A rose by any other name
The biggest news of 2018 dropped on Friday, when the Daily Mail published an exclusive, revealing Alisha Aitken-Radburn as one of the contestants on The Bachelor. The former USU Board President is preparing to ‘Unleash Alisha’ on television and laptop screens across the country come July, with filming starting last week. The former Bill Shorten staffer and campus BNOC is competing for the heart of rugby player, Nick ‘The Honey Badger’ Cummins. After graduating from her Media and Communications degree in 2016, the Unity (Labor Right) member worked as an ‘advancer’ in the Opposition Leader’s office in Canberra. She began her career as an intern at Mamamia and reporter for Honi Soit, before zigzagging between media roles and political positions.
Readers may remember the ‘blackface’ scandal of 2015, when Alisha donned a charcoal face mask and posed for a Facebook photo. She told the commenters on the post to “settle the fuck down”, and the incident was written about in a letter to Honi.
The incident, along with extensive pictures of Lish and her ex-boyfriend Dean Shachar (Vice-President of the Young Liberals), is now available for Australians far and wide to read about in the esteemed pages of the Daily Mail.
Despite Michaelia Cash almost leaking The Bachelor contestant news at a Senate Estimates Committee hearing, we at Honi are beyond excited for another year of Alisha-watch. She’s come a long way from her days of singing “I wanna give you UV / I wanna give you foamie” in her election video.
Are you board of this yet?
USU Board nominations open next Monday, and this little mermaid is hearing whispers about prospective candidates. After speculation, Viran Weerasekera, a third year debater, confirmed to Honi he won’t be running—at least not “this semester”. Other names thrown around include Maya Eswaran, a Switch tickethead and current General Executive member of the SRC.
With its membership sitting at just five, SLS is said to be considering avoiding the USU race altogether. That said, insiders have told this mermaid that, if the Labor Left faction fields a candidate, it’ll be Cian Galea. Galea is the Socials Director of Craft Beer Appreciation Society and was one of the driving forces behind the recent petition calling on the USU to delay its new alcohol policy.
Lachlan Finch seems to be firming up as a Liberal-aligned candidate, and Connor Wherrett as Unity’s candidate. Nothing has been said about NLS’ plans, except that it will be running a woman. Mysterious.
Leni Riefenstahl comeback tour
The broad campus left made a showing at Sunday’s abortion rights protest. SRC President Imogen Grant was involved, as were SRC Wom*n’s Officers Maddy Ward and Jessica Syed. Another familiar face showed up as well: Sukith Fernando, a Vanguard candidate in last year’s SRC elections who was revealed to be a neo-Nazi apologist, Holocaust denier and alt-right Facebook page operator. Fernando filmed protesters as they demonstrated outside St Mary’s Cathedral in solidarity with women without access to legal abortions. Fernando, on the other hand, was probably there to stand in solidarity with the police, who arrested two protesters.
