NTEU Elections: Brophy and Dowling elected USyd Vice Presidents, Cahill elected National Secretary

David Brophy has been elected Vice President (Academic Staff) and Jennifer Dowling has been elected Vice President (General Staff) of the USyd National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Branch.

In the National Elections, USyd Associate Professor and current NSW NTEU Division Secretary Damien Cahill has been elected General Secretary of the NTEU, defeating Anastasia Kanjere with 58.24 per cent of the vote.

The NTEU elections at USyd were contested by three major tickets: Rank and File Action (RAFA), Thrive, and Fightback. 

Brophy (RAFA) defeated Maryanne Large (Thrive) and Catherine Sutton-Brady (Fightback) to be elected Branch Vice President (Academic Staff). Brophy received 141 first preference votes to Large’s 110 and Sutton-Brady’s 44, and was elected with 151 final votes. 

Dowling (Thrive) defeated Dylan Griffiths (RAFA) and Jennifer Huch-Hoogvliet (Fightback) to be elected to Brand Vice President (General Staff). Dowling received 63 first preference votes, Griffiths received 64, and Huch-Hoogvliet received 41. Dowling was elected with a final vote of 81 compared to Griffiths 70.

Finola Laughren (RAFA) has been elected Committee Member of the NTEU’s USyd Branch, defeating Lucy Nicolls (Fightback) to be elected Committee Member (Casual Employees).

The following candidates (in descending order of their vote tally) have been elected as Ordinary Committee Members at USyd: Markela Mpanegyres (RAFA), John Buchanan (Thrive), Alma Torlakovic (Fightback), Dylan Griffiths (RAFA), Peter Chen (Thrive), Dani Cotton (RAFA), Jennifer Huch-Hoogvliet (Fightback), Lucy Nicolls (Fightback) and Cian Galea (RAFA). Mpanegyres received the highest number of first preference votes with 106 out of a possible 448.

The following candidates (in descending  order of their vote tally) have been elected as National Councillors representing USyd: Riki Scanlan (RAFA), Jennifer Dowling (Thrive), Dylan Griffiths (RAFA), Alma Torlakovic (Fightback) and Peter Chen (Thrive). Scanlan received the highest number of first preference votes with 112 out of a possible 455.

The USyd elections saw 21 per cent of the branch’s 2,217 members cast their votes.

Nick Riemer (RAFA) has been re-elected unopposed to President. Jeremy Heathcoate (Fightback) has been elected unopposed as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Branch Representative, Dani Cotton (RAFA) has been elected unopposed to National Councillor (Academic Staff), and Fiona Gill (Thrive) has been elected unopposed to Branch Secretary. 

National Elections

Incumbent Alison Barnes has been re-elected President of the National Tertiary Education Union, defeating Fahad Ali with 66.15 per cent of the vote. Incumbent Gabe Gooding has been re-elected National Assistant Secretary, defeating Andrew Beitzel with 62.3 per cent of the vote. 

Barnes, Gooding and Cahill are part of the Strong United ticket, with the latter replacing outgoing Strong United Secretary Matthew McGowan. The elections mark the first time the National Executive positions have been contested for 20 years and only the second time they have been contested in the NTEU’s history. Strong United were unsuccessfully challenged by Ali, Beitzel and Kanjere of A New NTEU.

The National Elections saw a relatively low voter turnout, with only 21 per cent of 26,223 members casting a vote.