Incumbents complacent in UQ elections
By Ruth Ratcliffe
BRISBANE — Some left activists have expressed concern that Zest, the broad left ticket in the University of Queensland student union election, is running an apolitical campaign.
The last time such a campaign was run by an incumbent left union leadership, in 1995, the left lost to Liberal students.
Despite issues such as cutbacks to library services, department restructuring and increased charges for internet access, Zest's propaganda concentrates on student services such as a proposed new student bar.
The Liberal ticket, Choice, is running hard promoting the GST and voluntary student unionism (VSU). Zest campaign material barely opposes these threats.
The Zest team is a broad coalition of Labor students, independent left activists and activists from Resistance.
Labor students have ignored suggestions by Resistance and independent leftists that the campaign material be improved. The current education vice-president, Labor student Dave Copeman, has declared that Zest cannot campaign against VSU. He argues that the threat of VSU can be defeated by convincing students to "love the union".
Although Zest claims to be a broad coalition, Resistance activists were bureaucratically excluded from the process of candidate pre-selection.
Resistance activists and other non-Labor left activists, some of whom were also involved in Zest, put together an alternative National Union of Students delegate ticket. The activists involved in both the Zest and alternative NUS tickets were pressured by Labor student leaders in Zest to withdraw the alternative NUS ticket in the name of "left unity".
The Zest ticket for NUS is dominated by Labor students, with just one independent and one Resistance activist on it.