After six days of counting, the results are in, and the 2023 SRC Elections have come to a close.
Over the course of three days, student politicians descended upon campus in colourful shirts to scramble over the 37 seats on Council, 7 NUS delegate positions and the coveted role of SRC President. The second in-person election since COVID, this year’s election saw higher engagement than 2022, but turnout still lagged significantly behind pre-COVID elections.
Announcement of results
Harrison Brennan (Grassroots) was provisionally elected SRC President last Thursday, in a close race with Rose Donnelly (National Labor Students). Brennan edged out Donnelly with 1088 votes to Donnelly’s 935, winning by a margin of 7.4%. The 96th SRC Council will be led by the fifth Grassroots President in five years.
Upon the withdrawal of Rants for Honi, Flirt for Honi were announced provisionally elected on 3 September. This is the third ticket to be elected unopposed to the position of Honi editors in the past four years. The ticket comprises Zeina Khochaiche, Amelia Raines, Aidan Elwig Pollock, Valerie Chidiac, Sandra Kallarakkal, Hamani Tanginoa, Ariana Haghighi, Simone Maddison (Grassroots) and Mae Milne.
The following candidates have been provisionally elected to serve as delegates to the National Union of Students (NUS) National Conference, in order of election.
- Left Action for NUS: Deaglan Godwin
- Revive for NUS: Gerard Buttigieg
- Grassroots* for NUS: Shovan Bhattarai
- Left Action for NUS: Maddie Clark
- Lift for NUS: Cooper Gannon
- Switch* for NUS: Yasmine Johnson
- Revive for NUS: Dan O’Shea
*The candidates elected on the Grassroots and Switch tickets are from neither Grassroots nor Switch, but Socialist Alternative (who ran under Left Action). This is the result of a pre-election deal between the factions, as Switchroots typically trades away its NUS tickets in exchange for support in the election.
The following candidates have been provisionally elected to serve as Councillors on the 96th SRC in 2024, in order of election.
- Left Action for Free Education: Jasmine Al-Rawi
- Left Action Against Landlords: Deaglan Godwin
- Left Action for LGBTQI+ Rights: Yasmine Johnson
- LIFT for SRC: Aryan Ilkhani
- GRASSROOTS FOR SRC: Harrison Brennan
- Penta for Mingle: Clare Liu
- S.L.A. for Trans Rights: Jamie Bridge
- GYMBROS for SRC: Jada Khorram
- Left Action for Free Education: Simon Upitis
- Left Action Against Landlords: Maddie Clark
- Left Action for LGBTQI+ Rights: Shovan Bhattarai
- Left Action for Free Education: Tamsyn Smith
- S.L.A. for Climate Action: Angus Dermody
- REVIVE FOR SRC: Rose Donnelly
- LIFT for SRC: Emily Sun
- Left Action for Free Education: Lucas Pierce
- REVIVE TOGETHER: Jack Lockhart
- LIFT for NETWORKING: Shahmeer Hossain
- REVIVE FOODHUB: Grace Porter
- LIFT for ECONOMICS: Ivan Samsonov
- Left Action Against Landlords: Keira Garland
- GRASSROOTS FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS: Iggy Boyd
- REVIVE OUR CAMPUS: James Dwyer
- SWITCH FOR FEMINISM: Eliza Crossley
- REVIVE BUBBLERS ON CAMPUS: Angus Fisher
- Penta for Uni Life: Bowen Gao
- REVIVE FREE EDUCATION: Gerard Buttigieg
- GRASSROOTS AGAINST COURSE CUTS: Grace Street
- GRASSROOTS for CLIMATE ACTION: Tiger Perkins
- Engineers for SRC: Victor Zhang
- REVIVE ACADEMIC WELFARE: Ned Graham
- SWITCH FOR FREE EDUCATION: Sofija Filipovic
- SWITCH FOR SRC: Jordan Anderson
- GRASSROOTS FOR DECOLONISATION: Rav Grewal
- Artistry for Equity: Cara Eccleston
- Penta for Leopard: Mary Liu
- GRASSROOTS FOR PAID PLACEMENTS: Lia Perkins
Presidential analysis
2023 students voted in the first in-person presidential election since 2019. Harrison Brennan (Grassroots) was elected with 53.7% of the vote, winning 1088 votes to 935, edging out Rose Donnelly (National Labor Students) by a margin of 153 votes (7.4%). 119 votes were informal (not filled out correctly) and not counted. Honi’s exit polling deviated from the final results by approximately 2%.
This year’s presidential election had the lowest turnout in recent history. Contested presidential elections in previous years have seen turnouts as high as 5732 in 2019 and 3746 in 2021 (when the election was online). This is part of a wider trend of decreasing engagement with student elections.
Brennan was backed by Grassroots and its sibling faction Switch, as well as Socialist Alternative (SAlt) — who ran under the Left Action brand — and Student Left Alliance (SLA). Donnelly was backed by National Labor Students (Labor Left) and Student Unity (Labor Right) who ran together under the Revive brand, as well as the Engineers, Penta and Artistry (Conservatorium of Music students).
NUS analysis
This year had a quota of 246.75 votes, a slight improvement from 2022’s quota of 213.875, but still significantly lower than 2021’s quota of 404.
Left Action (SAlt) earned by far the most votes, with a primary total of 475. Two of their candidates — Deaglan Godwin and Maddie Clark — were elected. Interestingly, Godwin and Clarke were also elected as NUS Delegates in last year’s election.
Revive was a distant yet respectable second with 326 primary votes, also electing two candidates. Tickethead Gerard Buttigieg (National Labor Students) was elected as the sole delegate from NLS this year. Two NLS candidates were elected last year, but this was due to Jasmine Donnelly (NLS) running on the Switch for NUS ticket as a part of a pre-election deal between Switch and NLS. Dan O’Shea (Unity) has secured his faction’s comeback to the national stage as the first NUS delegate from USyd Unity elected since 2021.
The Liberals have once again won a single position, with Cooper Gannon elected on the LIFT for NUS ticket with 206 votes.
Although the Grassroots and Switch tickets were successful (garnering 264 and 123 votes respectively), the candidates elected under the brand (Shovan Bhattarai and Yasmine Johnson) belonged not to Grassroots or Switch, but Socialist Alternative. This would have been the result of a pre-election deal, in which Switchroots traded away their chances of winning an NUS delegate position in exchange for SAlt’s highly valuable support in the wider election. Interestingly, this is also Yasmine Johnson’s second time serving as a NUS delegate.
This means that 4 of the 7 delegates elected belong to Socialist Alternative. This is one more delegate than they won in 2022. This is because Switchroots let members of SAlt lead both the Switch and Grassroots for NUS tickets this year, whereas last year Jasmine Donnelly (NLS) led the Switch for NUS ticket.
Council analysis
With the total number of seats on Council decreasing from 41 to 37, spots on Council are more valuable than in previous years.
The quota to get elected this year was 54 votes. However, only 17 candidates reached that magic number. The final candidate to be elected, current SRC President Lia Perkins (Grassroots), was elected with a total of 33 votes after the distribution of preferences.
The campus Left will continue their dominance on the 96th Council, with the current Left bloc (Switchroots and SAlt) securing 18 of the 37 total seats, one seat shy of an overall majority on Council. With the results in and negotiations set to continue, the Left bloc is likely to grow and incorporate more factions. In the past, Labor factions, Engineers and Student Left Alliance have been a part of the Left bloc — if their seats are included, this will hand the bloc control of up to 28 seats, representing almost 76% of Councillors.
It seems that by combining forces, the campus factions of the Labor Party — National Labor Students and Student Unity — have increased their reach. Together, they now hold a total of seven positions on council, whereas NLS and Unity each held three in the 95th Council.
The Liberals have also increased their hold on the council, gaining five seats in the 2023 election. Unlike last year, no distinct brand representing the colleges ran this year.
This election has also seen a decrease in independent and joke tickets, with smaller factions such as the Liberal-aligned Spark not gaining any seats at all.
Faculty-based factions Engineers and Artistry saw limited success in this year’s election. Only one engineer was elected to a seat, compared to the three who made the cut in 2021. Artistry, the Conservatorium’s dedicated representation, gained one seat. This year, Con students were represented by Unity-aligned Alexander Poirier, and it seems that the mantle will now pass onto Artistry’s new delegate, Cara Eccleston.
Grassroots saw a swing against them at this election, as did Switch. Despite support for Grassroots president-elect Harrison Brennan, the left-leaning factions each had their own campaigns to run. Socialist Alternative, who run under “Left Action” branding, saw a swing in their direction, which seems incredible given the swing towards them in the previous election as well. Nonetheless, their fierce ground game scored them extra votes and they will be represented by nine councillors this year. Although they won ten seats last year, there were 41 seats available, as opposed to 37 this year, meaning that their overall share of seats has remained more or less the same.
NLS and Unity each saw swings in their direction. The eighteen tickets that ran under the Revive branding were divided into either Unity or NLS based on the faction of their tickethead, and their primary vote results show a swing in their direction. Seven Revive tickets were elected: two containing Unity members, five containing NLS members.
Revive’s decision to spread themselves over a larger number of tickets paid off well for some candidates. Ned Graham (NLS) was catapulted to the Councillorship through preferences, turning a modest primary vote of 18 into a total of 39 votes after distributions.
Looking forward
With the election over and all Councillors provisionally elected, the final stupol event of the year will be the infamous annual RepsElect.
RepsElect is the night in which the 37 provisionally elected Councillors will vote in the SRC Executive and Office-Bearers (OBs) for 2024. This includes the prized paid positions, which come in pairs: the Vice-Presidents, General Secretaries, Women’s Officers and Education Officers. Paid positions have expanded since last year, but we are yet to see how this plays out at RepsElect — Ethnocultural, Disabilities and First Nations officers have recently been added to the payroll, but compensation is not enforced by SRC regulations as of yet.
Tension inevitably arises as each faction is challenged with upholding their end of the backroom deals they’ve made. In the past, there have been RepsElects which have seen the police called an upward of seven times, fuse boxes tampered with that left the room in darkness and the time the fire alarm was set off, flooding the room and almost damaging a nearby collection of ancient antiquities. Recent years however, have been far more tame.
Factions will form blocs to decide who will get what position. Some of these deals were made prior to the election, but with the results now out, negotiations will continue.