Steps to the left in student elections

Left success at Flinders, by James Vigus

The Socialist Alternative-initiated ticket Action won a number of positions in the recent Flinders University student association elections, including president, welfare, postgraduate, abilities and a general member.

Running on a platform of opposing higher education cuts and standing for social justice, the ticket consisted of and/or had the active support of the non-Labor left, a number of international student clubs and various faculty clubs. The Action presidental candidate, Grace Hill, had a resounding victory.

Grace has been a leading anti-cuts activist in South Australia and is well known at Flinders for her socialist political activity. Her win, following recent victories for the left at Adelaide University, shows that a growing number of students in South Australia understand and support the idea that we need student unions to be political and active.

The Flinders student association has struggled to gain real independence from the administration. The strategy of the Labor-dominated incumbents had been to keep left wing politics out of the association, which meant that they didn’t support a number of successful rallies against the cuts. In fact, they were generally defensive, passive and hostile to the campaign.

Action’s success shows there is an audience among Flinders students that wants an association that will campaign against the cuts and be vocal about other injustices as well.

Campaign gets the left on the map at Vic Uni, by Michael Kandelaars

October saw the most hotly contested election in years at Victoria University.

The Victoria University Student Union has for years been run by students in the right wing of the Labor party. The Active Union ticket, initiated by members of Socialist Alternative, Socialist Alliance, and 11 independents, ran a progressive left wing campaign to challenge the incumbent Go! ticket.

Active Union argued for a left wing activist student union that would campaign against education cuts, support equal marriage rights, refugee rights, Palestine, stand against racism, and more. The Go! Campaign, by contrast, largely focussed on more barbecues, social events, and a commitment to run a toga party next year.

Refusing to be part of a genuine left ticket, students in the Labor left shamefully campaigned for Go!

Active Union won 455 votes to Go!’s 954. At the Footscray Park campus, which was the most contested, the vote was 354 to 548. Despite not winning control of the union, the election showed that hundreds of students agreed with our argument for a fighting active student union.

A sympathetic staff member approached me during the campaign to say, “I’ve been here for 12 years and have never seen an election like this. It’s fantastic!”

We’ll be back stronger than ever in 2014!