The University of Sydney Students’ Representative Council (SRC) has been shaken up after years of left bloc dominance. While the 2024 SRC Election has brought a variety of unexpected shifts and events, one thing seems to be clear: if the left wants to succeed at council this year, they will need to work together to contend with a large Liberal contingent.
Turnout increased this year by over 700 votes, with 2539 presidential votes compared to 2023 votes last year, demonstrating an increased awareness of student politics among students, especially given the suppressed turnout rain likely caused on day 3.
While the SRC retains a left wing majority, the debates at council will no longer be primarily Socialist Alternative facing off against Grassroots. A NLS president and a resurgent Liberal presence will shift the priorities away from debates of activist strategy, and towards the concerns of the ‘average’ or ‘real’ student that NLS and Liberals both seem to champion: prescriptions that were never clearly defined and smell of populist rhetoric.
Even with all the votes counted, the election is not over. All elected councillors will meet later this year at RepsElect to elect all the OB positions. While some of these deals are struck before the election, the final results decide the majority of negotiations.
Honi Soit has summarised and explained the results of the 2024 election.
National Union of Students (NUS):
The following candidates have been provisionally elected to serve as delegates to the National Union of Students (NUS) National Conference, in order of election.
- Grassroots for NUS: Simon Upitis
- Left Action for NUS: Deaglan Godwin
- Impact for NUS: Mia Williams
- Save the NUS: Aryan llkhani
- Stand Up for NUS: Leo Moore
- Grassroots for NUS: Lauren Finlayson
- Free Palestine for NUS: Maddie Clark
SRC Council:
The following candidates have been provisionally elected to serve as Councillors on the 97th SRC in 2024.
- Grassroots for SRC: Rand Khatib
- Grassroots for SRC: Ishbel Dunsmore
- Koi for Penta: Norn Xiong
- Save Student Services: Ivan Samsonov
- Stand Up for Accessibility: Saskia Morgan
- Colleges for Students: Alisa Rao
- Save Student Fees: Connor O’Neill
- Left Action Against Landlords: Simon Upitis
- Penta for Mingle: Clare Liu
- Save the SRC: Om Karki
- Save the SRC: Sandip Khadka
- Penta for Synergy: Christine Peng
- Impact for SRC: Angus Fisher
- Impact for SRC: Eleanor Douglas
- Left Action for Free Palestine: Jasmine Al-Rawi
- Penta for Fun: Bohao Zhang
- Student Intifada: Vieve Carnsew
- Left Action for Free Education: Deaglan Godwin
- Left Action for Free Education: Maddie Clark
- Left Action against Genocide: Shovan Bhattarai
- Left Action against Genocide: Laura Alivio
- Save Simple Extensions: Alexander Buchanan
- Save Simple Extensions: Arden Skinner
- Grassroots for SRC: Sidra Ghanawi
- Penta for Lumina: Kaylie Su
- Impact for Free Education: Gerard Buttegieg
- Grassroots for Feminism: Martha Barlow
- Free Palestine for SRC: Harrison Brennan
- Free Palestine for BDS: Grace Street
- Penta for International Link: Anu Khulan
- Gymbros for SRC: William Khoury
- Penta for Student: Ethan Cao
- Impact for Real Change: Red Tilly
- Stem for SRC: Philip Howard
- Grassroots against Landlords: Lilah Thurbon
- Grassroots for Disability Justice: Remy Lebreton
- Left Action against Genocide: Emma Searle
- Colleges for SRC: Bea McDonald
- Grassroots for Human Rights: Eliza Crossley
President:
In the first three-way presidential race since 2018, this year’s results saw the end of five consecutive years of Grassroots presidencies, after an exceptionally close result between Rand Khatib (Grassroots) and Angus Fisher (NLS).
The results were surprising to all, with Honi’s exit polling indicating a comfortable first preference lead from Rand Khatib (Grassroots), even on the last day of voting. In Honi’s pre-count analysis, emphasis was put on preferences as Fisher’s only path to victory as a result of this undercounting.
The disparity between the Honi poll and the final results could be attributable to various factors, including a refusal by Thomas Thorpe voters to engage with Honi — despite our enticement of pie charts — which in turn inflated the vote share of Khatib and Fisher in exit poll numbers.
In the end, Fisher led in the primary vote, with 38% to Khatib’s 37%. Fisher received 1,071 primary votes across the three days of voting. Khatib received 1,021 votes. Thorpe received 684 primary votes.
In a compulsory-preferential system, preferences are essential to victory. A candidate has to secure over 50% of the vote share, and must do this via cascading preferences if they cannot win outright. However, the SRC uses an optional-preferential voting system. This means that voters do not need to preference all candidates on their ballot. In fact, if they wish, they can simply include a primary preference and submit their vote at that. In this case, if their primary preference is knocked out of the race, their vote exhausts and no preferences flow to any other candidates.
After Thorpe’s preferences were distributed, Fisher won with 1380 votes to Khatib’s 1043. A slim majority of Thorpe voters did not preference either candidate.
What does this shock result mean for Grassroots? Some serious self-reflection, Honi should think. The election was close, but after a year of apparently increasing interest in student politics, a long-lasting incumbency, and a highly visible campaign of Palestine activism — notably the Encampment and the August Student General Meeting — Grassroots failed to turn that energy into a win.
The 2024 Student Representative to Council elections saw significant losses across the board for left wing and Labor seats. The biggest hits were taken by Socialist Alternative, who lost two seats, and Solidarity, who only retained one of their two. Grassroots, while retaining the nine seats they held last year, only just scraped by, with their last few seats elected far below quota.
National Union of Students:
Seven delegates to the National Union of Students were elected with a factionally identical line up to 2023, despite substantial changes to the Student Representative Council (SRC). The quota this year was 329.625, a significant increase from last year’s 246.75, but still slightly below the 2021 election where 404 votes were required to get elected in the first count.
Left Action (SAlt), like last year, holds the largest primary vote. The traditional deal that Grassroots relinquishes its NUS delegates in exchange for the Presidential endorsement was maintained this year, giving Socialist Alternative four of the delegates. Indicative of this deal, the two campaigners elected (Simon Upitis and Lauren Finlayson) on the winning ticket “Grassroots for NUS” are neither members of the nominal faction, but rather Socialist Alternative.
Deaglan Godwin and Maddie Clark are returning to the NUS for the third time, with the latter elected on preferences.
Impact (NLS) placed second, electing Mia Williams, who will replace Gerard Buttigieg as their sole NUS representative. Unity (Labor Right) has also managed to replicate their vote last year, electing Stand Up’s Leo Moore.
The Liberals have maintained their sole representative, electing Aryan llkhani.
While there have been many shocks to the SRC in this year’s election, the NUS composition has remained much the same.
Student Representative Council:
The 2024 Student Representative to Council elections saw significant losses across the board for left wing and Labor seats. While the biggest hits were taken by NLS, Socialist Alternative lost two seats, while Solidarity only retained one. Grassroots, while retaining the nine seats they held last year, only just scraped by, with their last few seats elected far below quota.
The quota to be elected to council this year was 70 votes. While Switch — Grassroots sibling faction — did not run in this election, Grassroots members instead ran on Free Palestine tickets. Combined, the left bloc secured 40% of primary votes which is a distinct drop from over 45% last year with a total of 17 seats of a possible 39.
Running under Impact and Stand Up, NLS and Unity got a combined 18% of the vote, less than Revive’s almost 19% last year, showing that support for Fisher’s presidential campaign came from various factions and did not translate to higher votes in the Council.
This year the left bloc comprises approximately 44% of the seats on council, a substantial decrease from last year’s 54%. Labor’s seat hold went down from 19% in 2023 to 15% with Unity holding 2 seats and NLS holding 4. Notably, the Liberals seat percentage went up from 13.5% to approximately 22%.
Honi’s exit polling showed that many voters who voted for Fisher voted for left wing candidates on Council, and even some Save voters put Fisher first over Thorpe.
Penta clearly played a large role in Fisher’s win, with the faction securing a huge 191% of the council vote, holding 7 seats or approximately 18% of the council. This is a 13% increase in votes from last year. It seems their ban from campaigning for large parts of the third day did not detract significantly from their overall campaign.
The Liberal ticket last year barely broke 10% and the resurgence of the right on campus is likely the result of a Liberal presidential candidate, Thomas Thorpe, who brought in more conservative voters, College attendance and campaigners.
With an increase in Liberal seats, the left may struggle to block them out of all OB positions at RepsElect, as they did last year.
To get any semblance of a majority, Fisher will have to negotiate with Grassroots or Left Action as the NLS constitution bans him from dealing with the Liberals. It’s unclear if the left bloc will be oppositional after losing the Presidency, or work with Fisher on common ground. The trend of council meetings focusing on the rightward lurch of the Labor party suggest the former is more likely.
Equally significant, though, is the massive boost in Penta seats. Though traditionally the faction has made deals with the left bloc, in recent times, international student groups like Penta have found themselves alienated from the SRC, who they see as having done little for the immediate, material threat of international student caps. If the left bloc wants Penta’s support, perhaps more will have to be done than the usual concession of an OB position.
