BY SAM KING
BRISBANE — Victory for the left-wing Ignite ticket has caused a radical change in student union politics at Griffith University, as Socialist Alliance members Paul Jacobs, Stephen Martin and David Lafferty were elected as 2003 chairperson, education officer and co-welfare officer respectively. Green Left Weekly spoke to Jacobs, who is a member of the International Socialist Organisation, on October 26.
Jacobs explained that the left had last won student elections on Griffith in 1999, although in 2000, the results were close enough that the Student Representative Council was divided between the left and the right, leaving the SRC "fairly dysfunctional".
"In 2001", Jacobs said, "the left totally lost the election. So [in 2002], the union was controlled by [right-wing Australian Labor Party faction] Student Unity and some Liberal Party members. During 2002 there was not even one union board meeting and the constitution was ignored.
"They had no auditors or accountants and repeatedly used the 'flying minute' for all decisions. This is designed for emergency situations, and allows a majority of executive officers to take decisions without the support of union board.
"They harassed the queer and disability officer and cut off all funding to those departments. They also tried to sack union staff, resulting in the union being taken to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. Harassment of the disability officer landed the welfare officer in the anti-discrimination commission."
"Only two editions of the student newspaper came out during the year, with no names or faces, just hysterical left bashing", Jacobs added.
When the university's provisional vice-chancellor froze the SRC's funding in order to force an election, the 2002 SRC attempted to unconstitutionally appoint a sympathetic returning officer.
"It is difficult to know if what happened this year in the union was borne of incompetence or design", Jacobs said, "as there was some anti-compulsory student unionism people involved in the union".
The mess surrounding the SRC this year led to some strange campaigning by the right-wing. "The incumbents' election campaign denied they were incumbent and ran a dirty campaign attacking me saying I was the incumbent", Jacobs explained.
Jacobs told GLW that the 2002 Ignite campaign promised an SRC committed to fighting the higher education review headed by education minister Brendan Nelson and reaffirming the "basic tenets of student unionism".
"The Nelson Review was the main focus", Jacobs said. "But there were other things. The university appointed a consultant to review the operations and constitution of the SRC to make it more accountable. We campaigned for left input into this process. We built the November 3 action against war on Iraq. I think we got the mix right between 'student' issues, the mess on [Griffith University] and broader social and political issues. We ran an openly left ticket.
"Throughout the last few months, socialists have been clear on the purpose of the SRC: that it is there for its membership and the membership should be the ones to change the constitution."
"Key to our victory was the broad nature of the coalition of progressive and left forces", Jacobs argued. "It groups together queer, food co-operative, environmental science, socialist, anarchist and Democrat students and one left Labor student. We came together on a simple platform that included opposition to sexism, racism and homophobia and a belief in compulsory student unionism, accessible tertiary education and firm opposition to the incumbents."
When asked what the victory might mean for the Socialist Alliance, Jocobs replied: "It gives us a firm base in one of three major universities in Queensland. [The campaign has] demonsrated the principles of the Socialist Alliance on the ground, such as how we organise and deal with key political questions." He gave principled opposition to university intervention into the SRC as an example.
The chairperson position at Griffith University is similar to the president position on most other campuses. Jacobs told GLW that he envisages using the position to strengthen the left at the university, so that it can win leadership of the SRC "for years to come". He also spoke of bringing a broad coalition together, without letting "smaller issues become divisive".
"I want to show socialists are the best organisers", Jacobs said. "We're practical and our politics gives us clarity on a whole range of issues and situations. We need to get the collective structure of the SRC running again, so members make decisions."
From Green Left Weekly, November 20, 2002.
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