Pulp Explainer: What's Stupol? (Part 1)

Ellie Stephenson explains what’s going on with student politics.

(N.B. Ellie is a member of Grassroots, a faction which will be explained next week, and has campaigned in past elections for USU and SRC)

Student politics (affectionately abbreviated as stupol) sometimes enters the consciousness of even the most committedly apolitical USyd student, whether via a flick through Honi Soit or thanks to the biannual hordes of campaigners who descend on Eastern Avenue for stupol elections. When that happens, it’s a bemusing experience. The weird jargon, the overly complex factional politics, the niche jokes and pervading megalomania is all deeply strange to the uninitiated. So here’s a guide to what’s going on. 

Why do people do stupol?

The University of Sydney is a famously politically active campus. There is a long history of activism at USyd, with important causes including the 1965 Freedom Ride, Anti-Vietnam War protests and, more recently, protests against the fee deregulation in 2014. Collectives, for instance the Women’s Collective and the Education Action Collective, have run significant campains about issues like sexual assault on campus and the University’s ties to the weapons industry. Many people’s involvement in stupol is motivated by the desire to create political change. 

However, it’s also a campus where many federal politicians have dipped their toes in the waters of controversy. Tony Abbott was the President of the SRC in 1979; his exploits on various campaign trials (including punching the wall next to an opponent’s head) have followed him into federal politics. Malcolm Turnbull was a complete hack: a representative on the SRC, a USU Board member and an unsuccessful candidate for Honi.  Anthony Albanese was also an active student politician at Usyd. Closer to the present, Bachelor star Alisha Aitken-Radburn was the USU President in 2016 and worked as a Labor staffer before appearing on reality TV. Even now, members of Young Labor and Young Liberals stack their resumes with experience on USyd’s student unions, hoping to kickstart their political careers. 

What’s SSAF?

Explaining SSAF is an important starting point for understanding student politics, because that’s partly where student organisations get their money. SSAF stands for ‘Student Services and Amenities Fee’. You pay it at the start of each semester, although you can put it on HECS. If you’re a full time student, you’ll pay $154 per semester in 2020. If you study part time it’s a little lower, at $115.

Before 2006, students were generally charged a compulsory fee which signed them up to student unions (e.g. the USU and the SRC). Then the Howard government introduced Voluntary Student Unionism, which meant students were no longer required to pay that fee. As a result, student unions were constrained in their ability to provide services to students. The Gillard government introduced SSAF fees to fund student unions. They are paid to the University, who then distributes the money among different organisations. There is a base pool of funding, which is guaranteed to each organisation, and a contestable pool which they can compete to attract.

In 2019, a total of around $17 million was distributed between the University of Sydney Union (USU), the Student Representative Council (SRC), the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA), the Cumberland Student Guild, Sydney University Sports and Fitness (SUSF), student support services, and the University’s capital sinking fund. The USU received the most money: around $5 million, followed closely by SUSF. In 2020, a drop in SSAF money due to COVID-19 may pose challenges to the budgets of student organisations.

What are the elections for?

This is a big question! USyd has a lot of elections, which can get confusing. Let’s go through them one by one.

USU Board elections occur in first semester. This is when we elect the student members of the USU Board, which helps to govern the University of Sydney Union. The USU is a multi-million dollar organisation which runs the clubs and societies program, operates food outlets on campus and funds Pulp. There are 11 student Board members, who sit alongside the previous year’s President and two members who are selected by the University Senate (more on that later). Each year, either five or six members are elected, after which they sit on the Board for two years. The Board internally elects a President (this year, it’s Connor Wherrett), a Vice-President (currently Lachlan Finch), an Honorary Secretary (Decheng Sun), and an Honorary Treasurer (Maya Eswaran).  Board Members get paid around $4600 a year, but executive positions earn more. The USU receives funding from SSAF fees and earns revenue through its rewards program and food outlets. 

The USU is generally a pretty apolitical organisation which has at times been equivocal about issues like the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and staff strikes. Nonetheless, the various factions generally run candidates  in this election and it is usually hotly contested. You’ll see candidates and their campaigners appear on Eastern Avenue, complete with brightly-coloured branded shirts and prepared pitches. 

SRC elections occur in second semester. Confusingly, there are actually four elections going on at once. The first is for SRC President. The President is responsible for coordinating the organisation, from making HR decisions to organising protests. It’s essentially a full-time job, which is why the President is paid a stipend of around $40 000, equivalent to a full-time minimum wage salary. The current President is the left-wing Liam Donohoe (widely known as ‘Doon’). He won convincingly against Liberal Party member Josie Jakovac last year after what was described as a “toxic” campaign trail which saw Jakovac’s campaign rocked by the release of Facebook posts and messages which were viewed as racist and anti-immigrant.

The second ballot is to elect SRC councillors. 35 councillors sit on the SRC which debates and votes on a variety of motions. This year, the left-wing bloc, made up of everyone from Socialist Alternative to Labor Right, won in a landslide. This broad left ‘supermajority’ constricted the Right to only five councillors. 

The third ballot is for National Union of Students (NUS) delegates. In theory, the NUS represents students and coordinates campaigns on a national level, but for many student politicians its primary purpose is as a stepping stone in their party. As a result, Labor factions find the institution particularly desirable, although 2019 saw Liberal insurgents winning delegate spots to represent USyd at the NUS National Conference. 

Finally, the editorial team for Honi Soit is elected alongside the SRC. Tickets of around 10 students compete to edit the newspaper for a measly stipend and personal glory (many Honi editors have gone on to journalistic success). Last year, two tickets, Fit and Cream, competed for the job. Fit, which was much more experienced and included several prominent members of the Left, cruised to victory. This was unsurprising: the Cream ticket got off to a poor start with a combined zero words written for the paper they hoped to edit. Their chances went from bad to worse after screenshots emerged of conservative ticket member John-Paul Baladi defending convicted paedophile George Pell in the Catholic Society Facebook Group. He and two other ticket members left the ticket, which proceeded to lose at every booth.

After SRC elections comes RepsElect (note: not RepSelect!). This is where the council votes to elect Office Bearer positions. Some of these are paid: the Vice Presidents, General Secretaries, Education Officers, and Women’s Officers all receive stipends. Many more, including positions like Ethnocultural Officer, Queer Officer and Environment Officer, are unpaid. These roles are where much of the SRC’s work gets done, with the Office Bearers managing campaigns and sometimes leading Collectives like the Women’s Collective (WoCo) and the Environment Collective. 

The most recent RepsElect was pretty sedate, but they have a history of being extremely rowdy. After the 2018 SRC elections, there were four separate RepsElects, a saga which didn’t end until early 2019. The process involved rogue fire alarms, security guards and inquorate meetings in the summer holidays before a resolution was reached. Other scandals in previous years included a tampered-with fuse box and a Liberal student politician falsely identifying himself as a woman in order to meet affirmative action rules.

SRC elections are even more chaotic than USU elections, with more campaigners, conflicts and controversies. The SRC is a very political body, where caseworkers and legal services are accompanied by a strong activist spirit. Unsurprisingly, that makes for intense elections.

SUPRA elections occur in first semester. SUPRA is the postgraduate version of the SRC, and has been dominated by international student grouping Infinity for the last two years. Weihong Liang was elected to the presidency for the second year running, but left early in his term. Co-Presidents Yanning Bai and Minran Liu replaced him. SUPRA elections typically have lower turnout than SRC elections and are somewhat less controversial. 

Academic Senate elections take place every two years in the second semester. The Academic Senate is the University’s highest decision-making body. It has only members (including the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, and representatives nominated by University staff and the NSW Education Minister), only two of which are students: one undergraduate and one postgraduate. Voting occurs online. This election rarely receives much attention, as it doesn’t involve physical voting or very much campaigning. Nonetheless, it affords winners a position on a powerful and frequently opaque body. 

Currently, undergraduate students are represented by former Catholic Society president Francis Tamer, who attracted some controversy back in 2017 when he vocally opposed marriage equality. He was elected in 2018 with approximately 1800 votes. The postgraduate fellow is Juris Doctor student Lizzie Miller. She ran on a platform of increasing investment into postgraduate students and the need for a female student voice in the Senate. Previous elections have attracted allegations of unfair election practices, but generally the Senate elections are pretty quiet.

Clubs and societies executives are usually elected at the Annual General Meeting of each club. If you’re naive, you might be surprised to find out that political factions frequently have a role in these elections, too. But clubs and societies function as great places for recruiting members and campaigners. Consequently, factions often create new clubs as ‘fronts’ for their activities. Some examples are intuitive, for instance that the Conservative Club feeds into the Liberals. Others are inexplicable, like the NLS-controlled Astrology Society. The AGMs of big clubs are often rife with factional dealing. Last year, Labor Right and the Moderate Liberals brokered a deal to split Sydney Arts Students Society (SASS) executive positions, gaining  control over one of the major faculty societies on campus. 

Phew. Is that everything?

Not quite. I’ll be back with Part 2 to explain the who’s who of stupol, introducing you to the factions and personalities.