LIVE: SRC Meeting 19/08/2020

Ellie Stephenson reports on this month’s SRC meeting.

6:22pm - We’re waiting for the meeting to begin. I’m missing the Bachelor for this so it better deliver on the drama! With the SRC elections coming up, perhaps hacks will be coming out of the woodwork in search of controversy and clout - or to air bureaucratic complaints, given last meeting’s controversial vote to allow online elections.

6:30pm - We’re getting started. Council is quorate with 21 councillors in attendance. President Liam Donohoe does the Acknowledgement of Country, asking that the Council integrate its work “with the struggle for Indigenous justice”.

Mengyuan Zhu resigns as a councillor to Yiman Jiang, a resignation which was initiated a while ago but which is finalised tonight.

6:37pm - It’s time for the President’s Report. Liam notes that it’s really long, given it’s been six weeks since the last meeting. He begins by clarifying that - right now - SRC elections will be happening in person. Unless the Executive recommends to the Council to take the election online, it will remain offline.

“Definitively, at this point, it is not an online election”, he confirms.

Next, Liam says that the University is discussing permanently moving to a 12 week semester. He says that the SRC opposes it, seeing it as a cost-saving measure which will only increase stress for staff and students. He warns that “it might be a hard fight” to prevent the move.

He highlights the bad news that ProctorU was hacked, saying that the SRC went to the University to demand they cease using the service. While he says that the hacking “More of less proved that a lot of our concerns were not just speculative”, the University will be going ahead with ProctorU, albeit with more in person assessments and better capacity to opt out of ProctorU assessments. “At this point, no USyd student’s data has been compromised,” Donohoe adds.

The SRC is launching their ‘SRC Informs’ program, which will host seminars on tenancy, student visas and students’ rights with police. These will be held every Tuesday at 1pm.

Finally, Donohoe mentions the “quite significant attacks on higher education” from the Government over the last month. These include the new policy to limit students’ ability to access HELP loans if they fail half their first year courses. “It’s absolutely fucking deplorable”, he argues. He also expresses concern about coming cuts to staff. There will be a National Day of Action on August 28th to protest the changes, which Donohoe urges students to attend.

Sophie Haslam (SAlt) echoes Liam’s concerns about the 12 week semester change, suggesting it could be a step towards moving to trimesters. She also encourages students to attend the NDA.

6:52pm - The Report of the Vice President sees Felix Faber (NLS) encourage students to get involved in the fight against cuts to the social work department. Charlotte Bullock (Unity) agrees with Donohoe’s comments about the 12 week semester, adding that the University often doesn’t provide enough resources to prepare students for each semester.

6:55pm - We’re meant to have a report of the General Secretaries, Liam Thomas (Unity) and Abbey Shi (Advance), but they don’t seem to have sent one in. Sad.

Neither of the Education Officers are here to discuss their report, but we scroll through the document, which enumerates all the ways in which our educations are under attack. It also criticises the presence of the police on campus, with the police being used to shut down small student protests recently.

Lily Campbell (SAlt) speaks about the issue of police on campus. She describes their presence as “fucked up and authoritarian”, especially given the protest was socially distanced. “It sets a bad precedent for the rest of the semester, knowing the scale of attacks on students, there’s gonna be a lot students have to protest”.

The report of the Women’s Officers, which we read quite briefly, discusses WoCo’s opposition to the Government’s fee changes.

Welfare Officer Maddie Clark (SAlt) reports to the Council, arguing that the Government’s changes to HECS constitute an “attack on students”. She also points to the lack of support for international students and the high rate of unemployment among students broadly.

Holly Hayne (SAlt), one of the Global Solidarity Officers, points to the “really exciting things happening around the world in terms of protest”, giving the example of protests in Belarus.

Deaglan Godwin (SAlt), a Social Justice Officer, is looking forward to next Friday’s NDA.

Kigen Mera, one of the International Student Officers, says that many international students have seen their quality of education “greatly compromised”, facing many uncertainties and worries regarding online assessments. International students who are currently in Australia are also struggling, especially financially. Mera calls for the Government to do something to alleviate these students’ difficulties, rather than viewing them as “cash cows”. “It’s definitely not fair to have all these fees that we have to pay, when we’re not actually enjoying what we have paid for”, he adds.

Prudence Wilkins-Wheat (one of your USU Board Directors as well as an SRC Environment Officer) introduces the Environment Collective’s new Grow Back Greener campaign, which is targeting USyd’s investments in fossil fuels and more broadly pushing for a greener recovery from COVID-19.

Deaglan Godwin (SAlt) asks Prudence about the cuts to USU staff hours. She says that is under the purview of the Education Officers and encourages them to support USU workers. That was perhaps not the argument Socialist Alternative was looking for here.

7:16pm - Motion: “Down with Lukashenko! Solidarity with Belarus!”

Our first motion is proposed by Holly Hayne. It points to protest movements around the world, expressing particular solidarity with people fighting against electoral fraud in Belarus and praising striking Belarusian workers. The protests show “The power that workers have to actually… shake the system”, Hayne adds. “This movement is incredibly inspiring and is definitely going down the track of where all protests and struggles should go”, she concludes. The SRC will be sending pizza to the striking workers (I’m sure the Young Liberals will be using this one as a talking point for years to come, if the last time the SRC bought workers pizza is anything to go by).

“pizza AGAIN? you’re literally HANDING US THIS ELECTION”, Young Liberal Julia Kokic contributes to the Zoom chat. I called it.

“She stands with Lukashenko, with the riot police”, Deaglan Godwin retorts.

“It’s one form of regime change that the Liberals seemingly don’t support, funny that”, adds Liam Donohoe.

Lily Campbell speaks about the “inspiring” nature of the protests. She critiques the idea that the movements in Lebanon and Belarus are ‘colour revolutions’ which are sponsored by the CIA, saying it “derides the agency of ordinary people” and is “crazily conspiratorial”.

Swapnik Sanagavarapu (Grassroots) says it is “important to note the complex and nuanced history of Belarus”, critiquing the “shock therapy and mass privatisation” which has occurred in other post-Soviet states. He recommends an article by Yasha Levine about whether neoliberalism is the only alternative to Belarusian nationalism.

Eddie Stephenson (SAlt) responds by saying that the repression of workers has been a “continuity” in Belarus. She says it’s “ridiculous” to argue that Belarus is “a progressive alternative to neoliberalism” (something Swapnik did not appear to do).

Swapnik makes some clarifications, calling Stephenson’s take a strawman. “I’m not trying to argue that Belarus is some progressive global haven”. He opposes the repression of workers but says that it’s important to consider the historical circumstances of the country.

Liam Donohoe goads Julia Kokic into opposing the motion. She does not, giving the SRC’s pizza donation official Liberal approval. So much for the Libs’ election strategy.

7:33pm - “No Cuts! No Concessions!”

Deaglan Godwin is proposing this motion, which discusses the cuts to university staff following COVID-19. He argues that the strategy activists take should be to make no concessions on workers’ rights, but instead to put political pressure on universities and the Government to protect jobs.

Yasmine Johnson (SAlt) argues that university management has been complicit in the Federal Governments’ cuts, given their willingness to impose staff cuts and decrease staff pay. She adds some critique of the USU’s reduction of staff hours, claiming that they are not saving USU jobs.

Eddie Stephenson says that Grassroots and NLS Board Directors and candidates run on the basis of “change the USU from within” without materially stopping staff cuts. She suggests that left-wing Directors should simply resign and leak relevant information about the cuts.

Young Liberals Julia Kokic and Maia Edge dissent to the motion.

7:42pm - “Solidarity with US BLM Protestors in the Fight Against State Repression”.

The mover of the motion, Eddie Stephenson, condemns the use of federal agents in Portland to abduct and detain protestors. She praises initiatives like the ‘wall of mums’ to fight back against police repression and suggests that the anti-racist movement in Australia can learn from the events in the US. She adds that the Democrats are complicit in the state violence being enacted, suggesting that electoralism is insufficient to fight systemic racism.

Sophie Haslam echoes a lot of this sentiment, adding “I think that the Black Lives Matter movement in the US shows us that protest gets the goods, it’s the way forward… It’s mass militant protests of thousands of people that will win.”

Yasmine Johnson adds that the Black Lives Matter protests in Australia have also been repressed and opposed by political institutions here.

7:50pm - “Living Incomes for Everyone”

This motion has been proposed by Tom Williams (Grassroots) but Swapnik Sanagavarapu is speaking in favour of it. The campaign for living incomes is being supported by organisation including the Australian Unemployed Workers Union, centring around ensuring people’s basic needs are being met. “A just society is one in which the state provides for the basic material needs of everyone”, he argues.

Swapnik says that maintaining and extending JobKeeper and JobSeeker is essential, along with opposing things like cashless welfare, Robodebts and mutual obligations. He points to Modern Monetary Theory to assuage the Libs potential concerns about paying for social welfare, but argues that even if the state could not afford to meet people’s basic needs, that would illustrate how “corrupt” our society is.

Holly Hayne adds that “everyone should have access to use sick pay and no-one should be forced to go to work under these conditions”. She also says that the age of dependence for Youth Allowance is too low, and argues that Government austerity undermines people’s welfare.

7:56pm - “That the Council set affiliation fees to zero and avoid any costs to nominating to participate in the 2020 SRC Elections”

Liam Donohoe has proposed this motion, which will remove the affiliation fees which candidates in the SRC elections normally have to pay. He says that the SRC doesn’t need the money and they should try to save applying the cost to students in the context of a global repression.

Lily Campbell is critical of the motion, saying that a lowered financial barrier to entering elections could mean that candidates don’t really know what they are running for. She analogises the fee to union dues. She complains that this could cause stacking, although it’s unclear to me how stacking could happen in an SRC election.

Donohoe clarifies that candidates still need to actively consent to running, which should prevent people signing up without knowing what they are doing, and insists that the motion has nothing to do with whether Grassroots can afford to pay the affiliation fees. He adds that people who have already paid will have their fee refunded.

Lily dissents from the motion.

8:02pm - “USyd, Divest from Fossil Fuels”

Prudence Wilkins-Wheat raises USyd’s investments in fossil fuels, saying that she wants to ensure the fight for divestment is “sustained”.

The motion passes quickly and without dissent.

8:04pm - “Solidarity with the National University Staff Assembly”

Swapnik Sanagavarapu is proposing the motion, which calls for support for the National University Staff Assembly which is opposing the Government’s cuts to tertiary education. “We should support any and all staff initiatives to fight back against government austerity”, he says.

Liam Donohoe seconds the motion, saying he will be attending this “grassroots, worker-organised institution” and emphasising the need to keep up with any strikes or industrial activity planned by the organisation.

Yasmine Johnson speaks as an NTEU member to oppose the motion, saying that it obscures the key issues facing the NTEU. She argues that union officials are continuing to sell workers out, but are supporting the Assembly even though they are not prepared to fight against attacks on higher education. “I think the strategy that we need is a rank-and-file strategy, but I don’t think that strategy is the one being proposed by this Assembly”, she concludes.

Donohoe asks “If the principle is we should not support anything endorsed by union officials” then why did SAlt reach out to Unions NSW to endorse the August 28 National Day of Action.

Lily Campbell replies that “we want the officials to do left-wing things” but that is distinct from supporting movements in which union officials are involved.

Yasmine Johnson adds in the chat that “if rank and file action is to be successful it has to oppose the conservative union leadership, which clearly this doesn’t because it’s supported by them.”

Both the Liberals and SAlt dissent to the motion. Lol, horseshoe theory time.

8:15pm - The meeting closes. Time to catch up on Bachie!