SRC PRSIDENT’S REPORT

My name’s Ana and I’m your SRC President for 2022. I’m a Marxist and member of Socialist Alternative. I’m proud to come from traditions of radical student unionism and grassroots struggle. For years, my comrades and I have been involved in campaigns to challenge the neoliberal and cruel mainstream. Highlights include: Weekly refugee protest that freed several men locked in Kilburn detention. Protests of 100k across Australia that blamed the rich and powerful for climate change and the 2019-20 bushfire. In 2022, my goal is to bring those struggles into the SRC. History shows that collective action can defeat the rich and powerful. With a pandemic raging in society and huge mergers, firings and cutbacks underway at UoA, the need for pushback couldn’t be stronger. (You can read more about what’s happening in On Dit and the SRC’s “Counterguide”). I invite you to join us and make 2022 the year you commit to joining student protests and building an activist culture on campus.

The priority for activists should be the student general meeting (SGM) happening on March 24th. (Put it in your calendar!)

SGM’s are the highest, most direct form of student democracy. We’ll need as many people as possible present to send a strong message that UoA students want quality, accessible education, not cuts and mergers in the name of profit. The week 4 SGM is your chance to be part of a collective democratic intervention against the uni bosses and their attacks.

We’ve defeated education attacks before. The same proposed mergers were defeated in 2015. And my very first experience of student power-from-below was the legendary 2014 protest movement against Tony Abbott’s $100k degree reforms. (Our Vice Chancellor Peter Høj was one of the few who supported the attacks.) Student fightback caused a crisis for the ruling class. We made the reforms A few things stood out from those experiences. No one is going to fight for us -- we have to organise and do it ourselves. When we dare to struggle, we can win. And student unions like the SRC can be important organising mechanisms for building those campaigns. When I was elected, MAGA-hat wearing crybabies sooked online about the “new Stalin” at the head of the SRC. I’m anti-Stalinist, but I’m proud to stand in the tradition of radical student unionism that gets reactionaries so upset. The world is ripe with inequality and injustice. Progressive students can do something about that, both on and off campus.