, and accusations of improper process by our student association. Even prior to 2020, the University showed signs of greater opaqueness over the SSAF process. The secrecy surrounding the new 2021 process and the lack of public information only further strains trust in what should be a fair process. In response to COVID-19, The ANU has shown it can be open and transparent with its finances. This should extend to the SSAF allocation.
The University needs to open its books to the same standard that it asks student organisations to. The SSAF ‘consultation’ cannot be pre-determined and should go beyond a student survey, publishing the proposed bids and inviting public submissions from the student body. Students deserve the right to question university organisations over SSAF expenditure and receive a fair and considered response. Without full transparency and democratic oversight over our student contributions, the University’s SSAF budgets risk inflating to levels found at other universities. It is up to us to make sure that does not happen at the ANU.
* I derived the number of casual student employees from the 2020 SSAF bid and the 2019 estimated salary expenditure. The University did not specify if this was correct in response to my email enquiry.
^ I used 2019 salary proportions as, while not exact, they are unlikely to massively differ to 2020 salary proportions. The University did not specify the 2020 salary proportions in my email enquiry.
**Editor’s note (24/12/2020): An earlier version of this article listed incorrect salary figures of ANU staff. This article has since been amended to correct this. We apologise for this error.
Kai Clark contested the position of Undergraduate Member on ANU Council (UMAC) in 2020.
Comments Off on So, You Ran in ANUSA Elections. Now What?
Elections are finally over, and I think we can all give a collective sigh of relief. If you ran and weren’t one of the 38(ish) candidates who got elected, you’re probably disappointed with the result. You may have put a lot of work into developing detailed policy that no one read, or spent hours campaigning and joking that you’re now a “stupol hack” instead of studying. If you weren’t jaded and disillusioned with ANUSA already, chances are you will be when elections roll around next year and you see the same policy proposals paraded. Between bitterness and burnout, it’s no surprise that few student representatives run for re-election.
The good news is that there are many different ways to make meaningful impacts on student life without winning elections. Instead of plotting to take over Clubs Council, here are a few ideas to get active on campus.
Residential Committees
The recent Interhall Committee campaign Who Pays the Price? has demonstrated how different residential communities can coordinate to force student issues into the public consciousness. If you live in a hall of residence at ANU, you have the opportunity to get involved in your residential committees and organise activities and campaigns. There is a tendency for many candidates to run for “first year” positions and few for senior roles.
As with any of the ideas on this list, you shouldn’t run just to enhance your CV, get an honorarium or prepare for next year’s student elections. If you have the skills and passion necessary to contribute to residential life, go ahead. If not, there are plenty of other opportunities.
ANU Committees
What do meetings of ANU Council, the Academic Board and a bunch of University committees have in common? Students can attend as observers. Many of the big decisions of ANU are made in these obscure bodies and you have the ability to see how this happens. You should give notice if you plan on attending (check each board’s charter for who to email), but there’s nothing stopping you from keeping an eye on the inner workings of the university. Except confidentiality. And a lack of info on the ANU website. And that time ANU Council met in Darwin for some reason.
Lobbying Student Representatives
Unlike taciturn student observers, many student representatives actually sit on ANU boards with full privileges, from the Undergraduate Member on ANU Council to the Student Experience Committee. Further, College Representatives have a direct dialogue with the heads of academic colleges. While you may not hold these positions, there’s nothing stopping you from lobbying your representatives to, in turn, lobby those with their hands on the levers of university power. “Consultation” is a term often bandied about during elections, but you can ensure your reps actually make an impact. Arrange a meeting in person, prepare and present your issue, urge them to relay your concerns to the board/dean and follow up on action taken. It’s simple, and many reps will actually be keen to listen to someone who can give them something concrete to bring up at their next meeting.
ANUSA Working Groups, Departments & Collectives
As a member of ANUSA, you can attend SRC, College Representative and general meetings, where you can question officeholders and move motions. However, you can also get involved in working groups, where discussions from arts funding to gender equality influence the activities of the student union. As these are often poorly attended, you have many opportunities to contribute. Be warned: some working groups are more focused and effective than others. Try a few out to filter out the white elephants. You can also get involved with ANUSA’s autonomous departments and collectives, which often take the lead on organising campaign and advocacy action. If you’re from a marginalised community group, meetings are regular and open. Just check Facebook or Department Officers for more info!
Education Committee (EdCom)
EdCom is the education committee of ANUSA, tasked with advocating for education issues as well as mounting campaigns and protests on topics such as fee hikes. While it has gained a reputation for being dominated by factional interests, it has gradually become more open in recent years. Combine this with relatively low turnout to meetings and a considerable budget for campaign activities and there is significant potential for keen, experienced organisers to push ANUSA’s advocacy forward. It remains to be seen whether next year’s EdCom will be an effective force for change. Nonetheless, if you and a couple of friends have an issue you want to ANUSA to campaign on (possibly with funding), then checking in with EdCom and the Education Officer is advised.
Student Media
If you’re looking to ask difficult questions to the ANU or publish essays on the student experience, student media is for you. With actual online readerships and topics ranging from changes to university degrees to wider university policies (not to mention detailed election reporting), ANU Observer and Woroni play an integral part in keeping the student body informed about all goings-on on campus. While reporter places are limited, Woroni is always on the lookout for online and print content from students. If you want to write opinion pieces on the student experience at ANU that people actually read, this may be an avenue for you.
Truth be told, the ANU doesn’t make it easy for students to affect university policy. Most of the big decisions are made at the executive level with little to no student consultation. Barring a sudden promotion to the Chancellery, you may have to broaden your scope outside of ANUSA and ANU to have real influence by finding organisations the university wants (or at least is forced) to hear. For instance, the Young Workers Centre runs a variety of campaigns combatting wage theft that you can get involved in through volunteering on their website. You could also try emailing ANU executives directly, and if their response is unsatisfactory, reply or write a letter to the Canberra Times.
You can always run again next year, using your newfound insight into student elections. Chances are it’ll be easier, since you’ll know what you’re doing, have name recognition and have (hopefully) been keeping up to date with ANUSA and university news, rather than being thrown in the deep end. Maybe you don’t even need to focus on ANU; there are plenty of other institutions and problems out there needing to be fixed. All you can be sure about is that if you don’t do it, it won’t happen.
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Comments Off on The Hidden Campaign Costs of ANUSA Elections
If you’re anything like me, you’re addicted to your phone. While procrastinating on Instagram and Facebook, you likely saw a few, or a lot, of ads from ANUSA tickets, ranging from how-to-votes to specific policy positions. The COVID-19 social distancing rules killed almost all in-person campaigning usually seen during election week and the money that would usually be spent on campaign merchandise was now free to pump ads onto our feeds.
Facebook, after sustained pressure after the 2016 US Presidential election from campaigners, in 2019, spurred by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, launched the Facebook Ad Library. This database allows you to go to any Facebook or Instagram page and see what ads they have running at any given time. If they’re classified as ‘political’, Facebook also allows you to go back through the previous ads a page has run as well as the demographics that were targeted, the location of those people and how much was spent. When one has a database of Facebook ads, extra free time facilitated by online learning and a hunger to procrastinate as Week 6 looms, one just has to have a look.
An important distinction that needs to be made when it comes to ANUSA election ads is that not every ticket’s page is being considered ‘political’ by Facebook. I don’t know if this is due to them not self identifying or if Facebook just doesn’t count them as such. Either way, it means that the data we work with is in no way complete. We can still find some interesting facts with the data we have but for those non political ads or pages we’re unable to see anything more than the current ads being run. Many pages were also quick off the mark deleting their page and timing ads to expire when polls closed, though we can still see the ads if they were marked as political.
Once you take all the ads that I could find listed in the database, as well as the ones that I saw on my own newsfeed, there were at least 40 across all tickets for the whole week. Of these 40, 28 were from ‘Proud’, all of which being classified as political. ‘You’ coming second with 7, 2 of which were classified as political. ‘Brighter Together’ with 7, 5 being political, ‘Refocus’ with 5, ‘Spice Up!’ with 2, all political, and ‘Go the Distance’ and ‘A New Way Forward’ running 1.
This huge disparity between ‘Proud’ and the rest of the field is interesting. Based on estimates, they far outspent their rivals and received 14 of seats on the SRC, with one of the six executive positions, the second largest grouping behind ‘Brighter Together’. All other tickets, ‘Refocus,’ ‘Forward’ and ‘You’, only received 3 Gen-Reps and 3 College-Reps combined. Of course ‘Proud’’s success can be put down to many things but the amount spent and the sheer number of ads they ran must be taken into account.
Though ad numbers are interesting in what they reveal about how each of the tickets hopes to maximise their votes, what about the average number of impressions? Or the number of times the ad appeared on someone’s timeline? Or how much was spent on each ad? Sadly, as not every ticket or ad was classified as ‘political’, we only have good data for ‘Proud’ and incomplete data for ‘Brighter Together’ and ‘You’. Over their 28 ads, on average ‘Proud’ received around 5,300 impressions, though this was swayed by a select number of ads that received substantially more than the rest. Overall they had around 120 thousand impressions (!), around 70-90% of the total ANUSA campaign ad impressions for the week. Given the ANU undergraduate population is around 10-12 thousand I wouldn’t be surprised if almost every individual on campus saw at least one of their ads over the week. When these two metrics are considered together it’s clear to see that ‘Proud’’s ads were seen more than any other campaign. ‘Brighter Together’, from their 4 ‘political’ ads, received 1,150 average impressions, ‘You’, from their two political ads, received between 1,500-2,500 impressions and ‘Spice Up’ received around 500 impressions per ad. No other ticket had ads classified as political so we cannot compare them but it is clear that ‘Proud’ is far ahead compared to these numbers.
We can go even deeper in the specifically political ads with a geographical location. Unsurprisingly, all of the ads were shown predominantly in the ACT, though ‘Proud’ had around 8-15% of their impressions being shown in NSW. On a stranger note, it appears that ‘Proud’ accidentally first ran their how-to-vote ad to the whole of Australia, with 60% of impressions ultimately being in the ACT, 17% in NSW, 9% in SA, 9% in VIC, 5% WA, 2% in QLD and <1% in TAS. ‘Brighter Together’ also had a similar issue with their how-to-vote ad being shown all over Australia but with 21% of impressions being in QLD, 19% in NSW, 18% in VIC, 15% in NT, only 9% in ACT, 8% WA, 4% SA, and 2% being in TAS. From this, over 70% of impressions were to men. This ad was also shown to all age groups, so ultimately 20% of the impression from this ad were men over the age of 65. From what I can see only ‘Proud’ fixed this problem, limiting their how-to-vote ad only to the ACT and NSW.
The last demographic breakdown that can be made from the library is the gender and age breakdown. This is where things really “Spice Up” (excuse the pun). ‘Brighter Together’ only campaigned on issues of campus safety to women, also overwhelmingly campaigning on issues of sustainability to them, with 64% of the impressions being women. This is mirrored in ‘Proud!’’s advertising. They ran a SASH ad in English only to women, while their ad in Hindi had a gendered impression split of exactly 50/50. This is also the case with smoking areas and pill testing being strongly targeted to women in the beginning of the week. After the 25th, this changed and by the end of the week they were closer to equal. Obviously this raises questions about why this was the case. Was ‘Proud’ deliberately targeting them this way and changing it later in the week or is it Facebook’s algorithm that created this bias? Another factor worth noting about ‘Proud’ is that their policy focused ads, in the beginning of the week, appeared to be pushed to men more, while their more ‘joke’ and ‘fun’ ads were pushed more to women. As the week progressed, in the policy space, this became more equal but ultimately their ‘joke’ ads were still being pushed to women by the close of polls, some as high as 60%. In contrast, ‘Proud”’s Mandarin and Hindi ads were much more equal across the board, if with a slight favourability to men in some cases.
Finally, the big question. Which campaign spent the most? As the data isn’t complete, this question isn’t simple. Based on what we have, ‘Proud’ is far ahead, with estimates, after taking into account funding caps, having spent roughly $15-30 per ad for their whole run, but for their campaign video, the one with the backing audio ‘Feel The Way I Do’ by the Jungle Giants they spent a huge $200-299 on the one ad. This ad was by far the most seen in the campaign with over 25 thousand impressions, 90% being to people in the ACT between the ages of 18-25. From this it can be expected that they spent roughly $400-800 on Facebook ads, and their funding cap was around $900.
This move to online campaigning has been slowly happening over time as in-person campaigning areas and regulations become more and more restrictive and people realise the possibilities of online campaigning. COVID-19 has simply sped up this process. Facebook Ad library can give us important insights where election regulations need to catch up, as well as seeing who the candidates and tickets are campaigning to, even if incomplete this year, implying how they value individuals and where they think possible votes are in our community.
If you’d like to give the Facebook Ad library a try, you can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/
Just type in the name of the Facebook or Instagram page and select either ‘all ads’ or ‘issues, elections or politics’ tab.
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Person A has invited you to like their ANUSA campaign page.
Person B has changed their profile picture on Facebook to announce them running as a General Representative under Person A’s ticket.
Person C is running as an independent and is sending out personalised policy recaps over Messenger.
Person D is Person C’s best friend and is messaging you to advocate for Person C, both on Messenger and Instagram. They’re dedicated.
Person E is you, thrust into the world of ANUSA elections, wondering what the hell a ticket is and why everyone’s profile pictures now all have the same filter. How do you even animate a profile picture?
This is my third year experiencing the circus of electing the upcoming year’s ANUSA representatives and I’m ready to delve into some of the lessons that I’ve learnt:
If you don’t feel equipped to vote, then don’t feel pressured into it. If you’re not invested in ANUSA, then that’s okay. If you don’t even know what an ANUSA representative is, then that’s fine. I was in my second year until I registered that the people stopping me in Kambri were ANUSA candidates and not pluggers trying to sign me up to Cancer Council donations.
2. When you vote for a person, you don’t have to vote for their entire ticket. Each ANUSA representative is voted independent from their ticket. Think of a ticket as a good way to get publicity for yourself and your policy, but not like a political party.
3. You don’t have to vote for every vacancy on ANUSA. You can pick and choose which positions you want to vote a candidate into. If you just want to vote for the President position, then you can do that. You want to just vote in a General Representative because they’re your friend? You do that.
4. On that note, when you vote for a specific position, you don’t have to number your preferences for every candidate. Say there are four candidates for President, but you only want to vote for one person. You can number that person as your first preference and cast your ballot without numerating the remaining three.
5. Don’t feel the need to like every campaign page that your Facebook friends invite you to. You’re allowed to keep your feed restricted to Proud Plants Canberra and Hummus Meme pages. (Have I revealed too much about my personal interests?)
6. Voting is open for only a couple of days. This year it is open between 9am, 25th August to 12pm, the 28th of August. You can head to voteanusa.com during this time frame to cast your votes.
7. ANUSA candidates who are serious, genuinely put passion and time into their policies. If you really want to educate yourself on the best person to vote for, take the time to read individual candidate’s policies to assess whether you want them to represent you.
8. If you currently don’t have the brain capacity to read policies, you can also vote for the people with the prettiest Facebook profile picture filters and Instagram pages. Good marketing reflects their ability to advocate for students right?
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
It’s back. The all exciting ANUSA elections have returned with astonishingly revolutionary and astounding policies that will no doubt transform the very foundations of ANUSA. This is the third election I have actively witnessed, and I await in anticipation for it all to be over and done with.
This time however, I wanted to highlight something about ANUSA elections that really gets my goat. Tickets. First of all, what the heck are they? Second, what are their roles? And thirdly, why on earth do we need them?
Shockingly enough for those who do not know me personally, I am a dumb person who was even dumber in their first year. When it came to ANUSA elections in my first year, I had no idea what they were, who to vote for or even how to vote. Conveniently enough, I had a friend who was running for ANUSA, and they explained to me how to vote and introduced me to the idea of tickets.
For you all who are not aware, tickets in the context of ANUSA are groups that run under the same principles and support each other on the campaign. So, me being the naïve first year that I was, I not only voted for her but also every candidate on her ticket. She was my friend, so the rest of the ticket should be chill, right?
It was soon after that that I realised that tickets at ANUSA have a darker side to them. They are a popularity vote. Tickets can easily invite people into the party who are influential to get their friends to vote in the elections for them and their ticket (just as I did) to improve other members’ chances of being elected. It is a tactic I learnt in my politics class and I was impressed and a little nervous to witness it in the elections for our student association.
Let us look at some hypotheticals as to how one may gain power using tickets. An easy ploy to better your chances would be to have as many people on your ticket as possible. Not only does it almost guarantee their vote, but they have also employed other people to praise their name in the elections. While this may come out of a genuine respect for one’s policies, an innate competition between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is employed. Ideally, if the feelings were genuine, then one would not even need to be running on a ticket. People would simply trust in your cause, and then advertise your policies on behalf of them.
Additionally, if someone has been ‘shoulder tapped’ to be part of a ticket, they may be being used for clout. They are a part of a community that no one else on the ticket reaches, hence tapping into another pool of voters. Others on the ticket then exploit their connections if their friends don’t appropriately research the individuals on the ticket. Typically, people on the ticket also don’t actually share the same views as the rest of the ticket, like they would like to advertise. While this is a dark portrayal of student politics, there is always a risk that people will be elected just by band-wagoning off other people’s reputation and passion in the ticket system.
So, what am I getting at with all this? At the end of the day you are voting in individuals. Not tickets. So, if you can, talk to the candidates. Do some light reading into who they are, how reliable they’ve been in participating in student welfare and what policies they’re running on. I am not saying that someone running on a certain ticket makes them any worse than others, it just means that certain people have for whatever reason, decided to run alongside them.
I would like to note however, that in addition to candidates running on tickets, you also have independent candidates, which I personally feel is a much more democratic way of campaigning. You are running by yourself; your successes and merits are your own. There is no ambiguity or misconception between members on values and ideas. Because at the end of the day, people will be voting for you, not a party.
Also, the settled nature of a party perpetuates an idea that a person may work well within the party but outside may be uncooperative. A system of independent candidates does not have this issue because candidates know they will be working with others outside of the pre-established intra-ticket relations.
There is one upside to the social distancing regulations – 2020 is the first year I won’t be anxious walking down Uni Ave, nervously avoiding eye contact with candidates…surely, I’m not alone in rejoicing this? However, I am very excited to watch the ANUSA debates in the comfort of my own home, popcorn and coke can at my side as I judge people’s policies.
Cheers and best of luck to all candidates for ANUSA 2020.
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Mentions of Anxiety and Depression
At the end of a semester, it’s nice to take stock and have a good long look at your life. I endeavour to do this every semester, and though this year I’m divided more into chapters of a thesis than anything else, I constantly try to consider things I’ve done well with and things I’ve missed the mark on.
Have I done enough research? Have I done the readings for my classes? How many tutorials did I skip? Did I isolate myself from my friends during the stress of exam (or rather, for me, essay) season?
I ask myself these questions and consider the answers. Oftentimes, as a bit of a perfectionist, the answers aren’t as positive as I’d like them to be. I perpetually want myself to be doing more: to be reaching higher and pushing myself further. I’m constantly disappointed when I inevitably fail (at least in some part) to meet the unachievable goals I set myself.
Being a perfectionist can be tough. There are so many of us at uni constantly feeling guilty that we aren’t studying hard enough, disappointed in grades that aren’t high enough, pushing ourselves to breaking point. If we aren’t careful, as exam season looms large in our minds, we can push ourselves towards intense anxiety, burnout, and even depression.
Yet on a more positive note, at the beginning of a new semester rather than setting goals and making resolutions, I like to forgive myself for the previous one. I’ve made mistakes, maybe slacked off a little in some areas, but I’ve done my best. I’ve juggled my responsibilities, and have managed to come out the other side unscathed. At the end of the day, that’s what matters, and so I concentrate on letting go of my frustrations and gulping in my fresh start.
To the resident perfectionists out there, I say inhale and exhale. You’re doing great. Try to remember that you really are doing enough, that you’re doing your best, and that you’re doing something that’s hard. University is difficult, and it’s supposed to be. But we’re all struggling through, keeping our heads above water, and there’s not really much more that anyone can ask for.
So, rather than making new semester resolutions that we’ll inevitably forget about by second week, let’s all just forgive ourselves any weaknesses or mistakes from last semester. Let’s try to take it easy and let things be. After all, it looks like semester two is shaping up to be a doozy, friends, so all we can really do is keep swimming.