DON’T EVER LIE ON YOUR CV, KIDS
The special election edition of Honi is hitting stands around campus as you read this. It collates the mission statements, choice photos and CVs of candidates who will be seeking democratic mandate over the next three weeks.
The editors of Honi aren’t allowed to edit the statements that the candidates submit. But we are allowed to fact-check them. Two members of TIME for Honi have taken a bit of creative license with their past achievements.
Michelle Picone has listed the 2016 Landers and Rogers Moot (a junior law competition) on her CV, after not turning up to the first round and being removed from the draw for the following three rounds. She attributed the drop-out to the sickness of her mooting partner. She’s also listed as the SRC’s “Display and Publications Officer” – which we assume means Director of Student Publications, a position she has resigned from after not turning up to a single shift, citing competing job and class obligations.
Bianca Farmakis, also of TIME for Honi, has claimed to be an Honi reporter this year, which is news to us. She said, “I put down that I wrote for Honi in 2015 not 2016 but it was probably just a mix up.”
We will concede that TIME’s Alana Callus is indeed secretary of MECOSoc (as the first dot point of her CV states), although we feel compelled to state that she was elected to this position on the day election nominations were due, so we aren’t really sure what past experience its inclusion conveys.
MELANIA TRUMP FOR HONI
Speaking of the Honi Soit election, the ticket Facebook pages are up and the three-way like-war has begun. At the time of writing, WET for Honi was in humble third place, with 564 likes, with SIN for Honi taking second with 653 likes and TIME for Honi in the lead with 744 likes.
WET’s branding has raised a few eyebrows, and probably wouldn’t pass the University’s newly proposed stringent academic dishonesty guidelines. In the style of last year’s winning ticket, SCOOP for Honi [Ed’s note: that’s us], the WET cover photo mimics SCOOP’s cutout figurines/”remember the poster for Little Miss Sunshine?” aesthetic and, as you’ll notice from the “&” symbol on the bottom right, uses exactly the same font. Their logo also places their brand name in a break in the logo’s circle, a la SCOOP. WET’s profile pictures put the nail in the “seriously guys, come up with your own ideas” coffin though: the block photograph background and quick-selected photographs look just like SCOOP’s, bar the text.
Seemingly believing imitation is the highest form of flattery, WET also bears a similarity to winning 2013 ticket SEX for Honi’s branding. Judy Zhu, the mastermind behind the SEX design was not impressed. “I think there are certain similarities between the branding, such as the choice of typefaces. I wouldn’t say they intentionally copied the branding – sometimes accidental similarities happen – but it was reminiscent enough of SEX’s branding that it doesn’t entirely sit well with me.” If you look to the logo and the italicised “for” in the cover photo, Zhu really does have a point. If WET wins, we look forward to their first edition cover of Tom Joyner giving the finger to the quad and their semester two expose on Alexander Wright.
“Their kerning is way different from ours,” WET said in response to these claims.
SIN on the other hand, has wowed hacks and people at home on a Friday night (this humble editor) with their social media branding. Their cover photo depicts the full team strewn across the benches at Courtyard. A conversation on Eastern Avenue revealed this was in fact, their second choice, after a failed attempt to access the Reading Room in the Holme building. The concept for the photo channels an oft forgotten candidate from the Honi race of 1496 – Leonardo Da Vinci. In their contemporary re-imagining of Da Vinci’s, The Last Supper, Aparna Balakumar is positioned as Jesus and the ticket’s ‘Comedy Editor’ Will Edwards has, of course, purposefully positioned himself as Judas. Getting into the either Courtyard or the Holme Building at night would have required the privileges of a USU Board Director (they have four in shirts), which is probably an abuse of power. But like, they used a real snake in their profile pictures. A REAL SNAKE.
As for TIME for Honi, they appear to have employed a 12-year-old boy with Microsoft Word as a LinkedIn skill to handle their branding. What they lack in graphics and Photoshop skills they make up for in copy. “Vote [1] TIME FOR AN HONI SOIT THAT DOESN’T HATE YOU,” their cover photo boldly reads. Their statement is a call to action to “end the bullshit filtering of ideas and culture of outrage” telling us they are dedicated to a “friendlier”, “positive Honi”. Good stuff.
ED MCCANN FOR NOTHING
As for the SRC campaign, Labor Right/NLS/mod Libs grouping Stand Up has urged students to vote [1] Ed McCann (the mod Lib you might remember from such stupol events as the alleged stacking of the SASS AGM last year, and the more aggressively alleged stacking of the SULC AGM last month) for Vice President. There’s one issue though, they literally cannot. There is not, nor has there in the memories of your very, very old Honi editors ever been, a VP ballot for the student elections. As those who tuned in to the #repselect periscope last year would know, the VP is voted by the elected SRC councillors.
Assumedly, the intention of the Labor factions is to make their commitment public, so that should they get a majority, they’ll be obliged to honour it. That said, just as the deal last year between the Labor factions and the Liberals was broken by NLS who split to form a majority with Grassroots and various independents, there’s a high chance that their campaign material will secure nothing and we will be Periscoping the apocalypse come #repselect2k16.
YOU CAN’T DEFAME THE DEAD
When reading through your copy of the Honi election edition, spare a thought for Patrick and William Ryan of SRC ticket Twins for Tickets (the ticket which aims to advance the rights of twins while interrogating the motives of triplets), who were forced to change their candidate statement after Electoral Officer Paulene Graham told them alleging the 2014 SRC election (which they lost on the same ticket name) was rigged was defamatory of both her and the SRC.
“Whilst a defence to defamation is satire, TFT is not satire. Hence, TFT will no longer refer to the 2014 elections as [retracted],” a Mr Ryan (you never know which one) told Honi.
OH, AND THERE’S THAT OTHER ELECTION
Voting is officially open for the election for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Fellows of Senate. Of the nine candidates running for the undergraduate position, only three have formally launched a social media campaign. They are Alexi Polden (324 page likes), George Bishop (175 page likes) and Georg Tamm (345 page likes, on the page re-engineered from his 2015 Union Board campaign). Of those, Polden seems to be – in the fundamentally arbitrary and reductive world of Facebook metrics – gaining the most traction on each post. There has not been any in-person campaigning that Honi is aware of, but there is still quite a bit of time until the election closes on the 22nd September.
RADICAL SEX & CHASTITY WEEK
There was a weird inclusion in the USU’s August 29 ACCESS email newsletter, promoting last week’s Radical Sex and Consent Week. Opposite a write-up of the event’s “Expectations of Sex” seminar (which was billed as addressing the needs of “those who are asexual, demisexual or otherwise outside of traditional expectations of sex”), was a quote from Catholic chastity preacher Jason Evert, which read, “Sex is not a tryout. If she fails to live up to your expectations in the bedroom, will you love her less? If so, you can be certain you never loved her to begin with.” That… doesn’t seem very radical or sexy. Some may say even a little bit sex-ist.
Honi asked Radical Sex & Consent Week co-convenor Michael Sun about the inclusion, who said he and fellow convenor Rose McClelland had nothing to do with the email promotion. USU Marketing and Communications did not return our request for comment.
