Slogan: Make it with Michelle
Colour: Hot Pink
Faction: Independent
Degree: Engineering / Med Sci V
Quiz Score: 27%
Favourite USU venue on Campus: Courtyard
Biggest Campus Pet Peeve: People reserving seats at Fisher then vanished for hours
Most Toxic Trait: Has never learnt from “just one more episode”
Favourite Bathroom to ‘go piss girl’ on Campus: Susan Wakil Health Building
Michelle Choy is a fifth-year Engineering and Medical Science student running on a campaign of food affordability, international student welfare, and Clubs and Societies (C&S) support. Choy is the current Secretary of the Sydney University Chinese Students Association (SUCSA). She will seek to replicate Shirley Zhang’s (Independent) landslide victory last year where she was elected over quota campaigning on international student welfare.
She supports the incorporation of the USU and also expressed support for the proposed changes in the governance model in the interview.
Choy advocates for the USU hosting career and visa workshops for international students, identifying immigration and employment as a matter of importance for them. When queried who would run the workshops she suggested the “Career Center” and “alumni sharing the experience on finding jobs.” She expressed confusion when queried about the role trade unions could play in this regard. The UnionsNSW Migrant Workers’ Hub runs the Visa Assist program providing free advice on immigration.
Like many other candidates, she is campaigning on increasing food affordability on campus. Choy proposes that the USU should work with the university to create a dining hall akin to the campus canteen at the University of Melbourne.
When asked about how prices could become more affordable in the meantime, she suggests that prices for students should be lowered but prices for academics and staff should be raised because they are working. This point is interesting given that many students are also working to support themselves, and raises an interesting point about who the price discrimination applies to. What if a student is also employed by the university? Do USU staff pay for higher prices too (currently USU staff have access to a discount at USU vendors)?
Choy also campaigned on a well-trodden policy of providing more support for clubs and societies; however, she proposes that more support could be given in non-financial ways such as creating an equipment library to allow clubs to borrow items “like PA systems, amplifiers, microphones, [or] something like that, so they don’t have to buy it.”
Choy scored the second lowest on the quiz (27 per cent) showing significant gaps in knowledge in all aspects we assessed on. She was unable to answer the recent changes to higher education legislation and NTEU campaigns. While she identified the amount of SSAF the USU was allocated, she could not elaborate on the overall process by which SSAF is allocated and the contributions to other student organisations. She believed that FoodHub only operates on Thursdays and could not identify the item limit. FoodHub operates five days a week and has a five item limit. When queried about autonomous spaces other than the recently opened Disabilities Space, she was unable to identify any others and guessed they were named “the sex and gender something”.
Unlike other candidates who deflected answers to their politics, Choy outright refused to answer our questions instead stating “I have no politics; I just only stand for international students”. When asked if politics has a role to play in the USU, she responded that the “USU is definitely not political because it represents [the] student voice.”
Choy was also tight-lipped when responding to many other questions, stating that “I have no viewpoint” on whether or not the USU has a responsibility to partner and invest ethically. When asked what she viewed as a weakness of the USU, she stated she “doesn’t see a weakness from my viewpoint… I don’t really judge [if] the USU [is] good or bad.”
Similar to Zhang from 2024, Choy has lived experience as an international student and is campaigning on a suite of well-intentioned policies relating to international student welfare. However, she shows gaps in institutional knowledge of the USU and the university — gaps we hope can be remedied quickly if she is elected.
