Honi would like to acknowledge that EdCon is being held on stolen Ngunnawal and Ngambri lands. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
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Unit Outline
For the first time in living memory, Honi Soit had the opportunity to travel across borders to bear witness to the National Union of Students (NUS) Education Conference, or EdCon for short. The most recent EdCon that Honi reported on was in 2022, which was held at USyd, so it is very unusual for us to attend. Fortunately — or unfortunately, depending on who you ask — this year’s EdCon took place at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, only a stone’s throw away.
The annual National Conference (NatCon), held in December, debates and deliberates on official NUS policy and elects NUS office bearers. Its baby cousin EdCon, held in the middle of the year, is allegedly a forum to debate and discuss education policy with fellow student unionists. Like NatCon, it is a factional warzone, where competing factions hold workshops as a way to tell other factions how much better they are.
Strap in, as we head into four days of plenaries, workshops, and shouting.
This year’s conference is descriptively themed Crisis, something we didn’t know until we received the conference program the night before EdCon, because the registration page simply read “This year’s theme is TBA.”
A plenary, for the uninitiated, resembles a council meeting in structure — albeit a little more chaotic, as the heady mix of warring interstate factions makes for a little more drama than we’re used to (and the bar is high). However, unlike a council, each plenary at EdCon has a theme. On Day 1, the plenary was conducted by Lucy Fawcett (Unity), the NUS Welfare Officer, and titled “Improving NUS Campaigns”.
The plenary’s aim was to focus on the ongoing NUS Welfare Survey, as well as to hold a panel of various campus presidents to discuss improving NUS campaigns.
Module 1: Plenaries, Press Conferences and Palestine
The first rule of thumb for any NUS conference is to ensure there is some form of brain-rot while the masses are waiting to make their way into an event. After NatCon’s Subway Surfers gameplay on screen, it was only a matter of time before the NUS Executive team got everyone’s attention by singing and dancing to Ricky Martin’s Livin’ the Vida Loca. True school-camp-activity-leader vibes.
After an Acknowledgement of Country from NUS First Nations Officer Jess Wallace, NUS President Ashlyn Horton talked everyone through the housekeeping rules, which mainly preached respectful conduct and acting in a civilised manner. Good luck!
To open the Plenary, NUS Education Officer James McVicar took to the mic to discuss the main topics of the conference: Palestine, university course and staff cuts, the failures of the Labor Government, and the global context of the rise in far right extremism.
He noted in reference to the recent course and staff cuts at universities across Australia that “it’s incumbent on the NUS to be on the front foot responding to these attacks and to beat them back, and that is something we want to talk about a lot at this conference.”
McVicar announced the proposed National Day of Action for Palestine, initiated by Students for Palestine (SFP), on the 7th August, to demand the Labor Government place sanctions on Israel, our universities cut ties with weapons companies, and to end the repression of pro-Palestine students and staff.
McVicar suggested that the discussion should be a faction-by-faction system; this means only one person per faction to speak, ask a question, or respond to a question before allowing another faction to speak on the matter. The discussion in question was regarding a Socialist Alternative-led press conference on the escalation of the genocide in Palestine and conflict between Iran and Israel. The main argument was regarding having the conference today on the ANU campus.
Maddie (SAlt) from Monash University summed up the arguments ‘for’ having the press conference, stating that: “The thing about a press conference is that it’s about furthering some of the positions that we’ve already made in the last couple of days.
“I think for NUS, because it’s an institution in official society, it’s got quite an important voice to make, not just the students, but generally in society.
“I think it’s important that we take positions on political developments going on, especially when our government is pretty much what it’s doing right now is normalising, basically the US, having its fingers in every pie in the Middle East, and basically deciding for them what is going to happen by bombing them by, you know, endorsing the actions of Israel.”
Rosenberg loudly announced that if the press conference went ahead, it would not be on ANU campus, and would not be organised by Australian National University Student Association (ANUSA). This invited many murmurs that then, of course, turned to heckles. The argument Unity and National Labor Students (NLS) put forth for being against a press conference was that we are at EdCon, and this is the conference. In their opinion, a press conference would not be effective in building the movement.
The main factions in support of hosting a press conference were Socialist Alternative (SAlt), New South Wales Labor Students (NSWLS), Grassroots, and Western Australia Independents (Windies). Those against a press conference were Unity, NLS, and ANUSA as a student body.
The press conference will be happening on Tuesday 24th June, 8am in front of the BAE Building on ANU campus.
Module 2: Shelf Life
In a far too cramped seminar room, Honi attended the first workshop of the day ‘Shelf Life Expired’, delivered by Dylan Storer (WIndies, Curtin), Rama Sugiartha (UWA), and Sasha Baybrooke (Monash).
The title, of course, refers to the extension of the Woodside North West Shelf gas project until 2070, the first major act of Environment Minister Murray Watt since the federal election. They slammed the WA Labor Premier Roger Cook for lobbying his federal counterparts in scuttling the environment protection agency (EPA) this January, highlighting it as a case of state capture by corporate interests.
After reading out relevant policies from the NUS platform passed at NatCon last December calling for stronger climate action, Storer expressed great disappointment at the platform not being published in the seven months since NatCon. “I appreciate that you’ve all had to go help Albo get re-elected, but come on, where is it?”
In the discussion, Unity speakers, while expressing in-principle support for stronger climate action, claimed that condemning Labor was not useful, and that instead they should lobby Labor harder to reform the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. This was of course met with incredulous scoffs from other factions.
The session concluded with a call for the student movement’s role in fighting for climate justice to “move beyond things tucked away in a national platform… and into a public forum.”
Module 3: Cuts, Cuts, and More Cuts
The SAlt-led workshop on fighting education cuts got very heated, very quickly. One Unity student, during discussion time, asked what practical measures they could do to combat course cuts. The SAlt moderators, Tamsyn Smith (ANU) and Keira Fairley (WSU), had already outlined some techniques.
A SAlt student heckled, “You guys are representing factions that have a national presence. I don’t believe that you guys have no idea what you have to do. You know how to campaign for the ALP, you know how to run for the student union.”
Smith and Fairley went on to address the question and reiterate and expand on what they had already said, but SAlt and Unity continued to heckle each other, this time arguing about whether or not they should negotiate with management.
A Unity speaker said “We can also work from a position of strength while protesting. Shouldn’t we be excited to talk to management from a position of strength?”
Module 4: Conquering or Combust?
It’s always good to see a workshop around left bloc solidarity, hosted by a subfaction of a major party. Whilst the whole event could be seen as a hypocritical analysis from the biggest in-fighting faction on a national level, it was a good, well-structured, and relatively non-controversial event.
Hosted by USyd SRC President Angus Fisher, USyd SRC Executive member Jasmine Donnelly, and Rose Donnelly, the workshop focused on how the left bloc could be more organised in building their movements, and should push to continue good relations with any other factions or coalition.
The main reasons for the fragmentation of the student left that were mentioned by the hosts were the toxicity of mistrust and ego — namely cliqueness, turf wars over campaigns, and the tone in which many in the left ‘talk down’ to the general student body. The proposed ways of resolving these issues were focusing on coalition-building, internal democracy, accessible campaigning, shared wins, mentorship, and continuity of recruiting.
After the presentation, the floor was opened up for a discussion on the matter, with an organised speaking list (thank God). Speakers from SAlt, Unity, and NLS were heard. Farrago editor Mathilda Stewart asked:
“Can you provide concrete examples of any broad coalitions you have built, given that you have failed to work with multiple factions on your campus?”
Jasmine Donnelly responded: “Um, we don’t do student media questions.”
The event ended with those on the speaking list, who did not have time to speak, shouting over everyone leaving the overpacked room. SAlt… we heard your stance four times, it’s okay.
Module 5: Another Plenary, Surveys, and Existential Angst
The Welfare Plenary kicked off with a reminder that hardly anyone had filled in the NUS Welfare survey, and with a request that everyone do so immediately. We were given five minutes to do this, and the survey took ten at top speed, because the NUS executive like to make life just a smidge harder for student media.
Then, a panel began, featuring Ashlyn Horton, Will Burfoot, Dylan Storer (WA Guild President) and Mia Campbell (University of Technology Sydney Student Association President, NLS).
SAlt heavily heckled the panellists for the lack of SAlt representation; the panellists were in NLS, Unity, or the Windies. Lucy Fawcett (NUS Welfare Officer, Unity, plenary moderator) retorted “I invited you guys to sit on this panel and you didn’t reply.” After some more heckling, the executive reached a compromise that James McVicar would immediately join the panel as SAlt representative.
In response to a question about what challenges the panellists had faced in getting university management to take NUS campaigns seriously, Campbell said “I think what could better come out of those conferences is maybe five campaigns that come with a full set of policy that could be brought forward at every university, instead of a one-line response for every issue.”
Storer argued that “We need a rolling policy platform where we can just make amendments so we don’t have to vote on everything.”
McVicar, meanwhile, commented that “The NUS doesn’t have any credibility because it doesn’t want to talk about any issue under the sun, let alone every issue under the sun.” He tried to open the discussion to the floor, but Fawcett shut this down immediately and asked for five minutes more so the panellists could get through the remaining two questions.
On the question of what the NUS could do differently, the panellists had very different answers. McVicar said that the NUS should “not sell themselves so cheaply to the Labor Party”.
Campbell said “I think NAtCon should not involve debates on policy that are not controversial”, whilst Storer said that the NUS should improve their public engagement strategy.
The plenary was then opened to the floor. One notable speaker was James Campbell from the University of Newcastle (SLS) who said “UNSA is not affiliated. The only presence I’ve ever seen of NUS was in 2022 O-Week when we had people invited to campus… Students don’t know what NUS is. I know what NUS is because I’m a political nerd. We’ve got to have a [NUS] presence on the ground.”
The plenary wrapped up, with the NUS executive finally telling student media the whereabouts of the press conference scheduled for Tuesday 24th. For any executives taking note: eight in the morning is a sadistic time for a press conference, and it’s not a press conference unless the press are there.
