Adelaide Student Politics

The Student Representative Council is a student advocacy body, affiliated to the Union. It was created to fill the void left in general student representation after the defunding of the Students Association of the University of Adelaide (SAUA), affectionately and revealingly known as the sewer. The SRC’s mission is to ‘give a voice on student issues to government, the University and other students’, and it’s a mission that a number of students who are traditionally unaligned with student politics have been keen to accept.

“I’m incredibly happy that we’ve got a great group of people. Each one of them’s come with ideas, but they’re also really enthusiastic”, said Paris Dean, the SRC’s President (and a director on the AUU Board). This sentiment was echoed by one of the general councillors, Ashleigh Lustica. “We’re all young, we’re all fresh, and we all want to represent the students!”, she enthused. The group formulating policy and campaign plans seem enthusiastic to the point of infectiousness.

One of the hallmarks of the SAUA era was a gross mis-management of their annual half a million stipend. When cleaning the old SAUA space, unopened cartons of stickers, reams of propaganda and five pairs of passionately discarded women’s underwear were among the detritus that had to be shifted. Theoretically it will be different this time around. “We’re pretty immune to mis-managing resources because we don’t have many”, joked Paris. On a more serious note, however, the removal of honoraria and the strong, but so far amicable, competition for campaign resources should ensure that this is not a problem with the new affiliate.

Indeed, a lack of money, if anything, seems to be the problem. No councillor wanted to say too much on the projects that they were excited about for fear that they would influence the decision on what project deserved to be funded. That said, it appears that student poverty and welfare (particularly in the wake of the Bradley Review), ancillary course costs (e.g. textbooks), disability access, environmental issues and women’s safety are all on the shortlist.

Despite this positive start, there are concerns about the SRC. One of the largest is its relationship to the peak representative body for Australian students, the National Union of Students (NUS). NUS holds several National Days of Action (NDAs) on university campuses throughout the country. As the SRC is the local representative organization, there will always be a tendency for them to become involved with NUS. That said, NUS is not always a well-organized organization. The previous NDA (against university deregulation on March the 5th) was organized with only one days notice. Robert Fletcher is both the SRC’s General Secretary, and the State President of NUS. He sent out information about the NDA to the SRC mailing list, resulting in many of the office bearers coming out in support. The result was a scattered and ill-prepared display, which one student described to me as ‘anti-climactic’.

Given that NUS affiliations were decided prior to the establishment of the SRC, it is the AUU which is formally affiliated to the national body. However, it is general practice for the advocacy body to be affiliated to NUS, meaning that the SRC will have to decide upon its relationship with the national body soon. Given that most students are not aware of the difference between NUS and the SRC, the SRC presence at NUS events reflects badly upon the SRC if those events are unsuccessful.

That said, it seems that if the SRC can maintain their positive and enthusiastic tilt at a better world and remember that they are autonomous from NUS’s ill-advised decisions, they may be very successful indeed. They have already achieved several notable goals, including publishing a counter-guide to university courses, and successfully lobbying for an increase to internet and printing quotas. On the administrative side of things, the SRC is still not formally incorporated, the Constitution having been delayed pending some legal concerns.

Note: The next meeting of the SRC is this coming Monday (the 23rd), 5.30pm in Harry Medlin South (Level 4 Union House)