It’s a secret deal, which means we can only talk about it in secret.
And discuss it they did! A number of unnamed sources from different factions approached Honi this week, willing to spill the good stuff about the deal between Grassroots, Unity, SLS, and NLS, that will see the factions united behind NLS presidential candidate, Chloe Smith.
NLS will receive President, along with one General Executive spot; however, the majority of the spoils seem to have been divided between Grassroots and Unity. In a confidential deal between Grassroots and Unity, the following positions have been tentatively locked in:
Shared between Grassroots and Unity:
– General Secretary, with Michael Elliott (Unity) tipped for one half, and Grassroots yet to determine their candidate.
– Vice President, with Justine Amin (Unity) the presumptive candidate, and Georgia Mantle (Grassroots) rumoured for the other half.
– Student Housing Officers.
Grassroots:
– Education Officer.
– 2 General Executives.
– 1 Interfaith Officer.
Unity:
– 2 Welfare Officers
– 2 General Executives.
– 2 Global Solidarity Officers.
– 2 Inter-Campus Officers (stipulation: must be from satellite campuses)
– 2 Mature Aged Officers.
– 1 Interfaith Officer
– 2 Social Justice Officers
– 2 Residential College Officers
Unity interestingly also received Director of Operations and Director of Finance, two positions that no longer exist in the SRC—which would have been a shrewd negotiating maneuver from the incumbent Grassroots if they had managed to get anything from what appears to be a lopsided deal.
Interestingly, the deal also carries two other stipulations, requiring Grassroots to advertise Unity NUS tickets on all printed material (and abstain from running NUS delegate tickets themselves) as well as to maintain NUS affiliation at $63,000—or, “ideally more”. This stands in stark contrast from the position held by Switch and Grassroots going into last year’s election, where they promised to reconsider NUS affiliation (and ended up reducing it) based on how the organisation was running.
You’re the voice try and understand it, make a noise and make it clear.
This week, the tip-offs box (available online at honisoit.com/contact) has been filled with a number of identical entries that read:
“There will be a major push for SRC spots by a considerable independent group which is looking to shake student politics up.”
Which is a pitch that sounds eerily reminiscent of the early 2010s Voice movement, where the big-I Indies (a broad contingent of students from C&S and the Law School) stood together to take the political factions head-on. How’d they do? Well, in 2011 Tim Matthews (who just finished a run on Union Board) just barely lost after Labor bussed in campaigners from interstate to combat him on the ground. After that, they banned campaigners from off-campus, but Voice never quite had the momentum again, with their subsequent tilt at presidency with Sam Farrell ending in an ignominious 37% (roughly? I dunno) of the vote. The Indies, since-dead, have made brief resurgences in USU (with Tim Matthews, Liv Ronan and Michael Rees, who all got up), and in SRC, when they formed Switch along with Grassroots to support Kyol Blakeney (big win).
So, either this tip-off means the dead Indies are now un-dead; or, it means that someone else has had fundamentally the same exact identical idea, in which case: we might have an election on our hands.
Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Gronks
It looks like we’ll have an Honi election, folks. In a ~welcome~ change from last year’s HEIST-gate, two tickets are set to go head-to-head in what could be this election season’s main event.
Last week, GronkWatch confirmed the existence of one ticket consisting of Sam Langford, Mary Ward, Max Hall, Naaman Zhou and Andrew Bell. Joining that ticket in the fight for editorial control of this prestigious rag is (cue reductive descriptors) debater Natalie Buckett, BULL editor Tom Joyner, Cumbo kid Alexandros Tsathas, former Hermes editor and 2014 Honi reporter Patricia Arcilla and Arts Revue 2015 director Victoria Zerbst. It’s a fairly diverse ticket—the presence of a satellite campus student is a welcome change—and all but Patricia are reporters for this year’s Honi.
Coming from the deep dark corridors of the Holme basement is a second ticket. Gronkwatch’s conversations with this second ticket have been accompanied by giggles, so take any of the forthcoming insights with a grain of salt. Radio jockeys Max Schintler (SURG president), Alex Tighe (SURG exec) and Alex Mildenhall (Honi Soit reporter and illustrator 2013-2014) have confirmed that they are forming a ticket. Schintler was hesitant to name many more names, but did mention novelist Grace Garden. He also dropped a few hints about prospective inclusions, referring to interest from a “debater” and “someone from the ALP”, as well as a “campaign manager from Theatresports”. The ticket, assuming they fill the gaps before the Wednesday deadline, plans to run under the colour yellow.
The Case of the Missing Pages
In a final spooky note, the Gronkwatch from last week has been deleted from the SRC internal server. Now we’re not saying anyone in particular did it, but anyone in the SRC has access to the file…
