Editors Note: The below article is written in response to Woroni’s piece last week “ANUSA Governance Review finds ANUSA Governance ‘Effective’, but suggests sweeping changes“. This article thus expresses the views of the author and not of Woroni as an organisation. 

Over two weeks ago I submitted an article to Woroni explaining what the ANUSA Governance Review is, and why it is a grave attack on Palestine activism and student democracy. After not publishing that article, Woroni published its own article on Tuesday about the ANUSA governance review. The trouble is that Woroni’s article is a travesty of journalism, parading as unbiased news reporting whilst presenting the polar opposite case to the article I submitted. It repeats the right-wing political arguments of the authors of the report without challenging or testing any of their claims, providing the political context or motives behind this report or explaining why there is substantial opposition to this review. The review is explicit about its anti-Palestine activism and anti-democracy positions.

Particularly galling is the section on the Environment Department. In it, they make slanderous claims about my time as the Officer, claims which are not even in the Governance Review. They ignore everything the Environment Collective has done this year and instead falsely accuse me of embezzlement to help build a case for the abolition of the Environment Department.

In this reply to the article, I will do the journalistic parts of their job for Woroni: explaining the context and motives behind the report. I will also defend my actions and the Office I hold against their slander and argue why you should be alarmed about what the ANUSA Governance Review represents.

To begin with the context.

The genocide in Gaza rolls on – the almost impossible-to-count death toll undoubtedly reaching beyond the hundreds of thousands. Israeli military forces escalate their bloody assaults in the West Bank. Polio is spreading across Gaza as the vaccine programme struggles to roll out under Israeli blockade and occupation. Hospitals are at breaking point, clean water and edible food are almost impossible to come by, the threat of arbitrary execution or capture and torture by the IDF hangs over all Gazans and there are no universities left.

Over the last 11 months, Israel has piled war crime upon war crime, and our government has refused to condemn or sanction them for it. Universities like ANU jealously guard their deepening ties with weapons companies that are profiting from Israel’s crimes against humanity.

This is why, during my tenure as ANUSA Environment Officer, I have made anti-war and pro-Palestine campaigning my focus. It is why thousands of ANU students have cumulatively joined the Student Strike for Palestine, two protests against Penny Wong, teach-ins and rallies organised by or in defence of the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment, the lecture and teaching circle given by Palestinian academic and activist Dr Mazin Kumsiyeh, weekly rallies in Garema place, two ANUSA General Meetings voting for pro-Palestine motions, and a blockade of the Land Forces arms conference in Melbourne. This is not an exhaustive list of Palestine activism that has happened on campus, nor is it even an exhaustive list of what I have contributed to as Environment Officer, but every single one of the events I have listed above the Environment Collective helped plan, promote, support or fund. Other ANUSA departments and officers have given substantial support for Palestine activism on campus as well, particularly the ANUSA BIPOC department. All combined, these actions have not only engaged thousands of students in activist student unionism, but they have put real pressure on the University for their ties to genocide-profiteering weapons companies.

Woroni did not reference any of this context, all of which decisively refutes the ridiculous claim that engagement in ANUSA is low recently. This year has seen two of the largest general meetings in ANUSA’s history (around 600 and 200 students respectively), widely attended pro-Palestine panels organised by the Environment and BIPOC departments, and countless protests involving hundreds more students. Rather than referencing any of these more recent mass events, they point to last year’s low election turnout as evidence that ANUSA is irrelevant to most students.

But by refusing to cite this context, they also misrepresent the report itself. When it comes to Palestine, the Review is crystal clear which side it is on, pointing out that “[t]his governance review occurred during a period of heightened conflict and protests on campuses around the world in response to the ongoing Hamas-Israel war … In the context of the current conflict, many students have found ANUSA’s involvement particularly divisive, making them feel unwelcome, alienated, and unsafe on campus.” The authors of this report couldn’t even bring themselves to call it what it is –  a genocide of the people of Gaza. They view it as a “conflict”, a “Hamas-Israel war”, with equal sides morally equivalent. The report seems to argue that the worst thing to happen in the context of this “conflict” (genocide) is that the student union’s “involvement” has been too “divisive” and alienating. This is the same language being used by the government and universities right now to repress and silence activists campaigning against the genocide. The inclusion of advice from Grady Venville, who was personally responsible for calling the police on the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and dragging scores of student Palestine activists through politically motivated disciplinary hearings, undoubtedly played a role in colouring the report this way.

The attacks proposed in the recommendations include a plan to limit the entire executive of ANUSA organising activism against the genocide in Gaza, limit the powers of students to hold their executive to account via the SRC, abolish the Environment Department and give the executive more control over the rest of the departments, empower the General Secretary to shut down debate or criticism against the executive in ANUSA meetings and transform postgrad positions into apolitical, appointed roles rather than elected representatives. These are just some of the many recommendations in the Review that constitute a grave attack on the union’s democracy and activism.

This brings me to the sideswipe they took against me in the article. Woroni highlights that I have come under criticism for the Environment Department budget having a substantial proportion of its funding dedicated to conference and travel grants. This has been the case for Environment Department budgets since long before my time. It has helped send students to important national political and activist conferences such as the NUS Education Conference and National Conference, as well as conferences like Students of Sustainability or protests like Rising Tide’s blockade of Newcastle’s coal port. Instead of pointing these out, they point out that “in 2023, $6,000 in travel grants were allocated to fund travel to conferences organised by political factions, including Socialist Alternative (SAlt) and Solidarity”. They fail to mention that this happened last year, when Rex Michelson was the Environment Officer, and was voted on at an Environment Collective meeting. They also fail to mention that no such grants have been given for students to attend these conferences this year: the year that I have held the office. Their heavy-handed, almost McCarthyite anti-communist implication is that I am funnelling money to Socialist Alternative through the Environment Department.

If Woroni bothered to attend any Environment Collective meeting or even check my publicly available reports for this year’s SRCs, they would see that most of the money in our budget has gone to Palestine activism and supporting groups like Rising Tide, Beyond Uranium or the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. This is what is under threat at the ANUSA Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) later this year. Not just money for Palestine, Indigenous and climate activism, but genuine democracy and transparency in ANUSA.

Another factual inaccuracy in the article is that the recommendations from the review will be presented at the OGM. It is hard to attribute this misreporting to any particular political malice, it can only be incompetence. The ANUSA General Secretary has accepted a section of the recommendations they will bring to the OGM, including reforms which enshrine a unilateral grievance procedure overseen by the Executive and a slashing of the Environment Department budget. Any student who believes we should fight against genocide, racism, bigotry and climate disaster should oppose these reforms. Whilst there is still some democracy in the union, we must use it to defeat this attack.