Student Election Week

It’s student election week at uni. I successfully ran for office in 2004 and was subsequently elected as the Vice-President and Finance & Development Committee Chair of the student union – the first right-winger in ages. I lasted 10½ months before resigning in disgust at the board especially at the behaviour of many of its members. I ploughed through motions condemning me and the terrible leftie rubbish that goes on but enough was enough after one particular in-camera board meeting.

Last year I supported one last push by some mates of mine to seize control of it. We failed but it was funny stirring trouble all week. See there is (or at least was) massive campaigns run by ‘factions’ acting as mini-political parties. You have one vaguely aligned to the ALP Left, one to the ALP Right, one vaguely to the Democrats and then a whole lot of other mini factions that are really just tickets. (For the record I organised my own in 2004). But none of them except the Liberals run as who they really are. They run under names such as “Activate” and “United Students” or even “Indies”, whose faction binds on policies more than any other! (Note that the factions are not just campus based, but nationwide and there have even been splits within them. The best splitters are in fact the ALP Left and those that are even further Left.)

All up only about 8-10% of students in the past, exercise their right to vote and the faction that recruits the greatest amount of foot soldiers at 'O'-Camp tends to win the most places on the SRC or Student Union (unless of course deals are signed off on before nominations).

Anyway this year no conservative is running and we are all out to tell students NOT to vote. The less students that vote the less legitimate the body is and thus less likely to be taken notice off. We will be giving out stickers for student to wear with slogans such as:

GO AWAY! I’m not voting!
RACK OFF LEFTIES! I’m not voting.
Talk to me and I’ll shout “Sexual Harassment”
RACK OFF! I ain’t voting!

(There are a couple more that are a tad more crude…)

I reckon I can get at least 200 students wearing one within an hour of arriving at uni for the day. Every student in my first lecture will want one. They should be a hit or, in the words of His Eminence George Cardinal Pell, a real HOOT!

A related post of interest is here.