By Marina Carman
SYDNEY — On May 1, Luke Whitington from the Labor left was declared the new president of the University of Sydney Students Representative Council. An electoral appeal had previously removed the conservative Adair Durie, elected on the "Students First" ticket last year. A by-election was called, and Whitington won by 11 votes. Only 1800 students voted.
Resistance and the activist left on campus, united in the group called Left Caucus, campaigned for Louise Buchanan. Whitington received around 70 fewer primary votes than Buchanan. However, while "Students First" did not campaign seriously, they did direct all their preferences to the Labor left.
Mysteriously, Buchanan's chalk slogans were washed away. Her posters were torn down. Posters appeared defaming her. None of Labor's material was touched.
The right prefer the Labor left, who are less of a threat to them politically.
The activist left has a better perspective for what the SRC should be doing, and where it should be heading. It stands for an active SRC — i.e. not one that just "represents" students, but actually gets out and campaigns for student rights, for change in the anti-student policies of the administration and the government.
The Labor left may claim to be committed to these campaigns too. But one has to wonder why Buchanan was supported by all the green, feminist, education and anti-racism activists of any mettle. We saw more of the Labor left campaigning than we have all year.
Whitington won on a platform of free education and free beer. How he is going to deliver either is anyone's guess.
Although his campaign material did not explain this, he is aligned with the Labor Party — the party that abolished free education.
The Labor approach to politics is that lobbying is the best way to bring about change, and that it is enough to reform the existing system. This approach on campus allowed the federal Labor government to bring in HECS in the late 1980s. Labor's is not an approach committed to involving, informing and activating students.
Right now it is up to the activist left to continue what we have been doing all year — running campaigns, reaching out to students and fighting for an SRC that really represents students by fighting for their rights.