The July meeting of the 95th SRC Council was filled with the usual amount of chaos, but there were some productive discussions about upcoming actions and a continuation of conversations held at the NUS Education Conference (EdCon).
Regulations. Yawn.
With SRC elections coming into view, SRC Electoral Officer Riki Scanlan reported on the schedule for this year’s election in September. Some key dates included online campaigning to begin and election Honi set for release on 6 September. Physical campaigning will begin on 11 September. Scanlan noted that 2700 students are expected to vote at this election with the return to in-person classes, calling this a “conservative estimate”.
Council passed changes to the regulations to make voting more accessible to students. Some of these changes included changing the requirements to absentee voting such as introducing work responsibilities as a justification, and lowering the threshold of “severe illness” to “illness”.
Rowdy Reports and Retorts!
Before reports, Council filled a vacancy left by Lauren Lancaster who resigned from their position on the Standing Legal Committee. Welfare Officer Harrison Brennan (Grassroots) was elected over Bryson Constable (Liberal). Education Officer Ishbel Dunsmore (Grassroots) quipped to stupol veteran Deaglan Godwin (SAlt), “You should nominate as Mature Age Officer.”
President Lia Perkins (Grassroots) reported on new campaigns such as the Students Against Poverty Placements Campaign and a Concession Opal Cards for International Students campaign. Perkins noted that the next Academic Board meeting on July 11 is set to be an important one, determining the status of 5-day simple extensions and USyd’s approach to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-seimitism.
The SRC Exec spoke on the work they are doing for the Semester 2 Welcome Week with the GenSecs confirming SRC bottle openers for merch and Vice President Rose Donnelly (NLS) providing a combined Vice Presidents’ report, noting an upcoming Welcome Week zine in the works with a theme to “bring some style to radical politics”. Disabilities Officer, and Fantales enthusiast, Jack Scanlan (NLS) posed a question about the status of Fantales at SRC stalls, having raided Honi’s stash in Semester 1.
Many reports focused on the success of protests in the past month such as the trans rights protest organised by the Rainbow Rights Coalition and the Homes for People Not for Profit rally. Another significant action was the disruption of an anti-trans event hosted at NSW Parliament House. Honi is also pleased to report that many collectives have contributed to the reprint of Queer Honi!
Deaglan Godwin (SAlt) extended solidarity to French protestors “burning down police stations” to say “fuck the racist French state”. Debate descended into chaos when Satvik Sharma (Liberal) would not actively condemn the military presence at these protests which led to a 17 year old being shot dead by police. Godwin pointed to the Liberals, “You’re disgusting!” to which Sam Barry (Liberal/National) sought recourse in the most juvenile of comebacks, “Says you!”
Education Officer Yasmine Johnson (SAlt) spoke on the success of EdCon, with a motion opposing AUKUS making national news, and a National Day of Action “Welfare Not Warfare” in the works for August 9.
TERFs be gone!
Councillors passed a motion to condemn the anti-trans forum “Why Can’t Women Talk
About Sex?” hosted at NSW Parliament House, along with the Labor’s complicity in upholding transphobia with NSW Labor MP Greg Donnelly opening the event.
Tim Duff, a Queer Action Collective (QuAC) member who disrupted the event, said it was “absolutely unfathomable” that Donnelly would choose to associate with transphobes and speak at the event. Duff closed their speech saying, “Chuck ‘em out.”
There were some rumblings over the newly proposed anti-religious vilification law, with Queer Officer Jamie Bridge arguing that religion does not justify bigotry, saying that bigots Israel Folau, Fred Nile, George Pell say their beliefs come “from a spiritual place”. Henri Collier (NLS) heckled “Have you read the bill?!”, suggesting that the bill merely protects religious people, and though there was much uproar, particularly from SAlt for NLS to speak, this debate continued with a motion on the bill later on…
A Housing Hellscape
A contentious part of the meeting was discussions on Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund Bill. The motion to oppose the bill was passed, with only the Liberals voting against.
Refugee Rights Officer Annabel Petit (SAlt) characterised the fund as an “investment gamble”, saying, “It is just giving people who have the money more and saying that it addresses the problem where it doesn’t.” Welfare Officer Harrison Brennan (Grassroots) was critical of the bill, saying housing is “funded indirectly through the private market” instead of through direct investment into public housing.
VP Rose Donnelly (NLS) justified the bill saying NLS’ position is based on “trying to open a conversation in terms of urgency around housing”. Tensions grew when SAlt pressed NLS on why they were opposed to rejecting the bill when national faction representatives voted to do so at EdCon. USyd NLS pointed to their autonomy as a faction as a reason not to follow the national position.
When a frustrated Jack Scanlan (NLS) asked SAlt, “How many of you grew up in public housing?” NLS were met with a barrage of shouts from SAlt. GenSec Jasmine Donnelly (NLS) told Eddie Stephenson (SAlt), “Back the fuck off!”
As much as the debate was held between the left of the council, the worst heckle was by far when a Liberal proxy yelled “If you’re homeless, buy a house!” Yikes.
Religious Vilification Bill
The motion to oppose the Anti-discrimination Amendment (Religious Vilification) Bill divided Council with one view that this bill was much like the Religious Discrimination Bill in winding back protections for queer people, where the other was that it merely protected religious people from further discrimination.
Alex Poirier (Unity) said the bill has “nothing to do with the federal Religious Discrimination Bill” and “is meant to protect particularly Muslim and Jewish people”. Henri Collyer (NLS) said the bill was “merely updating our quite draconian anti-discrimination laws”.
Shovan Bhattarai (SAlt) emphasised that the bill entrenches the view that “religious institutions reserve the right to discriminate on the ground of religious freedoms”. Queer Officer Jamie Bridge also took this view saying that, “If people are allowed to vilify someone and say that getting HIV is a punishment from God for who I am, I should be able to vilify them for that.”
Though NLS and Unity abstained, the motion carried.
Liberal Bullsh*t
The Libs brought a suite of self-indulgent motions to this council meeting with the pick of the bunch being about “oppressed lifters”. Satvik Sharma (Liberal) also invited his personal eshay cheer squad who left with some inconsequential yelling.
They proposed a motion condemning Nazis and antisemitism, with the intention for the left to vote down the motion as a “gotcha-moment”, as pointed out by Tiger Perkins (Grassroots).
Their sabotage operation imploded when Council unanimously voted for the motion, and their snickers turned to silence. A particularly poignant moment was when Tiger Perkins described how Satvik Sharma’s face (Liberal) fell when Yasmine Johnson (SAlt) read a quote indicating Robert Menzies’ admiration for Hitler.
The Libs brought some motions which sparked legitimate debate. This included one condemning the RBA for not raising interest rates further, and another about supporting AUKUS, with both obviously failing. They also proposed a motion on whether the SRC should be an activist organisation or be purely service based.
This motion failed, and President Lia Perkins (Grassroots) spoke to the important services which are already offered by the SRC such as casework and legal services. Perkins emphasised, “We should be focused on activism as the student body has voted us to do.”
Goodnight!
Before the night spilled into the next day, Council passed two more motions. One was a motion in support of the Tamil Refugee Council’s campaign to oppose the deportation of a Tamil refugee, Dixtan Aruluban, and another was to support the NUS National Day of Action “Welfare Not Warfare!” as voted on at EdCon.
See you next time, I guess!
Honi provides live coverage of SRC meetings on our Twitter and Instagram accounts.