After four fretful days, the results of the 2021 Students’ Representative Council (SRC) and National Union of Students (NUS) elections have been announced on Discord.
In the second online election in a row, voter turnout this year was at an all-time high, with 5103 votes cast in the Council election for 39 councillors, and 3227 votes cast in the election of 7 NUS delegates.
Council results
Grassroots and Switch (Switchroots) saw the highest number of councillors elected, collectively winning ten seats on Council. This is a slight drop from their eleven seats in last year’s election — and considering that the total number of councillors has increased this year, it signifies a slight loss of power for the left-wing faction.
International student faction Penta and Labor Right faction Unite tied for second, winning five seats each. Notably, Yunshu Chen drew in a whopping 434 votes, amongst the highest primary votes in SRC history, which also helped elect two other members of their ticket.
Quota for this election was 128 votes, meaning that a candidate who receives 128 votes or more is automatically elected, without having to rely on preferences flowing to them. Two candidates doubled quota: Emily Storey (Engineers, 274) and Ricky Rangra (Unite, 240).
Faculty-oriented factions also did well in this election, with newly-formed Conservatorium ticket Ignite seeing four members elected to Council and Engineers seeing three. Ignite’s success sees a record of six Conservatorium students (including two Unite councillors) on Council this year, bolstered by Presidential candidate Matthew Carter’s run. Joke ticket Horsegirls 4 SRC (Labor Right) galloped in with one seat.
Other factions that saw councillors elected include: Strive (Libdependents) with two seats, Colleges for SRC with two, new faction Wave with two, Phoenix with two, Pump (Labor Left) with one, Left Action (Socialist Alternative) with one and StrikeBack (Solidarity) with one.
Overall, the composition of the 2022 SRC is remarkably similar to the 2021 SRC, but with Labor Right, Ignite and Wave picking up minor gains.
Here’s a Google Sheet with a breakdown of the Council results.
NUS results
USyd’s delegates to the NUS will be Matthew Carter (Unity), Grace Hu (Unity), Drew Beacom (Switchroots), Swapnik Sanagavarapu (Switchroots), Cady Brown (Liberal), Yasmine Johnson (Socialist Alternative) and Mikaela Pappou (NLS).
The results of this election are unremarkable — the composition of the USyd NUS delegates is almost identical to the previous year, with the exception of Switchroots gaining a delegate at the expense of Socialist Alternative.
Here’s a Google Sheet with a breakdown of the NUS results.
What next?
While the Councillors of the 94th SRC have been determined by this vote, Office Bearer positions will be decided at RepsElect later this year. The results of Council do not leave one coalition with a clear majority of 20 councillors, meaning that negotiations are likely to be long and protracted.
After non-contested elections last year, Lauren Lancaster narrowly won this year’s Presidential election, while Cake took out the Honi editorship. While Lancaster is the third consecutive SRC President from Switchroots, it looks like their left-wing support on Council may be slightly challenged in the coming year. Penta threw their support behind Lancaster in the Presidential election, so they may hold votes for a broad-left coalition.
This year’s election was the second to be conducted online, and was noticeably smoother compared to last year’s, where students were sent blank emails instead of voting links, and results took almost a full week to be released.
Your provisionally elected councillors
Your provisionally elected councillors for 2022 are:
- Aileen Tan – Strive (Libdependents)
- Alana Ramshaw – Switchroots
- Alexander Poirier – Ignite
- Alice Guo – Penta
- Angus Dermody – StrikeBack (Solidarity)
- Ashrika Paruthi – Switchroots
- Bella Andersen – Engineers
- Bridgitte Holden – Ignite
- Cabiria Liang – Phoenix
- Celestia Wang – Penta
- Charlotte Ainsworth – Horsegirls (Labor Right)
- Claudia Arabella Hopkins – Colleges
- Daniel Bowron – Unite (Labor Right)
- Eamonn Murphy – Switchroots
- Eddie Stephenson – Left Action (Socialist Alternative)
- Emily Storey – Engineers
- Felix Lockhart Wood – Switchroots
- Ishbel Dunsmore – Switchroots
- James Burgess – Ignite
- Jenna Wu – Penta
- Julia Tran – Unite (Labor Right)
- Julian Alley – Switchroots
- Lauren Lancaster – Switchroots
- Lia Perkins – Switchroots
- Maddie Maronese – Unite (Labor Right)
- Martin O’Flynn – Ignite
- Matthew Carter – Unite (Labor Right)
- Max Prince – Colleges
- Michael Grenier – Wave
- Nicole Yang – Penta
- Olivia Mangholi – Strive (Libdependents)
- Onor Nottle – Switchroots
- Philippa Bucknell – Wave
- Ricky Rangra – Unite (Labor Right)
- Riley Vaughan – Engineers
- Rose Donnelly – Pump (Labor Left)
- Tiger Perkins – Switchroots
- Victor Ruifeng Liang – Phoenix
- Yunshu Chen – Penta
View the Electoral Officer’s Declaration of Provisional Results here.
Disclaimer: Editors Vivienne Guo (a candidate for Council) and Marlow Hurst (involved with DRIP’s campaign) have declared a conflict of interest for election coverage (including this edition) and are not involved in any of the 2021 coverage of Honi Soit, NUS and SRC elections.