Current ANUSA Vice-President Christian Flynn has officially launched his campaign ticket Grassroots ANUSA, contesting all executive positions, nine of twelve college representative positions, ten general representative positions, as well as one Environment Officer ticket. Flynn’s ticket soft-launched earlier this month, contesting six of seven of the executive positions, but is now presenting their hard-launch with a full suite of executive candidates.

Grassroots ANUSA is guided by its shared vision and values of left-wing, activist student unionism independent from any particular political party alignment or political clubs active on the ANU campus, and therefore the ticket is “not beholden to the will of any faction or party leaders.” Likewise, all candidates running for NUS delegate positions “will either sit independently or with a political grouping that does not bind their votes such as the Grassroot Independents”. Grassroots candidates “have all made the commitment that only Grassroots ANUSA candidates will handle their NUS ballots”. Flynn expressed that “an ANUSA that is truly grassroots is built by members who have a track record of making a difference in their own communities. Our candidates are accountable to and representative of communities they come from, not the agendas of faceless political factions”.

The ticket is organised around three cross-ticket policy priorities. First, Grassroots ANUSA aims to build an activist ANUSA willing to “take on the issues that students face.” Secondly, the ticket will focus on driving engagement amongst students with the work of the association, and finally, the ticket aims to open an ANUSA-run business that is able to provide “affordable services to students,” and help secure the association’s financial sustainability.

The full list of candidates running for Grassroots ANUSA includes:

Executive:

• Christian Flynn (he/him) for President, Undergraduate Member on ANU Council and NUS delegate
• Chido Nyakuengama (she/her) for Vice-President and NUS delegate
• Jaya Ryan (he/him) for Treasurer
• Ben Yates (he/him) for General Secretary and NUS delegate
• Grace King (she/her) for Welfare Officer
• Beatrice Tucker (they/them) for Education Officer
• Phoenix O’Neill (they/she) for Clubs Officer and NUS delegate

Officers:

• Elise Chua (she/her) for Environment Officer

College Representatives:

• Phoebe Denham (she/her) for College of Engineering and Computer Science Representative
• Sai Campbell (she/her) for Joint College of Sciences Representative
• Shriya Bellamkonda-Vaka (she/her) for Joint College of Sciences Representative
• Katie Byrnes (she/they) for College of Law Representative
• Neha Kalele (she/her) for College of Law Representative
• Nathanael Kwon (he/him) for College of Asia and the Pacific Representative
• Max McNaught (they/them) for College of Asia and the Pacific Representative
• Isha Singhal (she/her) for College of Business and Economics Representative
• Rania Teguh (she/her) for College of Business and Economics Representative

General Representatives:

• Luca Corby (they/them) for General Representative and NUS Delegate
• Ben Harms (he/him) for General Representative
• Elodie de Rover (she/her) for General Representative
• Evan Meneses (he/him) for General Representative
• Kai Dreyfus-Ballesi (he/him) for General Representative
• Katrina Ha (she/her) for General Representative
• Luke Harrison (he/they) for General Representative
• Oscar Pearce (he/him) for General Representative
• Paria Najafzadeh (she/her) for General Representative
• Will Smith-Gander (he/they) for General Representative

Profiles for the candidates announced at the soft launch can be found here.