Adelaide Student Politics

Posted: 9th of September

The Left on campus has been terrified of Andrew Anson for months. The relative new-comer to student politics took over the Labor Right faction when all its experienced members were eliminated at last year’s AUU elections, and has since quietly but purposefully gone about amassing support for a bid for the Presidency. His hopes were dashed at the most recent elections, to the suprise of many.

With a Board of 16 following the referendum passing, plus with current President Lavinia Emmett-Grey having a vote on all office bearers for 2010, Andrew needed to pull off 9 Board votes to succeed. With the Liberals vowing never to deal with him (though they didn’t seem to pleased with the prospect of a Left candidate either), this meant his faction, Innovate, along his international student allies, needed to together put up the necessarily number on Board.

Alas, the internationals did much worse than expected. The existence of a Chinese student on the Liberal ticket (Liberty) may have mitigated some of their block international vote, and their decision not to campaign heavily after the first two or three days meant that they only managed to get two Board directors elected (being faction head Eric Fan Yang and Xu Ting).

Things didn’t end up much better for the Labor Right. Innovate ran 10 people for Union Board, and only managed to get three of them on (the same number as this year). Juan Legaspi, Steph Ghellar and Daniel Bills were knocked out in the final minutes, making this the second year a host of Labor Right candidates just miss out. Andrew managed an impressive primary vote count (112) to retain his seat, and is joined by Claire Wong (who has made a comeback after losing her seat at last year’s election) and first-year Tim Picton.

That’s five. Out of the nine needed. Without the Liberals and one of the Independents, Andrew was screwed.

Mark Joyce (Liberty), at a stage of the night where he hadn't realized the extent of the Activate/Indy-Go alliance, said that his candidates would not support the Left or Right if they insisted on putting up what he considered inferior candidates like Andrew Anson or Fletcher O’Leary (the presumed Left candidate). In the end, the Liberals lost out too. The monstrous primary vote of both Penelope Nugent and Shaoming Zhu wasn’t enough to get their teammate Daniel Fawcett elected, meaning the Liberals control one less seat than they did this year on the AUU Board.

If everyone so far lost, who gained? Overwhelmingly and conclusively, the Left. Activate managed five (Ashleigh Lustica, Sarah Anderson, Satchi Riehl, Raffaele Picollo and Fletcher O’Leary). Their left Independent Allies, Indy-Go, got three (Emmanuel Njuguna, Patrick McCabe, and Kim Dowling). Given that the Board size has decreased, and the Left has one more person on than they did last year (Activate only had 4 in 2009), their power has increased significantly. Not forced to negotiate with either the Internationals or the divided Right (Labor Right and the Liberals), they’ll get their pick of every position, and, when united, every policy. The three Indy-Go Board directors are not bound by a caucus – and may thus act as the balance of power later on in the year – but in terms of office bearer positions are expected to side with Activate (although this didn’t happen last year due to Jake Wishart). Small 'i' independent Eric Parsonage is also expected to vote with the Left for the Officer Bearer votes, although due to Lavinia's vote they won't need him until later in the year.

This year sees the Left in its strongest position during my time at University. Despite losing Rhiannon Newman – the Activate leader – and Lavinia Emmett-Grey – the head of Indy-Go, who withdrew herself from the elections – they have managed to secure enough votes to make any policy they all agree on, provided it has Eric Parsonage's support, certain. Coupled with Indy-Go and Activate's success on the SRC, the Labor Right is due for another year in the wilderness.

Let’s see what the Left do with their newfound power.