Liberal-aligned ticket ‘Progress for ANUSA’s headline policies include advocacy for women’s safety on campus, inclusion for international students, and parking fine reform, while seeking to extend discrimination protections to prevent religious discrimination and rein in ANUSA’s spending.

“Progress, not protests”

A perennial debate at every ANUSA election is the extent to which ANUSA should participate in political movements, and to what extent, this detracts from its delivery of student services.

If one puts the tickets on a spectrum from activism-focused to service-focused, Progress firmly sits on the latter end. So much so that Progress says that they will, “ban any ANUSA resources from being allocated to protests of any kind”. Among other implications, this promise may reduce the ANUSA’s support for the historic August 1st protests, despite the ticket pledging to implement the ANUSA Women’s Departments’ Follow Through report, a report which is at the heart of  the August 1st protests.   

While ANUSA does not fund protests with cash, many of its paid elected officers organise and participate in protests and campaigns endorsed by the Students Representative Council, and ANUSA’s property, including megaphones and marquees, is often used at these protests.

For example, members of the ANUSA executive participated in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment until they abruptly pulled out a week in, 

ANUSA did not provide funding to the encampment, but some of ANUSA’s property, including a branded marquee, were used in the protest. Progress’ commitment would ban the use of ANUSA’s property in this way.

Clubs Officer candidate Jeremy Fox said that the agenda of the SRC would be better placed in clubs and societies and promised that he would “not use [his] position for activism beyond the context of ANU”.

But how much of this “counterproductively politicised” agenda, as Fox puts it, truly is “beyond the context of ANU”?

Much of the advocacy from ANUSA’s current leadership on Palestine, for example, is centred on ending the ANU’s connections with and investments in weapons manufacturers. 

The rest of ANUSA’s activism – often including protests – is directed at issues much closer to home,  high rent and fees, the replacement of SRs with CSOs in residential halls, the new graduation schedule, racism, deadnaming, and sexual assault and sexual harassment. 

Not only have these protests and campaigns been an important avenue for women, Queer*, transgender, Bla(c)k, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) to protest the University’s inaction on student welfare, protests such as the Encampment reveal that targeted and organised student protests can successfully force the University to make drastic changes,  such as divestment from “controversial weapons companies.”  

Should ANUSA’s resources really be barred from activism and advocacy on these issues in light of this?

“Responsible SSAF spending” and a commitment to “financial austerity”

If elected, the group would “commit to financial austerity” in allocating ANUSA’s budget. 

One measure would be to immediately review the “utility” of ANUSA’s 15 full-time equivalent employees and sell the association’s ute, which it purchased last year for $26,545. Another would be to cut the stipends paid to the ANUSA executive in half. Where this additional funding from the cut would be allocated remains unclear. 

While Progress claims that “ANUSA’s leadership has continually proved their inability to manage a budget”, last year’s executive did at least manage to balance the books, despite high profile blunders such as the failed Night Cafe initiative. In its last financial year, which ran from 30 November 2022 to 1 December 2023, ANUSA ran a $229,553 surplus and had a balance sheet of $2.9 million. 

In the 2024 budget, passed in the second Ordinary General Meeting, the Union committed $190,000 of funding to clubs, $181,000 to Students Assistance Team (grants and purchases), and $95,000 to Bryan Kenyon Student Space (BKSS) consumables. 

This budget also allocates around 2 million dollars to salaries, and wages/workers compensation insurance. ANUSA operates under an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA), which is a binding agreement negotiated between the Union and its staff. The pay grades for employees in the Student Assistance Teams, for example, are aligned with the services the employee would deliver, including administering grants and providing legal, academic and administrative support. ANUSA’s pay grades are comparable to ANU’s and the public sector’s pay grades. 

However, this year, ANUSA’s pay grade has received criticism, primarily in online forums such as ANU confessions. Progress, in line with this criticism, pledges to “Launch a review into employees currently on the ANUSA payroll to assess their utility to the organisation.” 

Whether this can be done within the bounds of the EBA, and how it will impact student services is unclear.  

Parking policies under scrutiny

Progress promises to push the ANU Council to provide clearer signage to assist students in avoiding fines. 

They have also committed to offer “parking fine support” to first time offenders and better promote the association’s legal service to those who get tickets.

Unlike most parking providers and university campus’, the ANU has powers to make and enforce legally binding traffic statutes on its Acton campus. Last year, the university commenced criminal proceedings against a number of students who failed to pay fines.

At the same time, parking has become more scarce on campus. The ANU oversold and then rescinded permits to Dickson parking station earlier this year and many spaces in the remaining parking stations have been reserved for contractors working on hail remediation projects.

While the SSAF laws allows ANUSA to fund the provision of “legal services to students” and assist them “with their financial affairs”, it is unclear whether this would permit grants with the express purpose of assisting students’ payment of what are effectively criminal penalties.

While legal assistance to parking fines is likely to be popular among ANU students, the ticket does not elaborate on how it will overcome the complexities tangled with this proposal. 

SASH and women’s safety

Another key pledge of Progress’ platform is to address the sexual violence which is prevalant on the ANU campus by pushing the ANU Council to implement the recommendations of the Womens’ Department 2022 Follow Through report and to hire more Unisafe staff.

Such a policy objective is unlikely to be opposed by rival tickets given the widespread recognition of this issue’s importance on campus.

Socialisation between international and domestic students

In a bid to foster greater social inclusion of international students, Progress has promised to encourage the International Students’ Department (ISD) to expand its associate membership to all students by default.

The ISD constitution already provides for “associate” membership, membership that does not confer voting rights, but this currently requires a person interested to apply for the membership to the ISD officers.

Most ISD events are already non-autonomous or held with other departments or societies, meaning domestic students can already attend regardless of whether they are members of the department. 

The ticket pledges to, “Encourage the university council to more seriously consider international student’s roles as stakeholders when making key decisions,” however, it fails to detail how it will do so and what other ways it plans to support international students. 

Anti-religious discrimination

In some places in ANUSA’s governing documents, such as the Clubs Regulation and the Discrimination policy, the word “discrimination” incorporates discrimination on the basis of attributes protected by the Discrimination Act 1991 (ACT). This includes “religious conviction”. 

However in other places, including the constitution itself and the association’s rules of order, Progress points out that “no measures exist to counter religious discrimination within ANUSA, as exists with [other characteristics].”

Progress promises to insert a clause into the ANUSA Constitution to ban “religious discrimination by members and during meetings”. They would also review religious discrimination occurring within ANUSA.

Policies “lit”, but no details

In contrast to other tickets, Progress’ policy documents run a total of 2 and a half pages and about 538 words. While this is somewhat refreshing, coming from jaded student journalists used to the repetitive walls of text produced by other tickets, there is not much detail for students to go on.

Jeremy Fox’s clubs policy amounts to two bullet points reading, in their entirety, “make social events lit” and “support clubs and students” along with a link to the general ticket policy document which has nothing more to say on the matter.

 

Disclosure: Joseph Mann is a member of the Australian Labor Party.

N.B. This article is written and edited by Woroni sub-editors, and approved by the Woroni Board of Editors. The contents of this article is not a reflection of any one person’s views, but rather aims to provide a comprehensive analysis and criticism on the policy platforms of the ANUSA tickets. This is in line with Woroni’s annual coverage of the ANUSA election, where we publish commentary and analysis of all ANUSA tickets. In the coming days, Woroni will publish similar articles on all the tickets. Please contact woroninewseditor@gmail.com with any concerns.