RANKED: The Top 10 Places on Campus For a Stupol Negotiation
By Madeline Ward
Ah, the University of Sydney student politics scene. Long considered to be a particularly nightmarish insight into the future of Australian politics, Sydney student politics has birthed the careers of everyone from the Chasers to Tony Abbott. With the SRC elections fast approaching, you can expect to see your favourite campus representatives scuttling to and fro across Eastern Avenue as deals are unmade faster than they are made. New to the game? Read on for the top 10 places on campus to wheel and deal.
10. The Weird Ping Pong Tables Behind Sci Tech
Ah, the cowards choice. It’s unlikely you’ll be seen or interrupted in this location, which is at least a 10 minute walk from Eastern Avenue. Hide behind the polished concrete pillars when considering a factional deal with your ideological enemies.
9. The OB Room
The OB Room is not the place to conduct a deal: the OB room is where you make the cross factional connections that will prove instrumental to future electoral success. The political no-mans land of the SRC office bearers office is akin to that of the Royal Hotel, but with less young liberals: here you’re more likely to find Trots and Tankies in peaceful co-existence.
8. Behind Any Of The Buildings On Eastern Avenue
Daring, yet subtle. You’re unlikely to be seen conducting the deal itself, but you and your new ally may choose to stroll the well worn pavement of Eastern Avenue afterward in a cunning show of political dominance.
7. A Residential College (?)
Do young liberals actually negotiate, or do they have their butlers do it for them? College tickets are a relatively new and poorly studied phenomenon in the game of student politics.
6. Courtyard
I jest! The Campus 1% are as embarrassingly involved as the rest of us. Their deals were signed across the tables of expensive CBD restaurants long ago, but they take to Courtyard for the flex. Also known to favour this particularly ostentatious location: members of NLS and Unity.
5. Law Lawns
Inconspicuous, yet confident. You want to be seen, but you’re not so daring that you would flagrantly meet in the middle of Courtyard or Hermanns.
4. A Satellite Campus
Only Joking! The satellite campuses won’t be seeing any of their esteemed student representatives until polling day.
3. The Benches Outside of Hermanns
This isn’t a negotiation, its a shared google doc between friends.
2. An Empty Tutorial Room in New Law
Things are getting serious if you’ve moved your discussion to an empty tutorial room. Free from the prying eyes of campus gossips and student media, you can scream and scheme to your heart’s content.
