Honi Soit: Week 13, Semester 1, 2025

Week 13, Semester 1, 2025

HONI SOIT

The Fool

The Magician

The High Priestess The Empress The Emperor

The Hierophant The Lovers The Chariot Strength

Wheel of Fortune Justice

The Hanged Man Death

The Devil The Tower The Star The Moon

The Hermit Temperance

The Sun

Honi Soit operates and publishes on Gadigal land of the Eora nation. We work and produce this publication on stolen land where sovereignty was never ceded. The University of Sydney is a colonial institution. Honi Soit is a publication that prioritises the voices of those who challenge colonial rhetorics. We strive to continue its legacy as a radical left-wing newspaper providing students with a unique opportunity to express their diverse voices and counter the biases of mainstream media.

Puzzles

Editors

DARE TO STRUGGLE

DARE TO WIN

Drawing this piece let me reflect on the iconic pieces of USyd, and see it as a place with meaning and metaphor. Imagining the old water bubblers as the ‘Emperor card’; strong, reliable, and responsible for our hydration, was very touching. They’ve been there for me so many times, occasionally

Purny Ahmed, Emilie Garcia-Dolnik, Mehnaaz Hossain, Ellie Robertson, Imogen Sabey, Charlotte Saker, Lotte Weber, William Winter, Victor Zhang

Front Cover

Chloe Drougas

shooting water into my face with unrivalled, kingly power (very fitting).

I urge everyone to look at university life with a bit more mystique and creativity. I certainly will be when I’m next on campus… Anything to brighten the upcoming exam weeks.

Purny Ahmed, Jaseena Al-Helo, Ava Broinowski, Cate Chapman, Valerie Chidiac, Pia Curran, Avin Dabiri, Emilie Garcia-Dolnik, Sidra Ghanawi, Mehnaaz Hossain, Audhora Khalid, Grace Lagan, Remy Lebreton, Cecily McCrann, Sagar Nair, Jayden Nguyen, Jenna Rees, Ellie Robertson, Imogen Sabey, Charlotte Saker, James Fitzgerald Sice, Barnaby Smith, Grace Street, Tanish Tanjil, Marlene Walker, Lotte Weber, Will Winter, Victor Zhang

Artists

Avin Dabiri, Chloe Drougas, James Gulliver Hancock, Mehnaaz Hossain, Ellie Robertson, Lotte Weber, Tanish Tanjil, Lotte Weber

Dear Honey Letter to the Editor

Hi Anonymous, my name is also anonymous, and I am an alcoholic.

It is quite surprising to me that I am not the only member of Alcoholics Anonymous on campus. In some ways, I had assumed through joining the fellowship I had to outwardly reject my entire involvement in campus culture to protect my sobriety, and a general disconnect from the strong drinking culture this university fosters. It’s relieving to me to know that I am not the only person struggling, and your sobriety inspires me.

I suppose my interest in AA stemmed from the “benign anarchy” it boasts. Since everything at this University is in essence, hierarchal (from the institution itself down to the societies I am part of), I felt compelled to learn more about anything that broke away from that structure – maybe it is possible to live a life detached from the capitalistic consumption of alcohol. In some ways, I thought perhaps there was an element of transformative justice to it as well. After all, if AA was helping alcoholics stay sober, then perhaps, there are lessons there that I could learn to help change the cultures of the societies I am part of.

You spoke about how your “camaraderie” kept you sober, and I agree that through my connection to others, it also helps keep me clean. Through AA’s anonymity, I feel comfortable sharing about my stories and what led me to the rooms – and I feel connected, particularly to older queer people that are like me and shaped the queer Australian scene. I think my trans and queerness led me to isolation –through the rooms I don’t feel like I am the only one who has had the intersection of experiences like me.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about the program – one mentioned include is the “addiction” of AA. I think the program is what you make it. I think recovery allows me to celebrate the life outside of the fellowship. For example, I got to be part of Mardi Gras and not be afraid of using because I knew people in the program throughout the multitude of floats I could talk to when I felt overwhelmed or tempted to use. The steps and traditions itself? Take it or leave it. I don’t think it’s a fault of the program, it’s a suggested program not a requirement. Addiction to community is not the same as addiction to substances – one is infinitely more sustainable.

I wish you a slow and joyful recovery, Anonymous.

Dear Honey,

My friends won’t let me join in anymore. I’ve been cucked, no chair. Gagged, in despair. Dommed, no aftercare.

At my first SUBSKI camp last year, I made a great group of friends. Really, the bestest group of buds that I ever could have met. Before then I honestly didn’t think that I’d had any friends that I could say were actually mine, you know? We would all meander down the slopes in our post boozy après ski haze, shitfaced — reckless, stupid, but together. I’m so grateful to have found them. I really love these guys. Which is what makes this next bit so uncomfortably hard. Because since then we’ve all gotten really close. All thirteen of us… maybe a bit too close.

We fucked, in short. Thaddeus Longbottom and I. Every two days or so, if we found the time for it, we would fuck — casually of course, nothing serious. After our third bone-sesh we agreed we would be staying friends (and to also keep making trips to bones-ville) but also that we’d let each other be romantically open to others. It seemed like the obvious thing to do.

Don’t hate me please. If it wasn’t the mulled wine that got everyone’s hearts racing, it must have been the gentle, suggestive curve of the ski path. Gosh, how exciting it all seems now! How erotic! All of them, my friends!! Was this normal? Is this what adult friendships are like? I thought to myself. Surely. Soon enough, I found myself in a two-person game of ‘never have I ever’ with another friend of mine, Fanny Cox, and it wasn’t long before we were both catching edges.

And so shortly began the whole salacious affair.

Candice Harden, the cross-country skier, started training for endurance with Clint Taurus, the bobsledder; Ripley Shaft and Mason Debate were teaching each other how to snow-plough; Dougie Styles, Kitty Munch, and Forest Bush took up half-piping; Ophelia McNuttes, Teddy Dingle, and Professor Penis got really into something they called Bi-athlon (and would not stop giggling to each other whenever someone said it) — God! It was a party!

A big day of grinding rails on the slopes would then always turn into a big night of railing and grinding between the bedposts. In the AM, we weaved through moguls; the PM: lace. And I loved it. I loved it so much because we were all doing it together: Fucking, as friends do.

Until I realised that we all weren’t. Until one night I entered the wrong room looking for some ski–wax ;) and was confronted with a ghoulish sight I will never forget. Fanny Cox, crouched assumedly in her ski-tuck position right beneath Thaddeus Longbottom. This, really took me from behind. It also threw me for a spin. How long has this been happening? I thought. Why hadn’t they thought to include me? How could they betray me this way? Me! The king of reverse-tuck! None of this made any sense at all, I was furious.

For the rest of the trip things were weird. One day I recall I had to take the T-bar alone because no one would sit with me on the chairlift. And that same night I went to bed alone, the same questions kept racing through my mind: Who else was hanging out without me? Had I done something perceived as duplicitous or manipulative? Was I really just a Sunday brunch friend to these people? An afterthought to be discarded after the trip had reached its inevitable climax?

Rumour Has It...

WHAT’S ON?

Palestine Action Group Rally

1st of June, 1pm Hyde Park

Hymns to the Unsacred Madrigal Society Concert

1st of June, 3pm Redfern Town Hall

Motion Pitches Barbersoc Concert

1st of June, 6pm Balmain Town Hall

ADCET UDL Symposium 25th–26th of June

Susan Wakil Health Building

Student Journalism Conference 15th–18th of August

The Trip came and went. And weeks went by as they tend to always do and we all remained friends. We all hung out, more or less exactly as we did on the trip. Sans off-piste-coitus.

But it just wasn’t the same.

Is it bad that I feel left out? Like, something was definitely going on on that trip and I’m sure it still is now. And what’s even worse is I am pretty sure the group is still having sex without me!

If we’re all fucking each other, but we aren’t fucking talking about it, what’s the fucking point? Is there something going on here? Am I crazy?

I’m at a complete loss. Do I move on from these guys and get involved with SASS more? Or should I persist? Do I break the ice and talk about it? Make it official, as a group – like a throuple but moreso? How do you think I should broach this? Am I just being clingy? Be honest: am I freak?

Please help Honey, situationship desperate.

With Love, Richard Balls.

Richard, if you spent as much time coming up with fake names as you did loving yourself, perhaps you wouldn’t be in this situation(ship).

Honey

Sydney Peace Foundation set to become an independent legal entity after 27 years with the University of Sydney

Valerie Chidiac

reports.

On Thursday 22nd May, the Sydney Peace Foundation revealed that it is set to become an “independent legal entity” after 27 years as a foundation of the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS).

This was attributed to a “recommendation from the Faculty” itself, despite many FASS academic staff serving as “leaders in these world-renowned initiatives” within the Sydney Peace Foundation. The Foundation is funded through donations partnerships with FASS only providing in-kind support.

Founded by Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees in 1998, the Sydney Peace Foundation is Australia’s only international prize for peace. It serves as a non-profit organisation which annually awards leading social justice figures, and hosts events and panels to platform prominent voices advocating for “the meaning of peace, justice and alternatives to violence”.

At the Peace Prize announcement ceremony, the Foundation thanked the University for its partnership and said it would “embrace this new phase and are excited about the opportunities it presents.” It also noted its continuing partnerships with the City of Sydney, the New South Wales Teachers Federation, and Amnesty International Australia.

When queried by Honi on the motivation of this move, a spokesperson for the University of Sydney cited the “growing separation between the objectives of the Sydney Peace Foundation’s mission and our Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ strategic focus on delivering transformational teaching and research.”

The University also referenced “the current uncertain environment being experienced by the sector led to significant consultation throughout 2024 regarding our core priorities”.

The University added that “the Foundation’s Council has since voted to separate, announcing their exciting move towards independence yesterday, and we’re working closely together on a supported transition plan.”

They went on to “acknowledge the Foundation’s valuable contribution over many years, particularly its recognition of leading global peacemakers through its Sydney Peace Prize.”

The statement concluded, “we will continue to support the Prize through a multi-year agreement that includes sponsorship for the

suite of Peace Week hallmark events as well as cross-promotion on our channels.

“We will also continue to provide internship opportunities for our students, and promote the activities of the Sydney Peace Foundation across our many channels.”

A statement to Honi attributable to the Sydney Peace Foundation read:

“Over the past two years, the Sydney Peace Foundation is proud at the way in which we have increasingly aligned its activities with teaching and learning priorities at the University – including an academic-focused public events programs, scholarships, and a more robust student internship program.

As a new, not-for-profit entity we look forward to strengthening these initiatives with a broader coalition of academic, government and civil society organisations and expanding our honoured and greatly valued coalition of supporters.

At a time when the world is suffering an escalation of violence and military aggression, the mission of the Sydney Peace Foundation is ever more urgent. We thank the University for being our home for 27 years and are grateful for their commitment to support the new Foundation with a generous multi-year sponsorship agreement. Together, with a coalition of partners, we look forward to building a broader movement for peace and justice.”

The ceremony, hosted by Sydney Peace Foundation Patron and City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore also announced that Dr Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and eminent international jurist, will be awarded the 2025 Sydney Peace Prize on 6th November.

Pillay was a former judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and on the International Criminal Court. She was also the first woman of colour to serve as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The jury noted that Pillay’s selection owed to a “lifetime of advocating for fundamental human rights, peace with justice and the rights of women, all of which serves a clarion call in the face of a growing culture of impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, towards accountability and responsibility”.

$50 million donation to set up endometriosis research institute at UNSW

Purny Ahmed reports.

The University of News South Wales (UNSW) has received a donation of $50 million for endometriosis research, marking the contribution as the largest known sum donated to the cause globally.

The donation by the Ainsworth family will establish the national Ainsworth Endometriosis Research Institute (AERI) over the course of 10 years at UNSW.

AERI plans to adopt a “global consortia-based approach” to the research, by bringing together top scientists, clinicians, and philanthropists worldwide to work towards “breakthroughs in diagnosis” and create “precision-based treatments.”

The partnership will “position Australia as a global leader in women’s health.” It is also the largest philanthropic donation made to the university.

Endometriosis is a chronic condition where the tissue similar to the lining of the uterus is found growing outside of the uterus. It can cause severe pain, inflammation, scarring, fatigue, and in some cases, infertility.

An estimated one in seven Australian women will experience endometriosis, however research remains limited, underfunded, and underdeveloped. Treatment options are also limited and poorly understood.

Professor Jason Abbott, clinician and researcher at UNSW who’s career is dedicated to researching and advocating for better endometriosis diagnosis and treatment called AERI “the most significant commitment to endometriosis research” he has seen.

“Each person’s endometriosis is unique and for the best results, treatment needs to be personalised,” says Abbott.

“This substantial investment will allow researchers for the first time to build a solid understanding of endometriosis biology and pathogenesis that will lead to improved detection, management, and treatment.”

This donation was made possible due to the experiences of two members of the Ainsworth family: Lily Ainsworth, and her mother, Anna Ainsworth, both of whom have dealt with the chronic pain and uncertainty which comes with the disease.

Lily Ainsworth states, “The Ainsworth Endometriosis Research Institute is more than an exceptional research institute; it is hope. Hope for those living with endometriosis now and in the future, that they will be able to live full, happy and healthy lives.”

The Ainsworth family, the donors, established their fortune from poker machines, with Patriarch Len Ainsworth founding Aristocrat in 1953, the second largest gaming company in the world.

Unions call on federal government to intervene against Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project

Victor Zhang reports.

NSW union leaders have expressed deep disappointment in the National Native Title Tribunal’s (NNTT) decision to allow NSW to lease land to Santos for the Narrabri Gas Project, against the wishes of the Gomeroi peoples. In a letter to the federal government, 11 union officials have called on the federal government to intervene to stop the project from moving forwards.

The Gomeroi people’s fight against fossil fuel development in the Pilliga Forest has been a long-standing struggle. While the Federal Court ruled last year that new fossil fuel developments on native title land must take into account the effects of climate change, the NNTT decided on the 19th May that the Narrabri Gas Project may go ahead.

Union officials have described Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project as “unnecessary yet destructive”. Addressed to the Federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, the Minister for the Environment Murray Watt, and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs Malarndirri McCarthy, the unions have called on the government to use the “multiple policy and regulatory levers” available to them to halt the project.

The letter was penned by Thomas Mayo, the Assistant National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander man, along with the NSW branches of the MUA, the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), Nurses & Midwives Association (NSWNMA), the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Union (ASMOF), the Teachers Federation, the Independent Education Union (IEU), the Australian Services Union (ASU), and the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU).

They have expressed solidarity with the Gomeroi people and the importance of the Pilliga Forest: “there is no amount of profit that could ever make the destruction of this last remnant of forest a legitimate decision for any Government to make”.

“We together represent many thousands of ordinary working people. Working people who care about the future of our country, but also about our shared past.”

“We implore you to use the power available to you to deliver justice to the Gomeroi, and to take this opportunity to stand on the right side of history.”

Proposal for McDonalds in Redfern

rejected by local council and Indigenous groups

Mehnaaz Hossain reports.

A proposal to open a $3 million 24-hour McDonald’s in Redfern was unanimously rejected by the City of Sydney planning panel on 15th May.

The panel heard the case after the City of Sydney local council received 269 objections, and a mere 17 supportive submissions, for the McDonalds.

Many opponents pointed to the proximity of the proposed site to Indigenous community services, including the Aboriginal Medical Service, which operates just a few streets away. The site is also close to social housing estates in Redfern and Waterloo, which house up to 3,000 residents.

Daniel Munro and La Toya Pinner, cochairs of the council’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Panel, strongly opposed the development, citing concerns about encouraging worsening existing health disparities.

McDonalds is the most common takeaway franchise on Uber Eats, with the algorithm favouring McDonalds in search results over other options. Many locals and experts had concerns over how Uber Eats from McDonalds would contribute negatively to the community by increasing e-bikes on the road, traffic, and easy access to unhealthy food.

The council’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory panel were concerned that there was no “no consultation with the Aboriginal community” from the proposal’s developers. The panel fears the McDonalds will undermine strong local efforts to address health concerns,

especially in Redfern’s Indigenous community.

Honi spoke with Dr Sisi Jia, Research Fellow and recent PhD graduate from the USyd Faculty of Medicine and Health, about these health concerns.

Jia commented: “First Nations people and communities face a disproportionately high prevalence of CVD [cardiovascular disease]… Research has shown that the dietary intake of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is low in fruits and vegetables and high in total sugar and energy-dense, nutrient-poor food and beverages.

“These inadequacies in diet are influenced by socioeconomic, environmental, and geographic factors that determine the availability and accessibility to healthy and affordable food.”

Additionally, the Index of Relative Socioeconomic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) data shows that Redfern is an area with increasingly high wealth inequality. Given the mixed demographic of Redfern, with 17 per cent of the suburb occupied by social housing amidst expensive and quickly-gentrifying terraces, economic status between neighbours may vary vastly.

The local council also raised concerns about the fact that wealthier areas in Sydney have more access to healthy food. This often leaves comparatively low socioeconomic areas like Redfern captured by fast food restaurants, at a disadvantage to the health of an already-vulnerable community.

NSW paramedics ordered to halt industrial action over mental health pilot program

Mehnaaz Hossain reports.

The Australian Paramedics Association (APA) NSW have been forced to halt industrial action over NSW Ambulance and NSW Health’s pilot program, the Mental Health Clinician Responder Team (MHCRT). APA NSW argues that the program is unsafe, poorly planned, and risks weakening emergency response capacity.

The action initially began on 6th May, with paramedics refusing to take part in any training, logistics, or vehicle movements connected to the rollout of the MHCRT. APA NSW said the targeted bans would not disrupt patient care and are necessary to protect the safety of workers, nurses, and patients.

The MHCRT model would pair mental health nurses with Special Operations Team (SOT) paramedics. The stated aim is to reduce pressure on emergency departments by offering immediate, onscene care to people experiencing a mental health crisis.

According to APA NSW, there is a better alternative to the MHCRT already tested and operating in NSW. Since 2015, the Mental Health Acute Assessment Team (MHAAT) has operated in partnership with Western Sydney Local Health District Mental Health Services to provide emergency mental health care in Western Sydney.

The MHAAT model pairs mental health nurses with regular non-SOT paramedics in dedicated units. It has shown success in reducing hospital admissions while delivering care specifically tailored to psychiatric needs. Unlike the MHCRT model, MHAAT has the capacity to transport patients.

SRC Disability Collective organises a free influenza vaccination drive for undergraduate students

Ellie Robertson reports.

On Tuesday 27th May, the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) will be holding a free influenza vaccine drive for all undergraduate students. The vaccine drive will be occurring between 9am and 12pm on Tuesday at the University of Sydney Camperdown campus.

In New South Wales alone, there have been over 30,000 confirmed cases of influenza between May 2024 and May 2025. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) released a statement noting that, of the 48,490 reported cases across Australia in the first few months of 2025, many of the cases were children and young adults. Of these, 30 per cent were between the ages of 1 and 14.

With the reported cases in Australia seeing an increase of over 50 per cent in comparison to previous years, experts are urging people to get their flu vaccine as early as possible. Between January 2025 and March 2025, the Australian Bureau of Statistics counted 84 deaths by influenza, and 516 deaths by COVID-19.

The SRC Disability Collective (DisCo) set up a ‘Mask Up!’ campaign at USyd in 2024, with the aim to promote “masking on and around campus”. A form for requesting free masks to wear to social and political events was

sent out and available to students through the SRC DisCo’s social media accounts. In Disabled Honi 2025, SRC Ethno-Cultural Officer Kayla Hill published an article on the importance of masking around campus, and how this would ensure better accessibility for immunocompromised people.

The flu vaccine drive campaign follows the findings that the university offers staff free vaccinations, but did not extend this offer to students. With the cost-of-living being noted by various specialists as a major cause of the decrease in uptake of the influenza vaccine, students are in a more vulnerable position when it comes to accessing healthcare.

Organiser and SRC General Secretary Grace Street told Honi: “This free vaccination program is an important part of a larger campaign to protect vulnerable people in our university and local communities and to raise awareness about masking and preventing the spread of viruses or diseases.

“During the current health and cost-of-living crisis facing young people and marginalised communities, it’s so important for the SRC to provide an accessible and free opportunity for students to get vaccinated. Equally, we

Industrial relations disputes are increasingly plaguing the healthcare sector. This proposal comes off the back of NSW Health’s dispute with public psychiatrists, resulting in mass resignation of the state’s psychiatrists and understaffing in mental healthcare. NSW Health is also addressing an ongoing dispute about dangerous working conditions and unfair pay with the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation (ASMOF) NSW.

The MHCRT program is intended to run alongside the MHAAT program. APA NSW says the program repurposes existing SOT paramedics rather than adding additional staff to address the core issue and address patients efficiently. There are less than 50 SOTs across Sydney. Currently, SOT paramedic capacity in NSW is at 49 per cent, meaning only 49 per cent of SOT shifts across locations being filled.

NSW Ambulance have refused negotiations with APA NSW, instead escalating the matter to the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC). On 12th May, the IRC made dispute orders forcing APA NSW industrial action to cease, citing “patient safety”. The dispute orders instructs APA NSW that they must not take or “induce, advise, authorise, support, encourage, direct, aid or abet members to organise or take industrial action”. Dispute orders are in place until 5pm 13th July and carry fines of up to $10,000 per day.

APA NSW intends to comply with the dispute orders. The union still demands that NSW Ambulance cease plans to use SOT paramedics for the MHCRT and instead urge an expansion of the evidencebased MHAAT beyond Western Sydney.

Read full article online.

should be doing everything we can to prevent the spread of viruses that can lead to huge medical bills (particularly for those without Medicare, such as international students) or needing an expensive or inaccessible doctor’s note for missed classes or assessments.

“This importantly highlights the University’s disregard for student safety — it is providing free vaccinations for staff, so why not for students?”

SRC Disability Officers Remy Lebreton and Vince Tafea commented: “The safety of the community at large depends on all of us playing our part and getting vaccinated. But, it’s hard for students to play their part under the immense financial pressure that we all find ourselves in.

“Vaccinations should be free, not something you have to budget for. We are so so proud of DisCo’s very own Grace Street spearheading this initiative.

“It is a testament to what can and should be done but is often sorely neglected by those outside disabilities advocacy spaces.

“Thank you Grace!!”

New On Dit editorial team announced after Adelaide University’s 2024 SRC election results were overturned

Imogen Sabey reports.

Adelaide University’s (AU) student union, YouX, appointed Kavya Ganapathy, Akshitha Ramadoss, and Pradeep Sundaramurti Ilango in May as the new editors of On Dit, AU’s student magazine.

The delay occurred because the 2024 union board election results were overturned in October 2024 by the YouX Election Tribunal. This resulted in the editorial elections of AU’s student magazine On Dit being declared void.

The decision to void the election was made following five separate allegations of electoral misconduct by members of the Progress faction, which is oriented towards and primarily composed of international students. Allegations included that some students were pressured to hand their phones to candidates, who cast votes for the Progress faction without their consent.

An anonymous source told Honi “I was personally shocked to read of the misconduct by some Progress candidates and campaigners, the blatant disregard to the rules and a slight “do whatever it takes” attitude in getting students to vote for them.”

The Reporting Officer (RO) heard a complaint from a student that at an event held by AU’s Chinese Students’ Association, “all participants were informed that in order to join the activities, we were required to vote for YouX committee members.

“To make matters worse, our phones were taken, and the votes were cast on our behalf, leaving us unable to vote for the candidates of our choice.” The student who reported the complaint said that he felt “both disrespected and deprived of my fundamental right to vote freely”.

For the student media election, complaints were received that campaigners did not wear lanyards, campaigned without being registered, and on several counts “crowded” voters, where the Code of Conduct states that campaigners can only speak to students one-on-one.

One team of On Dit editorial candidates, including Charlotte Whincup, Amber Lomax, Arantza Ferrand, and Shreya Pande, made a complaint to the Returning Officer about another team of candidates: Jennifer Tran, Harish Thilagan, Adrian Niculescu, and Raktim Argha.

Their complaint concerned Mock Dit, a mock version of the On Dit magazine which editorial candidates traditionally make for their campaign.

The complaint alleged that the candidates had failed to submit their Mock Dit by the campaign deadline. After the RO ruled that a late Mock Dit could not be approved, the candidates had used it in their campaigns without authorisation.

The complaining team argued that the RO had wrongly dealt with these complaints and that their severity meant that the electoral decision should be overturned.

The Election Tribunal recommended that another election be held, but YouX decided to launch a competitive application process instead, leading to the current team beginning their term in mid-March. An anonymous source described the electoral process as “chaotic”.

Two members of the current team, Ramadoss and Sundaramurti Ilango, campaigned in the 2024 election as Progress candidates.

Whincup spoke to InDaily about the application process, saying that her independent team withdrew their application in late February due to frustrations with the process.

After submitting their application in December 2024, they received “radio silence” from YouX until February 2025.

Whincup’s team then received a notice from YouX that further materials were required for their application, including a cover letter, a cover page, a two-page editorial article titled “The Recent Times – War, Ideologies, and

Nationals split from the Liberal Party

Imogen Sabey reports.

On Tuesday 20th May, David Littleproud, leader of the National Party, announced that his party would not re-enter a Coalition agreement with the Liberal Party, marking the first split of the Liberal-National Party (LNP) since 1987.

The next session of parliament will be on 1st July. This means the decision will become irrevocable, unless Littleproud reverses it.

This change means that the Nationals will form a minor party and sit separately to the Liberals. The Liberals will become the Opposition, as the largest non-government political party.

Littleproud visited Sussan Ley, minted leader of the Liberal Party, at her home in Albury on 15th May while she was looking after her mother.

The dissolution was made on the grounds that Ley would not unwaveringly support the four policies that the Nationals considered non-negotiable. These are supporting nuclear energy, the $20 regional Future Fund, the forced divestiture of supermarkets, and ensuring phone service in regional areas through the Universal Service obligations.

Ley declared in her opening speech as Liberal Party leader that all party policies were up for discussion. She commented on 20th May: “As was explained to The Nationals, the Liberal Party’s review of election policies

was not an indication that any one of them would be abandoned, nor that every single one would be adopted.”

Liberal staff spoke to The Australian revealing that the apparent “real” reason for the split was that Littleproud had demanded the right to a free vote for his shadow cabinet ministers, and the right to oppose the vote of the Liberals. The previous status quo was that frontbenchers would be bound to support party decisions.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers called the dissolution “a nuclear meltdown”. He added, “the Coalition is now nothing more than a smoking ruin.”

The Liberal-National Coalition has existed in some form since 1923, with occasional periods where the party broke up or contested federal elections as two distinct parties, which occurred in 1934 and 1987.

In the House of Representatives where the Australian Labor Party (ALP) holds a comfortable majority of 82 seats as confirmed by the Australian Electoral Commission, this will not make a substantive difference. The ALP does not need the support of the Liberals or Nationals to pass legislation.

However, in the Senate, Labor holds less power. Labor has 28 seats, while the Greens have 11, and the Liberals and Nationals had 26 seats when they were elected as a Coalition.

the Global Divide”, a summary of “your views on press freedom and your approach to politically sensitive topics as an editor”, and an “editorial vision statement”.

The other independent team received the same notice and complied with it.

Alec Tedesco, a member of the latter team, told InDaily that before receiving an application outcome, he had been approached by a YouX board member with an offer to join the ticket affiliated with Progress as an individual editor.

Tedesco refused to join the team as an individual editor, and in mid-March, his team was informed that their application had been unsuccessful.

Honi’s anonymous source commented on the “questionable” nature of the election. “When the Student Media Committee Chair takes sole ownership of the selection process and seeks to redo the process, despite non-political staff already having a shortlisted team, you have to question if the Chair wasn’t happy with the meritbased outcome. When the Chair asks teams to provide information and five brand-new articles — after the staff had already read their article submissions — you have to question why.

“When the selected team is from the same StuPol faction as the Chair — who made the decision to select them — then it’s clear a level of bias was introduced and it wasn’t an independent merit-based process.” They added, “When [this happens], you have to question the entirety of the process and its eventual outcome.”

The On Dit editors receive $7,500 per year for producing six print editions of their magazine.

The 2025 team announced pitch call-outs for their first edition on 8th April, which has not yet been printed.

Labor will need the support of either the Greens or the Liberals to pass legislation in the Senate, and if those parties both oppose, the ALP will need the support of the Nationals and crossbench.

Both Ley and Littleproud have signalled that they may be willing to work together in the future. Littleproud commented on the benefits of a “journey of self-discovery” for the Liberal Party.

Meanwhile, Ley said that while Littleproud’s announcement was “disappointing”, she added that “The Nationals’ door remains open, and our door remains open.”

Part One: The Tale of the Corporate University

A Story that I Can’t Do Justice in 3,232 Words but Something You Should Know About Anyway

Victor Zhang enrols.

The University of Sydney was established in 1850 by an act of NSW parliament. Most other universities in Australia are established by acts of state parliaments and are governed by a Council or Senate; and their respective state governments have theoretical oversight over the universities.

The persistent contradiction in the governance of universities is that, to this day, state governments, despite their legal requirements, do not view it as their responsibility for the provision, funding, and oversight of university education. Gough Whitlam’s sweeping reforms entrenched the full responsibility of the federal government to fund tertiary education, further divorcing the responsibility of state governments to universities. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) operating nationally means it has

the unenviable task of regulating disjointed independent operations that are each governed under their own state legislations.

The recent federal Senate inquiry into university governance was born out of decades of disquiet over mismanagement, wage theft, and the general sentiment that tertiary education as a whole has forgotten that its true purpose is for the public good.

I am not unaware of the enormity of my task condensing 83 years of history, spanning 20 prime ministers. Of course, each prime minister did not just have one minister for education (which has the added factor that often the role was split between a minister for education and a minister for tertiary or higher education or a minister for skills) over their term in government.

I begin my telling of the tale in 1942, elaborating on the detachment of universities from the Commonwealth, then detailing the cultural foundations of university education and Robert Menzies’s reforms in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Of course, I am compelled to talk of Gough Whitlam’s historic reforms to higher education and their enduring influence in the subsequent years. I explain the reforms made under the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating governments, spearheaded by Minister John Dawkins, and how they have made university education what they are today.

Sadly, the rest of the story spanning from 1996 to the present day must be left to another edition. Columns inches and all.

Four of the six ‘sandstone universities’ (University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, University of Adelaide, University of Tasmania) predate federation, with the University of Queensland established in 1909 and the University of Western Australia established in 1911. These universities were small independent operations established by state legislation, detached from the affairs of the Commonwealth. This is not to say the Commonwealth did not desire influence and control over the operations of universities.

in 1949 — for buildings on university campuses was naturally accepted given their working relationship with academia, but that this marked the beginning of the Commonwealth’s incursion and desire to influence the operation of universities.

Nowadays, research is considered a vital part of the essence of the university, with staff and students rushing to defend 40:40:20 — the division of an academic’s labour and time between teaching, research, and administration or service, in the ratio of 40:40:20 respectively — during enterprise bargaining.

Sir Keith Murray and Chair of the CSIRO Ian Clunies Ross to investigate and make recommendations on Australian universities as a whole. The 1957 Murray Report was the first instance of an investigation into the operations of universities by the Commonwealth government. The investigation was detailed, with the committee visiting each university to solicit submissions from not just the vice-chancellors but also from students and staff associations.

In the book A History of the Modern Australian University, historian Hannah Forsyth observes the historical detachment of universities to the Commonwealth government. During the Second World War, the Commonwealth did not directly requisition university resources but wrote a polite letter to vicechancellors asking them to volunteer for the war effort, to which they responded enthusiastically.

Our very own Honi Soit published an editorial in April 1942 titled Dig or be Damned! The editors and the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) implored the student body to “hew out a few ditches so that when bombs start falling…you’ll be able to… save your own shabby skins”. The SRC and the editors chastised the absentees and bemoaned the lacklustre efforts of those that did show up. Only a few months earlier, Singapore had fallen to the Empire of Japan and an invasion of Australia did not seem far off. An edition in May 1942 listed absentees by faculty and year and asked that they “explain their absence”.

Requisitioning students to dig was not the only encroachment onto these sandstone institutions. Forsyth notes that a request from the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) — which became the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

This was not always the case. Forsyth identifies that it was unusual when the Australian National University was established in 1946 as a research-only institution. The CSIR’s establishment in the interwar years primed the capacity for universities to engage in research useful for war efforts.

Robert Menzies

Liberal Party

Prime Minister 1949 - 1966

John Gorton Minister for Education and Research

Ian Clunies Ross Chair of the CSIRO

What was the purpose of universities then, if research was not at the core of what they did? Universities then were sandstone bastions of knowledge concerned with preserving ‘civilisation’ and ‘culture’, by which they meant so-called British civilisation and British culture.

Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies described universities as a “home of pure culture and learning” and academia as one of the “civilised and civilising things”.

He commissioned the Chair of the British University Grants Commission

Murray and Ross impressed the urgent need for intervention and reform of the university system, apologetically noting “our report is not so polished a work as we should like”. The Murray Report identified poor conditions in universities, high attrition rates, and poor research levels. Their recommendation was to increase expenditure, form a University Grants Committee modelled after their British counterparts, and investigate the distinction between university and technical education.

Menzies responded enthusiastically to the recommendations. Forsyth notes that Menzies funded universities more generously than any prime minister who preceded him. The Commonwealth also formed the Australian Universities Commission (AUC), entrenching the role of the federal government in steering the direction of higher education.

In 1965, the Martin Report, commissioned by the AUC, made the key recommendation for a ‘binary’ system of tertiary education. This adopted system separated universities, tasked with academia and research, and Colleges of Advanced Education (CAE), tasked with teaching and vocational education. These CAEs persisted until the early ‘90s. This separation mirrored the UK’s move to separate universities and polytechnics.

Menzies was also keenly aware of the need for technical and vocational education to supply skilled labour for a changing workforce. The system of separating universities and CAEs matched his desire for both ‘culture’ and a growing economy. This move also firmly placed research as the identifying attribute of universities.

Art by Mehnaaz Hossain

Trenches dug at the University of Sydney where Fisher Library sits in the present day / Credit: ABC News

A strongly worded editorial from 1942 Honi Soit editors imploring students to dig!

This takes naming and shaming to the next level

Gough Whitlam Labor Party Prime Minister 1972 - 1975

Kim Beazley Sr. Minister for Education

In this era, tuition was either paid by students or by Commonwealth scholarships, which only existed in a fixed quantity each year. In 1974, Gough Whitlam’s Labor Government abolished fees for tertiary education, something he had vowed to do while in opposition. Forsyth observes that the policy of fee abolition did not cost the government much, since it replaced the Commonwealth scholarship scheme that covered the majority of students attending university. The Whitlam Government also introduced the Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme, to provide support to students undertaking tertiary education, which persists to this day in the form of Centrelink programs Youth Allowance, Austudy, and Abstudy.

During Whitlam’s brief three years in government, higher education participation increased 25 per cent. Despite this, higher education policy researcher Andrew Norton’s critique of Whitlam’s policy of free education is that it did not make higher education more equitable — despite anecdotes of those from marginalised backgrounds saying they went to university because of Whitlam, the demographics of universities remained largely privileged and homogenous.

Additionally, fee abolition makes funding dependent on the federal government, amplifying the risk universities face during economic downturns. Indeed, the economic shocks of the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 affected the decisions of many young people to attend university — while enrolment growth slowed, it did not decline. Cementing funding as the full responsibility of the Commonwealth government made university planning economic policy.

Whitlam’s legacy cannot be understated; his policy of fee abolition is a potent symbol of the belief that higher education is a public good.

Malcolm Fraser

Liberal Party

Prime Minister

1975 - 1983

Margaret Guilfoyle

John Carrick

Wal Fife

Peter Baume Ministers for Education

Following Whitlam’s dismissal in 1975, the Liberal Malcolm Fraser Government was elected in December that year. The agenda at the time was to link education firmly to the economic needs of the country. John Carrick, the Education Minister, tasked the USyd Vice-Chancellor Bruce Williams to write the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Education and Training, or simply the Williams Report. The report provided a detailed analysis of the data that linked the benefits of higher education on the economy.

In a climate of economic instability and faced with the prospect of future growth in enrolments, Fraser certainly wished to reintroduce student fees to offset the pressures on the budget. He was unable to enact this proposal as it faced widespread opposition. Staff unions and student unions protested the proposal, having grown in numbers and militancy since the ‘50s. The move was so unpopular that even Vice-Chancellors joined. Forsyth notes that rebellious and well organised universities threatened to refuse fee collection if they were introduced.

Whitlam’s legacy was enduring. He cemented in the public consciousness the principle and necessity of free education.

No discussion of the Hawke-Keating era, named after Labor Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating who governed from 1983 to 1996, is complete without introducing the Prices & Incomes Accords and the global climate of neoliberalism. The Accords were a series of agreements between the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), where the unions agreed to restrain their wage demands for the purposes of curtailing inflation. In return, all workers were afforded a ‘social wage’.

The Public Service Reform Act (1984) sought to implement some recommendations from the Royal Commission on Australian Government

Administration commissioned under the previous Fraser Government. The reforms sought to have the public service emulate the private sector in management practices. Managerialism, as it is termed, is the belief that public service is best managed by a professional body of managers. This was accompanied with the erroneous belief that market principles and appropriate financial incentives could deliver socially desirable outcomes without direct political control.

Universities were not spared. Traditionally, the management of universities was done by fellow academics that were considered primus inter pares, “first among equals”. The proliferation of the neoliberal ideal created a managerial class, many of whom did not come from an academic background.

John Dawkins, as Hawke’s Education Minister, instituted wide-reaching reforms that cemented the system we are familiar with today. Dawkins released the Green Paper in 1987 and a White Paper in 1988, detailing his and the Labor government’s vision for the future of higher education. He also sought to bring higher education firmly under the control of the federal government by abolishing the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, which acted as a buffer between government and universities.

Under Dawkins, the ‘binary system’ of universities and CAEs was abolished, and many CAEs were elevated or merged with universities. The new system still retained two classes of education: university education and Technical and Further Education (TAFE). These mergers stemmed from a desire to see efficiencies achieved from economies of scale and the creation of an environment where large universities competed with each other to incentivise “excellence at all levels”.

These mergers meant universities burgeoned in administrative size, requiring more and new systems of management. Enter the wave of managerialism and private sector practices that had already spread across the public service; the role of the vicechancellor moved from a role as first among academics to full-time manager.

The newly established Australian Research Council (ARC) replaced the Australian Research Grants Committee with the intent to make research funding

competitive. The scarcity in research funding also allowed the Commonwealth government more levers by which to steer the direction of research. Funding would be distributed competitively to projects that aligned with the Commonwealth’s interest.

Forsyth recounts the fear amongst academics at the time that the ‘national interest’ would be preoccupied with science and engineering and less so with the humanities. Don Aitkin, the Chair of ARC, when questioned by Monash University as to why the sciences were getting more funding, responded that science had “fewer wankers”.

There also existed the push for academia to have greater partnership with industry. If universities could not align their research interests with the national interest for funding, perhaps they could align with commercial ones instead. ViceChancellor Philip Baxter of the University of New South Wales introduced a system of commercial partnerships in the ‘50s, but this did not proliferate to other universities until the Hawke-Keating era.

Accompanying this was an increase in the casualisation of the academic workforce. Most postgraduate academics were not young people who had just transitioned from undergraduate education — most were well into their 30s or older, many with families to support.

Unsurprisingly, in the era of the Prices & Incomes Accords, the industrial nature of higher education also changed. Forsyth observed that up until 1983, universities and education as a whole was not considered an industry, and therefore could not have industrial relations. Until 1983, all academics and their unions effectively had one ‘boss’, which was the Universities Commission; after 1974 their ‘boss’ became the Academic Salaries Tribunal. Sector-wide bargaining was characteristic of the industrial landscape prior to the Accords.

The Accords Mark VII in 1991 ushered in the move from sector bargaining to enterprise bargaining, where unions bargain with individual employers. Existing university associations and unions adapted to this brave new world of industrial relations and the constituent unions voted to form the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in 1993.

Bob Hawke

John Dawkins

Don Aitkin Chair of the Australian Research Grants Committee then the Australian Research Council

Paul Keating

Labor Party

Prime Minister

1991 - 1996

John Dawkins

Kim Beazley

Simon Crean

Ministers for Education

Peter Baldwin

Minister for Higher Education

Perhaps the change that is most familiar to readers would be the reintroduction of student fees through the Higher Education Contributions Scheme (HECS). Norton identifies five rationales for student contributions, namely: course costs, private benefits, public benefits, increased resources per student place, and incentivising course choices.

Where Fraser attempted to reintroduce fees and failed, Hawke tasked former NSW Premier Neville Wran with investigating how student contributions would be charged. Thus, the 1989 Wran Report was delivered and HECS, the brainchild of economist Bruce Chapman, was born.

The HECS system was a unique system where students would be charged for their studies after graduation, only if and when their income exceeded a certain threshold. This solution, unlike Fraser’s attempt to have universities collect fees, made sure that no money changed hands at the time of enrolment and that debts would be collected through the tax system. The use of ‘contribution’ was just subtly different enough that students weren’t outright ‘customers’.

Wran’s rationale was one of private benefits: graduates receive higher benefits in the form of higher employment rates and better earnings than non-graduates. Wran also made the appeal that free higher education should not be paid for by working class taxpayers for the benefit of a select few. Although, he conceded that graduates also present a benefit to the public, with the thinking that more doctors would lead to a healthier society.

Neville Wran

Labor Party

NSW Premier 1976 - 1986

Chair of the CSIRO 1986-1991

Chair of the Committee on Higher Education Funding

However, Wran did not believe it possible to determine exactly the split of public and private benefits conferred by a degree. Instead, he opted to set a flat fee to contribute to course costs.

The key to this model of dividing public and private benefits is the assumption that the knowledge university students acquire is no different to how they might acquire tools or equipment, and should thus be able to have an accompanying return on investment for their education.

Prior to Hawke, Menzies instituted the Colombo Plan; from 1951 to 1964, Australia sponsored and received over 5,000 students from Asia. The Commonwealth back then realised they were unlikely to attract foreign students given the White Australia Policy, and required a way to rehabilitate the nation’s image as a racist state. Menzies ensured that these students were given significant support and support officers that would check in on their progress.

When Hawke opened Australia to international students, the goal was not to rehabilitate Australia’s racist image but a desire for the wealth of the ‘rich asians’ to give higher education a much-needed cash boost. In addition, this framed education as an export and would result in fixing Australia’s balance of trade.

Around this time, there were also experiments with establishing private universities, following the argument that fees would incentivise providers to offer better quality teaching. Of the private universities that started, Bond University — founded in 1987 by businessman Alan Bond and backed by Joh Bjelke-Petersen — was one of the rare few that survived.

Central to these decisions was a desire for universities to be accountable. The question is, accountable to who?

As Forsyth notes, corporations are accountable shareholders, unions to their membership, and the public service to their minister. A university’s line of accountability is ill-defined, leaving them with simultaneously far too few and far too many lines of accountability.

Undoubtedly, the Hawke-Keating years saw the greatest expansion of university places. Norton places Dawkins as the Labor education minister that made the greatest difference for the working class. Despite this, these reforms have been bitterly criticised as a neoliberal assault on education, allowing market forces to

encroach on universities and introducing unwanted private sector management practices.

Akin to the discourse surrounding the Prices & Incomes Accords, there is debate on whether Labor’s educational reforms had the deliberate intent of ushering in neoliberalism or were simply due to its unstoppable global tide. Both the NTEU and National Union of Students (NUS), while advocating for a return to free education, accept that HECS is preferable to outright fee deregulation and privatisation. The reality is that the consequences of Dawkins, intended or not, have had a profound and not always positive effect on higher education as a whole.

Here it is clear that the modern university is the product of many contradictions. It is torn between its inception as a de facto independent entity established under state legislation and the desire of the Commonwealth to influence and control the research and steer the direction of the university. It is torn between its old ideal as a colonial ivory tower and the economic need to train skilled workers for a modern economy. It is torn between its purpose to educate and its purpose (and much more compelling incentives) to produce research.

This is unfortunately where I must leave you. The second part of this tale will begin with analysing the entrenchment of neoliberal ideals in higher education under the John Howard Liberal Government through 1996 to 2007. Then I will touch on the reforms of the Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard Labor Governments from 2007 to 2013, including the 2008 Bradley Review and the introduction of demanddriven funding.

The Liberal Governments that followed Rudd-Gillard attempted to bring fee deregulation back on the agenda to varying degrees of success, but ultimately culminated in the disastrous Job-Ready Graduates Package under the Scott Morrison Liberal Government. Finally, we will cover the work of the Anthony Albanese Labor Government, with a particular analysis on the Australian Universities Accords.

We will produce our diagnosis of what ails our university system and our vision for a future where education is seen as a right and a public good.

Mehnaaz Hossain, Ellie Robertson, Imogen Sabey, Charlotte Saker, William Winter, and Victor Zhang hand down the report card.

After Labor’s victory in the 2022 federal election, they were left to pick up the pieces of a deeply broken country, smashed to pieces by a decade of Liberal mismanagement. Sadly, Labor has not delivered the socialist utopia so-promised by Article 4 of their national constitution. Neither have they, in our view, delivered us a fully robust social democratic program.

We have heard all too often the rebuttal that Labor has had only three years to deal with a decade of Liberal mismanagement. So let us review what they have done in the past three years.

Gone are the days of Gough Whitlam, where a Labor leader would deliver sweeping changes in a scant three years before being deposed in an untimely manner by the CIA. What Anthony Albanese has delivered are timid steps in the right direction. It goes without saying that we are glad that we are not governed by the Liberals with their atomic pipe dream. If the Liberals were elected to power at the federal election, they would have undoubtedly undone the meagre progress Labor has achieved.

However, we are unsure if Labor is truly aware of the severity of the crises that we are facing right now: an existential threat of climate collapse, a system that treats housing as a commodity rather than a right leading to skyrocketing rates of homeleness, rising costs in basic necessities and healthcare, an epidemic of femicide, a lack of justice for First Nations peoples after 200 years, and an ongoing genocide unfolding in Gaza. We are left to ask, is small piecemeal progress all you have to offer?

Despite their recent resounding victory in the 2025 federal election, it remains unlikely that they will deliver the sweeping changes that we so desperately need. We have seen Labor unwilling to listen to their rank-andfile and even their own National Platform. It remains on you as a vigilant citizen to hold them to account for the continued goals they have promised.

Housing

In a cost-of-living crisis, housing has always been one of Labor’s most pressing electoral issues. Their election campaign included a hefty promise of $10 billion to build 100,000 homes for first-home buyers, and to set a 5 per cent mortgage rate for first-home buyers.

However, Labor doesn’t have a promising track record when it comes to building houses. A similar policy called the Social Housing Accelerator, established in June 2023, cost $2 billion dollars and resulted in the construction of “at least” 119 houses. This includes 68 in NSW and 38 in Queensland, according to data from February 2025. If, during three years of government, Labor is capable of producing 119 houses, then they are woefully ill-equipped to uphold the 100,000 additions that they have promised.

Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) is one of its keystone policies, costing $500 million per annum with the objective of building 40,000 homes by 2029. This is also projected to fall well short of expectations, but isn’t quite as dismal: as of February 2025 there are 977 dwellings in NSW currently under construction, while over in Victoria there are 2,292. The remainder of Australia has 2,172 under construction. The HAFF has listed over 350 homes as ‘completed’, in a list that includes purchased houses alongside constructed houses.

Meanwhile, the Labor government has yet to repeal negative gearing, a crippling policy introduced by the Liberals, or the Capital Gains Tax (CGT). Clare O’Neil, former Housing Minister, deflected preelection criticism by claiming that Labor’s focus is on “supporting renters, helping homeowners”. CGT and negative gearing have been a distasteful topic to Labor for many years, having cost them the election in 2019, and many in Labor consider demand reforms for housing political poison. It remains to be seen whether, following their considerable victory, they will feel remotely impelled to touch the policies that they have hitherto persistently neglected.

Healthcare

Labor’s first term in Government post-COVID has forced them to reckon with the realities of a struggling health system buckling under pressure, giving them ample reason to enact urgent reform in healthcare.

Labor introduced their Building A Stronger Medicare policy in 2023. In a bid to encourage general practitioner (GP) bulk billing, Labor increased indexation for the GP Medicare rebate, and delivered the largest investment in bulk billing incentives in 40 years. The bulk billing rate in December 2024 was 77 per cent, down from 85 per cent in pre-COVID 2018.

Despite incentives, more than two thirds of GPs, according to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), will refuse to exclusively bulk bill; many still charge higher ‘gap fees’ to compensate for rising infrastructure costs. Labor has not increased the Medicare rebate in their 2025-26 Budget, nor provided sector-wide reform, meaning many Australians will continue to find GP visits inaccessible and expensive.

To take pressure off emergency departments, Labor has opened 87 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics (UCCs) since 2023, which have received, in total, 400,000 visits from Australians. However, the Australian Medical Association and RACGP have critiqued UCCs, saying that their efficacy has yet to be researched and the $227m spent on them would be better spent on general practice.

In addition to GPs and hospitals, Labor attempted to deal with the mental health crisis. Mental health is the most common presentation in GP clinics, and is

also the leading cause of death among young adults. Labor’s 2023-24 budget included valuable initiatives such as $260.2 million in funding for people with severe mental illness who are ineligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), and $91.3 million to increase the psychology workforce. However, according to mental health peak body Mental Health Australia, Labor lacked a “long-term funded roadmap for reform”. Labor’s second term 2025-26 budget was shamefully absent of any new policy or funding to combat the mental health crisis.

Overall, Labor have attempted to revitalise a struggling primary healthcare system through piecemeal incentives and programs. They have made some advances in bulk billing and provided better access to urgent care, but delivered exceptionally little in terms of mental health and systemic, long-term healthcare reform.

Disability & NDIS

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has been one of Labor’s most contentious policies. The NDIS has undoubtedly given support to the most vulnerable amongst us, but one must sit with the uncomfortable truth that the heart of disability support is market-based strategies? In the 2025-2026 financial year, the NDIS is set to cost approximately $50 billion. Given that it cost $32.5 billion in 2022-2023, it is likely to grow significantly over the coming years. In the 2024-2025 financial year, NDIS comprised 1.7 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Over 700,000 people are registered for the NDIS, which is projected to rise to a million people by 2032. Legislation passed in 2024 under the Labor government saw a major slash in funding and efforts to reform by improving the timeframe for approving rules, and a move from absolute support to majority support for rule changes for people with disabilities that might have significant impacts.

The difficult balance is to spend enough money to fund NDIS and adequately support the hundreds of thousands of Australians who benefit from it while preventing a budget blow-out. Labor’s goal for this financial year was to reduce the growth rate from 12 to 10 per cent, which they have achieved, spending $700 million less than forecast. From 2026 onwards, they plan to have the growth rate stabilise at 8 per cent.

An audit conducted by the Australian National Audit Office in 2023 found that, on a broad scale, it was “partly effective”, “largely fit for purpose” and recommendations from previous audits had been “partly implemented”. The National Disability Insurance Agency agreed with all 13 of the recommendations given in this audit, except for one recommendation that “The Australian Government aligns the fraud control requirements for the National Disability Insurance Agency with those of non-corporate Commonwealth entities.”

Industrial Relations

Attempting to live up to their name, the Albanese Labor government has taken to reforming the industrial relations system. They have delivered much needed progress that is albeit slow and piecemeal. Their industrial relations reforms are of their stronger offerings as a government, although that is hardly a high bar considering the dismal state the Liberals left industrial relations in.

The national minimum wage was raised from $21.38 an hour in 2022 to $24.10 an hour in 2024. These raises to the hourly rates were also accompanied by raises to award rates.

Here, Albanese did not cave to the fearmongering of business over the wage-price spiral, something that could not have been expected given that the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out 14 years of real wage growth.

However, the Albanese Government has not yet acceded to widespread calls to abolish junior rates, a system that allows those under the age of 21 to be paid less than the minimum wage.

The Secure Work, Better Pay amendments to the Fair Work Act passed in 2022 placed gender pay equity and anti-discrimination as an objective of the Act, prohibited pay secrecy, and abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and the Registered Organisations Commission (ROC). The Construction, Forestry, and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) was granted a brief period of respite with that last one.

These amendments also opened up more opportunities for collective bargaining across different employers, a small step towards reclaiming sector bargaining. The amendment introduced the “single-interest stream” which allowed workers with common interests to engage in collective bargaining where it is in the public interest to do so.

Independent Senator David Pocock, who held the balance of power in the Senate, poked holes in the amendments by introducing restrictions on the proposed arrangements and excluding the building and construction industry from multiemployer bargaining.

The 2023 Closing Loopholes amendments to the Fair Work Act compelled firms to pay labour hire the same rates as their own employees under an enterprise agreement. This reform addressed the rampant use of labour hire as a way to cut labour costs by large transport and mining companies.

This package also amended the Commonwealth

Work Health and Safety Act criminalising ‘industrial manslaughter’, making it easier to prosecute employers negligent in protecting their workers. The amendments also made it a criminal offence to intentionally underpay employees.

Closing Loopholes also made a first step into tightening the definition of an employee. Road transport owner-drivers and digital platform workers became ‘regulated workers’, allowing the intervention of the Fair Work Commission (FWC). It’s time to unionise your Uber driver!

Closing Loopholes No. 2 redefined the meaning of casual employment and importantly gave the employee the ability to provide notice to their employer after six months of employment that they wished to become a permanent employee should they believe they no longer fit the definition of casual employment. Employers are then obligated to respond to the employee within 21 days accepting the change or denying it with justification.

The amendment also redefined employer and employee to crack down on instances of ‘sham contracting’, where employees are incorrectly classified as contractors for the purposes of withholding benefits they would be otherwise entitled to.

Also introduced was the ‘right to disconnect’, the ability for an employee to reasonably refuse to respond to out-of-hours contact. The impact of this policy so far is that the average amount of unpaid overtime has in fact fallen.

Another small gain was the ability of the FWC in issuing exemptions to right of entry permits for union officials to worksites they suspect of wage theft. This remains a far cry from the unfettered ability of a union to set up shop in any workplace they pleased.

Perhaps most hopeful is the rise in union membership with a 12.5 per cent increase (200,000 members) from 2022 to 2024. In real terms this meant union density grew from 12.5 per cent to 13.1 per cent. Union membership grew the most amongst young workers.

The path forward to combat the entrenched neoliberal structures that favour the bosses over the workers requires not just increased union membership, but an increase in the militancy of the membership. The Labor government could do well to encourage this by paving the way for sectorwide bargaining to return. There is no doubt that a Liberal government has every intention of undoing these changes. Like many other aspects of the Albanese Government’s policies, we’re not saying no, but we’re asking is that all you can do?

Femicide

Over the past three years, Australia has seen a major increase in femicide. Femicide is the murdering of women by a man on the basis of misogynistic ideologies. Gendered violence can happen in the form of domestic violence (DV), sexual violence (SV), and general abuse. With an appalling high number of 103 women killed in 2024, it is notable that Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has still not deemed this as a national emergency.

In the 2022 federal budget, the Labor government invested $3.4 billion into the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 20222032. This was approximately 0.5 per cent of the budget dedicated to the safety of over half the population.

When the 2023/24 federal budget was released, the Labor government promised to dedicate $925.2 million into providing victim-survivors with support to leave domestically abusive relationships. This policy implementation, while the intention is helpful, is only beneficial for a short period of time (8 to 12 weeks). In 2024, What Were You Wearing (WWYW) organised an array of rallies across Australia. PM Albanese attended the rally in Canberra, interrupting the rally and forcing the organisers to let him speak on the issue. This created many concerns around him silencing the voices of victim-survivors.

Whilst these implementations are a good step forward for the eradication of the femicide epidemic, Albanese needs to call it what it is before the government can even begin to productively address the issue.

Climate Change

Labor has been playing tennis with climate change policy these last three years, and doing it quietly. Labor has chipped away at smaller climate change policies which are arguably developing the infrastructure for broader climate action: almost $200 million in reef protection policies up to 2050, $20 billion to ‘modernise and rebuild’ Australia’s energy grid, and funding for 2,500 apprenticeships in new energy sectors.

We’re still signed on and ‘committed’ to the Paris Climate Agreement of a 43 per cent reduction in climate emissions by 2030, which shouldn’t feel like an achievement but unfortunately is in our current climate. According to RMIT Australia, the only environmental election promise which has been ‘broken’ by the Government over the last four years has been the recovery of 450 gigalitres of water for South Australia from the MurrayDarling Basin.

Climate policy is a key case of underpromising and delivering exactly. Labor has continued to approve new coal and gas mines, including the expansion of four coal mines last year.

The Paris Climate Agreement was never and will never be enough to create meaningful change in the prevention of global warming. With majority leadership, Labor is hoping to make actionable change on their commitment to 82 per cent renewable energy in Australia by 2030. There is no evidence that this is plausible, feasible, or realistically a priority in the eyes of Labor.

It is easy for the policy being passed by the Labor party to be perceived as a victory when the opposition have essentially no grounded or realistic policy which will reduce emissions or make any active change towards genuine environmental protection. While there is still much to do to abate the existential climate crisis, we can hope that the Labor party is able to (climate) change their policies dramatically for the better, and soon.

First Nations

Where else to start with First Nations policy than the failed Voice to Parliament referendum of 2023. A marquee promise of their 2022 campaign, it was appalling and unsurprising to watch Labor let misinformation and fear-mongering shake their referendum campaign so deeply that the supposedly introductory policy to the Uluru Statement from the Heart was so devastatingly smited.

We’ve seen no progression as to any of the three key parts of the Uluru Statement from the Heart from the Labor Government. In the 2022-2023 budget, $5.7 billion was invested in First Nations policy, predominantly focused on remote housing, educational access, and the ‘Closing the Gap’ Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

The Labor Government’s turn towards the economically focused ‘Closing the Gap’ initiatives fails to comprehend the deep emotional wounds which keep First Nations in a cycle of disenfranchisement. As of 2024, five of the nineteen policies outlined in the official ‘Closing the Gap’ were on track to be reached in any capacity. First Nations incarceration rates continue to rise, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island prisoners rising in numbers by 15 per cent over the 20232024 period.

We are also still a fractured nation. There has been no attempt from the Government to acknowledge the damage done to First Nations communities from the horrific and vulnerable way they were exposed to vitriol and retraumatisation due to the failed referendum. Labor allowed Peter Dutton and the Liberals to stomp all over the last federal

election with their vows to lower the Aboriginal flag, remove the First Nations ambassador position, and excise the Welcome to Country from Government proceedings.

Labor broke their election promise of establishing a Makarrata, or truth-telling, Commission having not established one by the 2025 federal election. It would seem in 2024, Albanese was already getting cold feet.

Money is not a bandaid. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities need a much deeper and more holistic approach to Truth, Treaty, and Reconciliation if we are to ever expect to “close the gap”.

AUKUS

AUKUS is the trilateral agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, which began in 2021 under the Morrison government. It is estimated to cost a whopping $368 billion, for us to buy three submarines outright and build another eight.

Australia has struck a deal with the U.S. to purchase three Virginia-class submarines in the meantime, because it’ll take decades to build the ones that the government has ordered. That means that when we do get the submarines that Morrison was so keen on, they’ll already be out of date.

Where we could be spending these hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on issues like the costof-living crisis or climate change, our government has chosen to spend it on the military. And although Morrison is no longer in charge, Albanese has no less enthusiasm for the initiative. His government has increased AUKUS funding to $18 billion over five years, so that the projected cost is now around $375 billion. The current defence budget is around $59 billion per annum and represents 6.6 per cent of the government’s total expenditure.

While the Group of Eight have supported AUKUS, a number of academics signed an open letter in 2023 arguing that “the public case for AUKUS has yet to be made with any degree of rigour or reliability.” Meanwhile within Labor itself, there is widespread opposition in the rank-and-file. Groups like Labor Against War and various Labor parliamentarians have opposed nuclear submarines and called for the party to alter its stance on nuclear submarines.

In the run up to the 2025 federal election rankand-file Labor member and Convenor of Labor Against War Marcus Strom vowed that the rank-and-file “will insist that a returned ALP government sink AUKUS and put it on the pile of bad Scott Morrison ideas, which we should have done in 2022.”

Palestine

Labor has been delicately managing to offend just about everyone in their response to the Palestinian genocide and the impacts that have been felt in Australia. Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have steadfastly denied recognising Palestine as a state with rights to selfdetermination and to not be massacred by Israel.

While they have called for an immediate ceasefire and unhindered aid access, they haven’t done much more. Labor refuses to commit to sanctions against Israel, to cut ties with them or to support the Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement. They do not call out the genocide that is taking place, and whatever statements they do make urging Israel to exercise ‘caution’ they do so in the company of other Western nations.

Labor has taken no decisive or substantive action on Palestine or offered anything other than verbal support for the Palestinians, while continuing to support, affirm and partner with the occupying state of Israel. Despite the recognition of the State of Palestine being in Labor’s National Platform, they have failed to do so while in government.

Since the 2025 federal election Labor’s trend of verbal support and substantive apathy has continued. While Foreign Minister Penny Wong signed a joint statement with 22 other countries to call for immediate resumption of aid to Gaza on 19th May, 2025, she did not go so far as to threaten sanctions in the case that Israel ignored the demand. Her failure to do so was criticised by former frontbencher Ed Husic.

When Labor parliamentarians choose to stand up against the timid views of their caucus colleagues, they are pushed to the sidelines like Senator Fatima Payman or demoted like Anthony D’Adam MLC. Payman eventually left the party altogether after no longer being able to accept the caucus binding to a morally incongruous position. Despite Labor’s rank-and-file support for Palestinian liberation, federal Labor cannot bring themselves to listen to either their rank-and-file or their own National Platform.

The election has made Labor even more emboldened to undermine the genocide in Palestine, interpreting the sweep of Labor seats and loss of Greens seats as an indication that Australian people do not care about the genocide. As University of Sydney students can attest, this is patently untrue. Labor’s track record of ignoring the atrocities in Gaza and appeasing the Israeli government is an indictment to their ineptitude and moral spinelessness.

Taxation

The Labor Party claimed victory in the 2022 Australian Federal Election, after almost 7 years of The Liberal Party playing roulette with their leaders. Now, they’ve claimed an even greater victory in 2025. With Australia about to embark on an eight year Labor term, we must deep dive into their taxation reforms over the past 3 and a half years and determine whether meaningful progress has been made, or will be made.

2022-2023

Labor’s Budget from 2022-23 did not contain major tax changes, but sought to begin “Budget repair work,” by creating a fairer taxation system and avoiding adding inflationary pressures to the economy.

The Government began with the difficult task of fiscal repair with $28.5 billion in budget improvements. Their main aim was to close tax loopholes to ensure multinational companies paid their fair share of tax in Australia and improve integrity through higher levels of tax compliance.

Multinationals operating across borders shift profits to low or no tax jurisdictions to avoid paying tax in Australia. To combat this and improve transparency, the Labor Government introduced a multinational tax integrity package centred at raising around $1 billion over four years. They also aimed to extend compliance programs for tax avoidance, shadow economy and personal income tax, raising $3.7 billion over four years. In turn, they worked with international communities to reform the international corporate tax system and better address the challenges arising from digitalisation and globalisation.

The Government did not announce any personal tax rate changes. The Stage 3 tax changes were to commence from 1st July 2024, as previously legislated by the Coalition in 2018 and 2019. Labor expressed concerns that these cuts were going to disproportionately benefit higher-income earners. The 2022-23 October Budget ceased the low and middle income tax offset (LMITO) to the 202223 income year, instead replaced by a low income tax offset (LITO). The March 2022-23 Budget increased the LMITO by $420 for the 2021-22 income year so eligible individuals (with taxable incomes below $126,000) received a maximum LMITO up to $1,500 for 2021-22 (instead of $1,080).

Since there was no extension of the LMITO, lowto-middle income earners saw their tax refunds from July 2023 reduced by between $675 and $1,500 (for incomes up to $90,000 but phasing out up to $126,000), all other things being equal.

2023-2024

In the 2023-24 Budget, the Government did not announce any personal tax rate changes. The Stage 3 personal income tax cuts were to commence 1 July 2024 as previously legislated. The 32.5 per cent marginal tax rate was cut to 30 per cent for the $45,000 to $200,000 tax bracket while The 37 per cent tax bracket was entirely abolished.

Medicare levy thresholds across all categories increased, with the medicare levy exemption. Eligible lump sum payments in arrears (money that is owed and ought to have been paid earlier) were exempt from Medicare levy for low-income taxpayers provided they satisfy eligibility requirements. This change commenced from 1 July 2024.

Labor introduced BEPS Two Pillar Solution start dates to address base erosion and profit shifting. They introduced a 15 per cent global minimum tax rate for large multinational enterprises, introduced on 1st July 2024. Further, a measure proposing denying tax deductions for payments related to intangible assets held in low or notax jurisdictions, discontinued in 2023-24. This measure, initially intended to prevent significant global entities (SGEs) from exploiting intangible assets in low-tax jurisdictions, is now being replaced by the implementation of OECD’s Pillar Two Global Minimum Tax and Domestic Minimum Tax.

While once again no mention on personal tax cuts, that does come in due time. At this time the Government was facing significant budget deficits and rising national debt, projected to exceed $1 trillion in the 2025-2026 financial year. They were also reevaluating the stage 3 tax cuts to provide more equitable relief across different income brackets which required additional time for policy development. To address these challenges, the government prioritised fiscal responsibility and a delay in substantive tax cuts. Most of all, they were being strategic ahead of elections. Labor timed the personal tax cuts for the 2025 March Budget, 2 months away from the Federal election, to bolster public support and remind the Coalition that the public don’t want their conservative rhetoric staining the nation. Clearly, it worked.

2024-2025

The 2024–25 Budget marked a notable shift in focus for the Labor government, blending shortterm relief with longer-term industrial strategy. The extension of the $20,000 instant asset writeoff offers continued support for small businesses, but it’s largely a holdover or a steady measure rather than bold reform.

Running from 2027-28 to 2040-41, the introduction of major tax incentives for critical minerals and renewable hydrogen signalled a more interventionist approach, aiming to grow Australia’s sovereign capacity in clean energy and high-value manufacturing.

In contrast to the more reactive, crisis-focused budgets of the early 2020s, there was also a tougher stance on multinational tax avoidance, with a new penalty from July 2026 for global firms undervaluing royalty payments. Interestingly, Labor scrapped its earlier plan to deny deductions for payments to tax havens, possibly indicating a more pragmatic shift in certain areas. They’re band-aid measures, but are laying groundwork for structural reforms.

2025-2026

The 2025-2026 Budget that was handed down in March centred around the cost of living crisis. Their tax cut reforms were ‘modest,’ but were to be taken in stride with the extra funding for medicare and PBS schemes. For now, Australian taxpayers will receive further personal income tax cuts from 1 July 2026. Labor’s main changes are in the $18,201 to $45,000 wage bracket which previously experienced tax rates of 16 per cent. The Government has reduced the rate by one whole percentage point to 15 per cent which will start on 1 July 2026, and continue decreasing to 14 per cent by 1 July 2027. At 15 per cent if you earn over $45,000 there’ll be a tax cut of $268 a year, and at 14 per cent, a tax cut of $538. Chalmers argued this tax cut would deliver the largest relative benefits to workers on lower incomes. Maybe tax the rich a little more instead of relying on marginal tax cuts. You’ve got three years to do it.

There was much more we could have said about Labor’s actions (or lack thereof) over the past three years. We have not touched on Albanese and Jason Clare’s education policy and reforms, although do stay tuned for part two to the feature The Tale of the Corporate University, we will have a lot to say there. Neither have we touched on other aspects of Labor’s foreign policy, Labor’s performance on advancing queer rights, other aspects of Labor’s environmental reforms (to be specific, the torpedoing of the environmental protection agency), and their ambition to revitalise the domestic manufacturing industry.

We do not have a naïve hope that one day Labor will wake up and suddenly do the right thing. It is absurd that we have to affirm that a Labor government is preferable to a Liberal government, but the true change we need will not come from above but from all of us engaged in collective struggle.

Editor’s note: Mehnaaz Hossain is a member of the Australian Greens, Victor Zhang is a member of the ALP, NSW Branch.

Towards Anti-Gentrification in Sydney

My friends and I scour domain.com, searching for a semi-affordable share house near the University of Sydney. Nothing meets our budget; I trawl through Redfern, Glebe, and Marrickville. The rent in these suburbs, formerly industrial or working-class hubs, has skyrocketed exponentially, particularly post-COVID. The average house rents for $1,000 a week in Redfern, $1,050 in Glebe, and $950 in Marrickville. The maximum weekly youth allowance rate for unmarried, childless adults living away from their parents’ home is $331.65. These areas are rapidly gentrifying and becoming increasingly unaffordable; students cannot afford to live near campus, and those in the local community are being priced out of their homes as an influx of landed gentry arrive on their doorstep.

Gentrification and Capital

Through the application of Marxian economics, we can make sense of gentrification through ‘geographical materialism’. In Greater Sydney, uneven development clearly derives from the colonial introduction of capitalism to the basin. Radical heterodox political economy generally acknowledges the historic settler colonial frontier as primitive accumulation manifest, relative to Marx’s critique. Such colonial developments within Australia coalesce with the international historic and ongoing offenses of imperialism.

In the urban context, gentrification in Sydney consolidates a spatially stratified class structure which corresponds with ethnographic intersections; race and gender. A critique of gentrification on the lone basis of whiteness, then, is misguided as the intersectional composition of settler colonialism contributes to the commodification of Aboriginal land.

Reducing causes of gentry to settler presence and labour rightfully criticises the white supremacist architecture of historic Australian populate or perish policy, as Randah Abdel-Fattah has written in her book Islamophobia and Everyday Multiculturalism in Australia. However, the basis of capitalist critique fuses wage-labour, adjacent to colonial reliance on slavery, with the industrial scale appropriation of land and natural resources for commodification in order to materialise into market goods.

While the State formally represents the persistence of the colonial project, its developments in financial markets reveals the cause of gentrification — uneven development — to be in the movements of capital.

Capital compels governments to adopt the most insidious form of gentrification: state sanctioned relocation, visible through the neoliberal logic of moving public housing estates away from ‘desirable’ locations to build private or commercial housing. The Sirius building, renowned for its Brutalist architecture and located in harbourside neighbourhood The Rocks, was designed to house public tenants displaced by

redevelopment in the area. In 2019, the NSW government sold the building to developers and residents were forcibly relocated; it has now been “reimagined and reinvented as luxury homes”. In 2025, there remain large swathes of public housing in coastal areas such as Maroubra, Hillsdale, and Pagewood. These were initially industrial areas or designed to house the public and working class, much like Glebe in the Inner West. Unlike Glebe, it has managed to remain so, but they remain potential victims to government gentrification given the everincreasing value of land proximate to the ocean.

The argument for potential policy from the government — which could be dubbed ‘noble gentrification’ — is simple neoliberal market logic. It follows as such: the value of housing commission land in the South East rises exponentially; after selling desirable land to developers, the profits are used to create significantly more public housing on different land. This land is, in the interest of financial costs and acreage, often in Western Sydney or the outskirts of the city’s metropolitan region. It is often disconnected from the level of public transport, infrastructure, and amenities these residents otherwise had access to in South East Sydney. Forcible relocation of vulnerable communities through government gentrification has a myriad of economic, social, and political harms.

As Eda Gunaydin has written on Parramatta, in her essay Second City, current gentrification is historically connected to the initial dispossessions of land since the colonial frontier. The Western Suburbs are associated with unique demographics among broader Sydney with more diverse non-European populations, and higher concentrations of constituents with English as a second language. Yet, immigrant settler history has gradually overlaid Indigenous history.

In Parramatta, changes in individual income quartiles from 2006–2021 hypothesise a gentrification effect of lower income individuals becoming priced out of the local government area. Within the period, growth in medium-highest and highest income quartiles outpace the growth in medium-lowest and lowest. Concurrently, change in housing rental quartiles shadow the trend of income.

Over the fifteen year period, the increased number of households in the upper two rental payment quartile groups, relative to decelerated growth in the lower two, reveals a trend of aggregate rent-cost increase. This data is sourced from Western Sydney University’s research organisation ‘.id Community’.

Highly organised, neoliberal, statesanctioned gentrification maximises class and wealth stratification to the fullest extent and further widens the Indigenous gap and entrenches class structures.

Resisting Gentrification

For anti-gentrification movements to have intersectional purpose, anticapitalist critiques against privatisation must consist of decolonial-feminist notions of post-capitalist reality. Anti-gentrification necessitates anticapitalism, not just a superficial critique of housing bubbles which provoke the question: ‘affordability’ for whom?

Unless anti-gentrification is tied to Land Rights, the colonial a priori assumption of humans as dominant over nature which validates the logic of commodification, thus of land. In the settler colonial Australian context, it is vital that decolonial, post-capitalist conceptualisations are led by whom we dispossess. But it is not an excuse for settlers to remain idle.

Ethan Floyd’s PULP article Towards a Blak Australia Policy commences an effective strategy for post-capitalist realisation beyond academic theory. Floyd also brings into focus the existential dimension of gentrification as displacement, that “under settlercolonialism, even the air is stolen from us.” Creating a post-gentrification reality must not be entirely delegated to the realms of ‘policy’, but part of the political lives we live as constant actors of praxis.

Action

Resisting requires sustained and collective action. For example, the Waterloo public housing precinct is being demolished and redeveloped for mixed-use housing, forcing almost one thousand people, many Indigenous, to relocate. Government gentrification is particularly harmful for Indigenous people, who make up a significant cohort in housing commissions, up to twice the national average, due to centuries of disenfranchisement and systemic racism. Indigenous communities also have unique and deep cultural ties to the land, frequently spending multiple generations in the same area; thus, relocation must be resisted against as a form of cultural violence enacted by the state.

Pressure from grassroots community organisations and local residents have resulted in significant amendments from the original Waterloo redevelopment plan. The new developments are still designed for a level of gentrification: 50 per cent will be privately owned, and the homes set aside as ‘affordable’ housing are unaffordable for low income earners. Despite this, after years of campaigning and action, the Redfern-Waterloo Aboriginal Affordable Housing Campaign were able to eventually secure their demands that 10 per cent of the units will be made available for First Nation peoples.

Mutual Aid

As a model of income redistribution, mutual aid materially addresses the immediate effects of gentrification. Fundamentally, the mutual structure allows for disengagement from private lending which induces cumulative debt cycles. Mutual aid itself is not enough, as institutional wealth redistribution obviously requires a scaling beyond local progressive communities; too often this looks like wealth cycling between those being gentrified. However, the mutual aid model can collaboratively reconfigure methodological individualism as a Eurocentric core economic assumption and manifestation of financial behaviour. Mutual aid thus undermines an ideological and material demarcation of class, which has become internalised through accumulations of wealth from one’s wage, salary or allowance.

Divestment

Those of us who mainly engage in markets through the sale of our labour have a moral obligation to realise the role of superannuation as a portfolio for superfunds. The growth in wealth conducted by superfunds, on our behalf as students and workers, indirectly engages our accrued savings with domestic and international financial markets. Our selection of superfunds and the portfolios which our superannuations diversify into is an opportunity to directly engage in divestment. Beyond divestment in land development firms which induce gentrification, the adoption of an economically critical financial strategy of divestment from fossil fuel energy firms, and weapons manufacturers for instance, attempts to devalue those industries.

Alongside immediate, practical actions and distributions which confront gentrification, the understanding of land acquisition as directed by the interests of capital means financial markets must not escape activist strategy. Of course capital will not save us from capitalism. But the financial markets which direct the movements of capital itself must not escape the logic of anti-gentrification, and further, movements towards postcapitalist development.

Mehnaaz Hossain and Jayden Nguyen unpack.

Against Introspection:

Gillian Rose’s Enduring Wisdom

Grace Lagan rediscovers the philosophy of Gillian Rose, 30 years on from her untimely death.

“While men proceed on their developmental way,” the late Australian feminist academic Dale Spender once observed, “women are confined to cycles of lost and found”.

Spender’s analysis of the way female scholars — and particularly, female philosophers — are excluded from history is one that, regrettably, still rings true over 40 years after it was first published. That being said, the unholy alliance of literary magazine columnists, publishing houses, and university students procrastinating their final exam study, have a funny way of rediscovering such authors at the precise political and cultural moment that their work is most needed. For our times, that person is Gillian Rose: English philosopher, critical theorist, and chair of Social and Political thought at the University of Warwick until her death from ovarian cancer aged just 48.

Rose is a notoriously difficult thinker. Fellow philosopher Howard Caygill’s preface to her first book, An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno, noted that “readers looking to be introduced were quickly dismayed”. She draws upon an unwieldy array of sources from philosophy to theology, legal theory to the Sturm und Drang literary movement. Reading Rose feels like walking with a friend who is always a couple of paces ahead of you. She takes her readers seriously, enthusiastic about their ability to grapple with her ideas. But at the end of the page, you’ve either kept pace with her or you haven’t. She doesn’t wait for stragglers.

What initially drew me to Rose was not her work, but rather her understanding of the learning process itself. “You need to read Hegel, then you need to read all of Hegel’s sources, in German, then in Greek”, according to former student Jenny Turner’s account of Rose’s pedagogical instructions in the London Review of Books. “Go out, watch films, eat Indian food. Go home and start rereading Hegel and all his sources and everything else again”, Turner noted.

This idea of learning as a long, thicketed process that loops back in on itself feels nostalgic in the age of the corporate university. Exam-ready scaffolds and AI summaries of course content are a pervasive, if unedifying, way to pass units, as are the several weeks that pass without reading a page of fiction or seeing friends at this pointy end of the semester. For

that reason, it feels all the more vital. As Hegel — the subject of a great deal of Rose’s work — observed in Phenomenology of Spirit, genuine knowledge “must travel a long way and work its passage” before it can be acquired. The fact that you can’t learn anything of value from copying and pasting lecture slides is a wonderful evolutionary trait, and one that I hope we don’t lose anytime soon.

In 2024, two new editions of books by Rose were issued by major publishing houses. Marxist Modernism, published by Verso, is a compilation of a 1979 series of introductory lectures Rose gave on the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Love’s Work, published by the Penguin Modern Classics imprint, is a memoir of Rose’s life written between her cancer diagnosis and death in 1995. What seems like an unusual pairing of works makes perfect sense when viewed in the context of Rose’s final lectures, which warned of the fascistic risks that come with choosing to engage in nostalgic introspection over concrete political action. This argument has undeniable roots in the Frankfurt School, most obviously in the notion of ‘Left-Wing Melancholy’ developed by Walter Benjamin.

The fact that you can’t learn anything of value from copying and pasting lecture slides is a wonderful evolutionary trait, and one that I hope we don’t lose anytime soon.

Left-wing melancholy is the idea that revolutionary movements can become impotent, backwards-looking versions of their former selves in the wake of political defeat. Benjamin coined the term in a review of the purportedly left-wing poetry of Erich Kästner, where critiques of social inequity just amounted to treating political struggle as a sentimentalised plot point. Benjamin is a recurrent character in Marxist Modernism, but Rose’s use of his ideas and others emanating from the Frankfurt School was expanded, at times controversially, by her recourse to theological sources.

For Rose, the dangers of a political For Rose, the dangers of a political movement gripped by its own mythology were exemplified by Hegel’s concept of ‘the beautiful soul’, taken from a chapter of the

same name in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. In Goethe’s account, the beautiful soul is a young, married woman who perishes, after withdrawing from the world to pursue religious piety. Even as her demise becomes obvious in the final pages of the chapter, the beautiful soul believes that her “conduct is approximating more and more to the image I have formed of perfection”.

Misplaced nostalgia is not just a pathway, but the precondition to facism.

While originally intended, and read by Rose, as a criticism of the “protestant doctrine of salvation”, the development of a theory of left-wing melancholia concerning the inner life of young women has particular political utility in today’s climate. The first time I read Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, I was struck by the similarities between Goethe’s account of religious piety and contemporary strands of dissociative feminism. The term, coined in 2019 by author and critic Emmeline Klein, explains how modern feminist writing focuses on “interiorising [women’s] existential aches and angst, smirking knowingly at them, and numbing ourselves to maintain our nonchalance”. In other words: patriarchy is never actually combatted, but rather coped with through a turn to nihilistic and extreme introspection.

Dissociative feminism is benign at best. It is actively harmful when it manifests itself in coquettish aesthetics that tie frilly bows around lobotomy jokes and deifies an illdefined, sentimental concept of ‘girlhood’ which lacks meaningful political expression beyond being Instagrammable. As Rose would argue (and as anyone who has been on TikTok in the last two years would know), misplaced nostalgia is not just a pathway, but the precondition to facism. It is fomented by a retreat into the self, and mitigated by accepting one’s place in the world, no matter the difficulty that may bring.

“I will stay in the fray, in the revel of ideas and risk”, Rose promises in the final paragraph of Love’s Work. “Learning, failing, wooing, grieving, trusting, working, reposing — in this sin of language and lips.”

Do We Need Acid Communism?

Remy Lebreton chases

“the spectre of a world which could be free”.

I’d like you to join me, dear reader, to puff and pass along, and spare a moment to journey with me into the psychedelic! In our chemical-washed contemporary of fast consumerism, complacent apathy, and rising fascist demagoguery, the world can sometimes feel a bit bleak. It can be hard to maintain a sense of optimism. However for those of us on the political left, it is more important than ever to meditate on exactly how best to combat this. To reflect on how to build a mass movement, as much as with ourselves and comrades, lest we burn half as long, if twice as bright.

Anyone who has had to sit through a particularly bad lecture, bored to tears, knows a good argument is not always enough to convince or motivate. Likewise, whilst the left must not abandon rational argument or material analysis as vital weapons of the class war, they are not always enough to inspire people to action.

I’m sure many of us have encountered countless students and young people, who purport to socialist ideals or progressive politics, but for whom it seems would sooner pull teeth than appear at a rally or working bee. It is this contradiction that occupies much of my thoughts.

Before his tragic death, the late philosopher and cultural theorist Mark Fisher, wrote an unfinished introduction to what would have been his next book, titled Acid Communism. This alongside his final lectures, as detailed in the book Post Capitalist Desire, paint a picture of how the left might begin to undermine this melancholy. In other words, how the left can disrupt the culture of consumption and capital, and replace its desires with one for a better world. First of all however, we should dissect exactly what the acid in our communism is, or rather what it represents.

Mark Fisher was well known for his disdain of hippies, as many leftists, especially marxists, are. This common feeling arises from the overwhelmingly bourgeois white male middle class character of these movements in the 60’s and 70’s, exemplified by

infamous events like Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s “Bed-in” for peace. However Fisher seemingly tries to extract a revolutionary potential from somewhere in its utopian mix.

He’s not suggesting that if we all drop a tab next weekend (though maybe we should anyway???) the revolution would begin. Rather, the neglected character of this movement was its capacity to create a culture that challenged the everyday conventionality and normative standards that reinforce cultural capitalism and consumerist desire.

The counter-cultural movements initially imagined beyond the scope of what society expected of them or thought possible as a collective, for a time — even if this was eventually subsumed into individualism and new age consumer aesthetics. This imagination is precisely where the left needs to look in its analysis.

The psychedelic here means the capacity of the human consciousness to break free of the boundaries of what has been deemed possible by normative capital — to imagine a world where we want for more than owning a house, a job we enjoy, or new products to buy and consume, as these are still based ultimately within capitals logics (in fairness, not mutually exclusive).

Capitalism needs more than exploitation to function, it needs to suppress and destroy any alternative possibilities or rationalities.

The task of the left then is to manifest an imagination for a better world, resilient to this disruption, before we can build it.

We need to move beyond the purely deconstructive nature of rote moralisation and critique, and construct a culture that is joyful and compelling, that revels in prefiguring and exploring what a truly liberated society could be, through art and community sharing in this desire.

Leon Trotsky, in Literature and Revolution, stressed the very importance of art, culture, and imagination flourishing for its own sake to develop the consciousness needed for a classless society, well before acid communism or the 60’s counterculture.

Applying this to our vacuous contemporary of doom scrolling, retail therapy, and apathetic consumerism, it seems obvious to suggest that we are ripe for constructing a movement that addresses peoples social and cultural malaise whilst maintaining a genuine political character.

If desire could be reclaimed from capitalism as a revolutionary force, we could imagine people reveling in the solidarity of picket lines.

If desire could be reclaimed from capitalism as a revolutionary force, we could imagine people reveling in the solidarity of picket lines, and connecting with their community through labour that mutually aids and supports each other. Perhaps, in the vein of Graeber and Lenin, we can even imagine protests and even revolutions literally as festivals of resistance and the oppressed!

As for the work we do on our own campuses, we should explore ways we can engage with people’s imagination and playfulness, as much as what our next protest should be. We should collaborate and foster artistic spaces, interesting discussions and constructive debates, write music and perform protests! We should prefigure the culture of a free world, and create positive feedback cycles of merriment, rather than negative ones of burnout. So please, the next time your cup is feeling full, take some time, drop some acid, and imagine a world which could be free!

Authenticating My Authenticity to Inauthentic Authenticators

Jenna Rees enters a one-time passcode.

Two-Factor Authentication (or 2FA) has been a hot topic of discussion for a while. At USyd in particular, our own authenticator app, Okta Verify, grows increasingly painful with every required code. The idea of 2FA is credible enough. After all, it is used to secure personal online information. It works alongside passwords as a second layer of protection, often through apps or text messages. There’s a catch, though — a contradiction embedded within the entire framework of 2FA. Why am I having to authenticate my authenticity to inauthentic, technological authenticators? It is deeply ironic.

Technology’s initial purpose was to improve human life. It was designed to easily access and exchange ideas, information, culture, and art.

Humans didn’t create technology and develop it to cause chaos, but rather to do the opposite.

By digitising the world, the thought was always to simplify humanity and make life easier. I would argue, however, that 2FA is doing the opposite, making life harder instead.

2FA’s purpose is quite simple: in a world where passwords are less secure, and online impersonalisation is on the rise, there is a need for a second form of identity confirmation. Rather than relying solely on a password that could be hacked, or identity questions that could be forged or forgotten, 2FA was the solution sought to surpass these problems.

However, we all know that 2FA has caused more chaos than calm. Not only is it confusing for older generations, but it is restricting and counterintuitive for the younger ones as well. 2FA is required for everything nowadays — from accessing bank accounts, to university libraries, to even the Baker’s Delight App log-in. Like many grandchildren, I often get tasked with helping to access iCloud accounts and syncing photos onto the Drive. I see, firsthand, the frustration at log-in, where some online forum demands a code, an app, a tap, or a phone call. This idea of ‘security’ is just an obstacle demanding patience. 2FA doesn’t provide security but rather friction. It is used simply because it is cheap and easy.

Companies don’t want to invest time or energy to help their consumers. It all boils down, like everything, to capitalism. If companies can avoid security breaches and ensure money is invested for profit and gain, rather than convenience, they are happy. Companies, especially larger corporations, do not care about consumer satisfaction, and universities are the same. If USyd can protect its student privacy and save money doing it, that is all that truly matters. It is their calm within students’ own chaos. There is no idea here on how best to serve

The Music of Memory

students or consumers. There is no possibility of looking towards different ways to protect. It’s all under the same guise. 2FA is the ‘only’ way.

The inherent contradiction within 2FA lies in its whole premise. There is a reliance on technology to authenticate authenticity. With the uprising of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the fears around humanity’s future, requiring technology to prove identity seems to be taking another leap forward towards complete digitalisation. Moving away from individualism and towards a digitalisation that is putting authenticity at real risk.

2FA is also increasingly exploited by what the media calls ‘fatigue attacks’, where citizens get continually bombarded with verification requests while hackers try to access their private accounts and information. After multiple push notifications, the hope is that the user ultimately succumbs to one of them, verifying the request and enabling the hacker access. This isn’t the user’s fault, though it represents the adaptation to a system meant to protect the user. Technology isn’t improving anyone’s life here, it is creating chaos.

Is there, and will there, ever be a way to make 2FA both useful and usable? I am not sure. 2FA needs to completely rebrand and reimagine itself away from the necessary need for technological requirements. Codes, taps, and apps, are not the way to provide security.

As technology further develops and moves into an era of online living, there needs to be a different way to authenticate yourself.

There have been ideas thrown around as suitable alternatives, many of which are used in today’s era. Ideas like facial recognition, fingerprint identity confirmation, and passkeys. None of which are as used as 2FA. Reasons for this include, as said before, money and care. These ideas require more effort and more economic backing. To ensure everyone has access to devices that recognise faces and fingerprints is idealistic, and lacks recognition of upperclass privilege. The most credible solution would be passkeys, which the iCloud system does in some sense, and in some areas employ but not consistently and often in order to access the passkey system you have to authenticate yourself via 2FA. Once again, contradicting the very aim of the passkey system itself.

So, as I struggle to find a solution that moves away from 2FA, there is the main point embedded within it — 2FA is ironic, contradictory, and unusable for large proportions of the population. New solutions need to be created in order to protect and enable digital users.

While accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, Bob Dylan reflected on his early experience with music, describing it as if he’d “been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated”. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of uncertainty, a young Dylan found clarity and purpose through music: “Songs…are at the vital center of almost everything I do.” Even if you’re not a Minnesotan folk singer, widely considered as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and even if your likeness hasn’t yet been replicated by Timothee Chalamet, it is almost impossible to be human and not have been lifechangingly moved, in at least one moment, by music.

It is unsurprising that in this same speech accepting a prize typically reserved for prose, Dylan quoted the traditionally sung opening of Homer’s 8th-century BCE epic poem The Odyssey: “Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story.” There is an intrinsic human connection to music that dates back long before we could share our meticulously curated Spotify Wrapped on our Instagram stories. It is what inspired rhapsodes to spread poetic songs they had learned across the sunlit hills of Ancient Greece, Beethoven to compose his Ninth Symphony while profoundly deaf, and Queen to perform for 200,000 people in the middle

of Hyde Park. This is the drive to immortalise the fleeting moments of our existence through melodies and verse. Evidently, the way we understand ourselves and the world around us is deeply shaped by song. However, it is not only that we preserve ourselves through creating melodies. It is just as intrinsic to temporality that we crystallise moments through listening to music: love, loss, joy, defiance — emotions too big to hold silently are suspended in sound.

We may not have rhapsodes, or bards, or pied pipers with flutes, but we do have YouTube. In that cataclysmic myriad of mukbangs and gym-bro video essays, vulnerable flash autobiographies are written underneath music videos, which immortalise the most important moments of our transience through music. Just as rhapsodes spread tales of unwinnable wars and prophecies and the opulent gods who acted as epic reflections of real human failures and desires, the act of commenting becomes a new form of storytelling:one that speaks, often anonymously, into a void, yet still reaches across the tidal wave of a “common” humanity with uncanny resonance. We share our memories in the hopes of immortalising a moment and ensuring its infinite existence in the minds of others between the crescendos of our favourite songs. We eulogise

What Was Your Name?

Tanish Tanjil doesn’t know her name.

I wake in the middle of the night, drenched in the scent of soil and incense, with wounds unspoken and ancient as the earth. A voice murmurs from somewhere behind the red-veined darkness: What was your name? The question lingers in the midnight silence, heavy and unanswered.

In that silence, I forget. I’m alone in a body that often doesn’t feel like mine, stitching together pieces of a memory I can’t fully claim. Each month, like the crescent moon rising, a broken ritual begins in me. I tremble against invisible tides, hands pressed into my belly. Once, I believed a god would come. Now, I whisper prayers to myself. Not for salvation, but for survival. Endurance is my liturgy.

My mother’s room is heavy with quilted secrets. She stands beside the faded poster of a goddess I barely know, saying nothing. If she speaks at all, it’s in a language I was born only half-understanding. My name, once written in Urdu on the walls of childhood, now lies buried in unopened documents. Speaking it aloud feels dangerous, like summoning something already lost. I forget which tongue to use when my heart breaks.

What was your name?

When I ask myself, the question scatters like moth wings.

Each recurrence is a storm. A small death. My skin recalls the heat of a country I don’t call home. My bones remember my grandmother’s birthing songs, the melodies she always sang to me. I’ve inherited weather in my blood: the hush of noon in a crowded village, the silence after midnight. We don’t speak of ghosts. We become them.

Faith here is not a temple or an altar. It is the calendar of my breathing. It returns monthly, an unwelcome guest turning the key in the door of my chest. I do not light candles. I light cigarettes. Or nothing. I become a witness to my own repetition. Karma was taught to me as justice with a gentle bend. But this feels more like punishment, a carved record looping in my bones. Maybe I lived this life before. Maybe I am paying off a debt I never chose.

I try to explain it to therapists, to friends, to sharing circles, to myself, but language frays. Some grief lives in the body like sediment. I lie still, eyes halfopen, pillow damp. The ache sharpens behind my ribs, low and pulsing, like I swallowed something alive.

Is this meditation? Emotional regulation? Or just the body performing a grief no one taught it how to name?

Sometimes, I cry just to prove I still can. Other times, I scream into the bathroom tap. It doesn’t help. But it makes the silence answer back.

I look in the mirror and struggle to meet my own eyes. I ask again: What do I believe in? What do I call this? What was my name?

Once, I threw my lunch away. I was ten. I said I hated roti. I didn’t. I just wanted someone to ask: why?

Sometimes I think I must have done something terribly wrong in a past life to

the greatest, most heartbreaking, moments of our life into bite-sized reflections that meet the character requirements for YouTube comment sections.

Take ‘This Must Be the Place’ by the Talking Heads, for example. While @carljonas6583 is “driving through the Welsh countryside … my girl is singing along and giving me ‘that look’... we’re holding hands,” @jstearns66 immortalises her memory against the looping rhythms and gentle synths, speaking into the void of internet ephemerality: “I have Stage 4 Cancer. When I die I want my husband to have this played for my services.” There is no way of knowing where these two deeply personal commenters are today, only that their individual relationships to the song resonate with a collective human understanding and will be remembered, time and time again, as we scroll through the comments of the Talking Heads music video. While one recalls a moment of pure, intimate joy and reminds his audience that “life’s hard. Take those moments,” the other reflects on the permanence of love against the impermanence of mortality, affirming that music, even amid profound tragedy, “speaks to…love” and is “happy, not sad.”

deserve this, to die a little each day. I’ve been told to have faith in goodness, in karma, in rebirth. But I have faith in darkness. Darkness is consistent. Darkness returns. Because, when I break, I become a child again. Foetal. Dissolved into amniotic memory. I curl into myself, knees to chest, wrapped in a pink blanket, searching for the warmth I once knew. The warmth of water. Of silence. Of before.

We are born in the dark, in the mother’s womb, quiet, and when we die, we return to the earth’s womb, quiet. The womb and the grave are both rooms without light. But one delivers you into noise, into light. The other delivers you from it. They are not twins. One makes you scream. The other doesn’t let you.

Each pain I carry feels like a burial. Parts of me blink, then vanish. Earth covers me gently. Each cycle is soil: something buried, unearthed, buried again. I’ve been composting grief for years, turning pain into green longing. I unpack sorrow the way my mother packed lunches that we never found the time to eat at school, amidst the gossip and games — soft rotis folded in newspaper, the sweet-smelling ghee bleeding through by noon, their quiet warmth pressed into my bag like a question.

What was your name? was it Daughter

Inheritance

Ghost

was it Grief or Girl

was it Prayer or Punishment or Both was it Mine?

These monthly epiphanies are messy and sacred. Salt from tears charts constellations on my skin. And sometimes I lie to myself, whispering: maybe this isn’t doom. Maybe it’s just another cycle. Each time, I learn how to walk in the dark again. How to rise. How to remember.

After the hollowing, a voice always returns. Faint, but real. And I realise: faith is not what keeps you from breaking. Faith is what rises from the wreckage. It bleeds. It limps. It stays anyway.

And each time I ask, What was your name?

Each time, I almost remember.

I am Isha, they said once. The ruling goddess.

Ask me again next month.

Maybe I will know.

The star-crossed harmonies and tragic basslines of Radiohead’s ‘Exit Music for a Film’, evoke a similar response. Under the haunting drone of Thom Yorke’s melody, @Mr_Judge_Benny_Hinn tells us he “played this at [his] daughter’s funeral.” @isabellariver is “listening to this as i’m about to leave my childhood home forever. moving onto a new start. i’ll miss you.” Under a live performance of ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac, @ itsmelol9467 eulogises her grandmother, explaining “this was [her] favorite song,” and @sherrychristl3362 confesses she “just ended a 41 yrs marriage and I play this song everyday to give me courage to keep moving.”

While @katherinefurgeson4538’s daughter “walked down the isle [sic]” to ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by The Beatles, @ bethkrantz1562 tells us she “played this for my 18 month old granddaughter, while we watched the sunrise.”

It is within these two-sentence confessions that strangers become storytellers, etching their lives into the digital margins of song. They have immortalised their lost grandmothers, daughters and marriages and rekindled the flames of their youth to remind us that music doesn’t just accompany life, it carries it.

Walker explores humanity through music.

Marlene

Art by Tanish Tanjil

Turn Away Your Mirrors and Close the Doors

Ellie Robertson is paralysed in her sleep.

I am intuitive. I am in touch with the spirits. I am psychic.

At least, that’s how I feel, and that’s what people tell me. Whilst it in tarot cards and meditations, there’s a darker side to this spiritualism that people tend to forget about.

I remember the first time I had paralysis. I say I thought I had experienced it, but they turned out to be bad nightmares. I was at my Grandad’s house. Before I went to bed, I had a horrible gut feeling, and had an intense urge to turn away the mirror facing my bed and close the ensuite door. I’ve always had a strange feeling about sleeping with my door open. And the more I tune into my psyche, I realise how significant it actually is for your soul. I had gone to sleep without closing the door or turning the mirror away. In the middle of the night, I unable to move, yet seeing all that was in front of me. I felt pressure on my ankle, before seeing a skinny, dark, shadow figure — very slendermanesque — crawling up on my bed. I screamed, but nothing physically came out. I felt its needle arms on every crevice of my body, yet when it almost reached my face, I actually still feel the pressure of where it grabbed me. The ensuite door was facing me, darkness behind it. I turned on my lamp, closed the door, turned away the mirror. I have never ignored my intuition since.

While many believe that sleep paralysis is simply a bad dream, it is so much more. By definition, sleep paralysis is a temporary awakeness with which you are aware of your surroundings, but unable to move or speak. By experience,

The fear and, at times, pain can result in feelings of anxiety and stress. While science has adopted sleep depravity and irregular sleeping schedules as the core explanations for sleep paralysis, this becomes a less likely answer to the experience when you begin having it

As a spiritual person, I began to notice the patterns. When my door was open, I would have either a strangely vivid dream or a short period of sleep paralysis. When the door was closed, my sleep was peaceful. Either way, my dreams often consisted of unidentifiable men, older spirits, or the typical shadow man. There have been many times where these dreams have eventuated into real life scenarios. For instance, there was the notable time where, in my dream, a shadow man came through my front door, and stood at my bedroom watching me. I woke up and checked my front door was locked. At 7am the next morning, a stranger knocked on my door. Eventually, he walked away. It became clear to me that dreams were not simply the imagination of the unconscious mind, but were warnings from some higher

Do You Dream With Your Phone?

I shot awake this morning. A chill ran down my back from the impervious feeling that I was already incredibly late for my day. My alarm didn’t go off, or I missed it. Did I set it correctly last night? I felt cold. If I was late, I would miss my classes, my office time, my deadlines; I’d be sitting on the train stressed that my tightly constructed timetable for the week was falling apart before my eyes. Everyone would hate me. I’d be a disappointment again. I would be stressed and bring everyone around me down, and I’d hog the conversation with my stress like I feel I always do, a trait I fear is pushing away the friends that I’ve not prioritised in months.

All of this anxiety condensed itself into my body in several seconds, like an accordion being hastily squashed in and out of tune in a haphazard musical mess. I then realised I didn’t know how late I was. I had to check so I could aptly assess the damages.

I panicked, threw my quilt back, grabbed my phone, and saw that it was 5am.

Thank God. I took a moment to breathe. I was early. I’ve been so anxious and highstrung lately that the impending sense of doom perpetually in my bloodstream had

somehow infiltrated its way into my subconscious while I was asleep.

I then shot awake again. I had this immediate chill run down my back that something was wrong. Didn’t we do this already? I had chosen to fall back asleep, so I assumed I was in some loopy half-asleep time continuum, but I didn’t put my head back down on the pillow.

Slightly confused, I threw my quilt back, grabbed my phone, and saw that it was 8:35am. Ten minutes before my alarm.

Dreamception.

This has happened quite a bit the last few weeks. I dream of sitting in bed as things happen around me. Parents knock on my door. Stray cats crawl through the window. Strangers wander into my room and make it a home. Then I snap my head up, gasp for air, and centre myself in the room I’m really in.

It is shocking to learn how little we actually know about the act of dreaming.

We have plenty of scientific theories: something something processing mem-

After dreams about floods two days before storms and tidal waves before tsunami warnings were announced, I have ensured to take protective measures before and after every dream. I trust my dreams to warn me.

I trust my dreams to give me the knowledge I need to protect myself — and you should too.

Tap into your psyche, but make sure to practise safely.

Here’s some tips on how to ensure you’re keeping your soul and spirit safe at night:

• Close your doors

• Turn away your mirrors

• Never leave a chair completely empty

• Cleanse your space before bed

• Follow whatever your belief system or religion tells you to do to protect yourself

And, why should you trust me?

I am intuitive. I am in touch with the spirits. I am psychic.

Art by Ellie Robertson

ories from the short-term to long-term, diluting stress and traumas with visual stimuli, bringing trauma to the forefront of your mind.

I’m a believer in the idea that dreams are a deconstruction of your day, a way to abstractly process the emotional truths which filter through the front and the back of your mind. Push something down far enough and it’ll come crawling back eventually, preening through your scalp skin and quite literally haunting your dreams.

These days, that usually involves dreaming with my phone. For a while, dream scientists (technically called oneirologists, but that’s so boring) believed people could not dream with their phone. It could only be treated like a brick, lifeless and useless.

Yet I’ve been dreaming with technology since I was a child, about texting or checking times, sometimes in third-person like I’m a character in a video game. This also involves transposing all of my phone anxieties into my dreams. We all know the ones, the way your heart races when your pocket vibrates, the overwhelm of a big big list of notifications (which isn’t even that large), awaiting a call that isn’t gon-

na come. My phone becomes the primary medium of experiencing anxiety. Anxiety is the primary way I experience life. Thus, my phone becomes not a third limb, but a veil, obscuring my cognitive expression of the world.

If I process the world through my anxiety, then of course my dreams become shuddered with the anxieties.

So what do I do then? How do I pierce the veil? Well, in a way, I have the map right in front of me.

I sit in the anxiety. I wake up and I rewind my dreams like a cassette tape. I press pause on the scenes that shrivel in my stomach, and I unfurl the truths from the haunting shadows that linger in my mind. The pseudo-realism of an anxiety dream is fruitful grounds for figuring out why I’m so perpetually frightened of myself all the time. If I can make them occasional visions, then they become of use.

I also turn the phone off sometimes. Unsurprisingly, it actually helps.

The Superstitions We Inherit

Some superstitions stick — not as beliefs, but as ribbons tethered to home.

I imagine them trailing behind me as I move through the world, fraying at the ends, catching on doorknobs and strangers’ conversations. They are quiet things: don’t sweep after sunset, don’t cut your nails at night, never sit on a pillow. Not commandments, not quite habits — but stories spoken in whispers, folded into the fabric of my childhood like pockets of sweet sugared coconut in a soft bhapa pitha.

I never quite believed them. And yet, I never quite let them go.

These superstitions are not relics of irrational belief; they are emotional, political, and cultural inheritances — shaped by love, fear, and survival.

Gaibandha – that’s the name of my mother’s home. A city in Northern Bangladesh with dreamy villages, resorts, and malls. A quick drive away you will reach Bamondanga; a village where tall trees meet traintracks, krishnochura trees drip soft orange and yellow blossoms over quiet ponds, where the clouds settle onto the streets and homes like a blanket in the winter. It is here, in a beautiful home where my grandmother lives.

My family would visit in the winter.

Over a cup of tea, my little sister and I would beg my grandmother to tell us scary stories. Stories of shakchunnis, rakhosshs, petnis, and old women draped in white carrying a lamp, sweeping your porch in the early morning hours, passing through locked gates like mist. My sister and I huddled together, both in fear, and in search of warmth. I would scooch onto a pillow and my mother would say “Audhora moni, don’t sit on a pillow! You’ll get pimples on your butt!” She said that every time, and I would remember and forget.

But to this day I avoid sitting on pillows. Not because I think it’s true, but because my mother said it, and I miss her.

My father is 74 years old. Back when he was studying for his undergraduate degree, he moved to Dhaka to attend Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. In March of 1971, he visited his family home in Comilla, a bustling, wonderful village down south. Now, I know it to be festive, full of loving, cheeky characters, dance music thrumming in my ears till 3am, marijuana bought and sold freely around the majar. Back then… well, I don’t think my language will do it justice, that description resides safely in my father’s soul.

After a full dinner, he said goodbye to

Things You Can Wish On

1.When you blow out your birthday candles.

2.When you’re standing or sitting between two people with the same name.

3. When you see a falling star or the first star of the night.

In our modern world there is a logical explanation for almost everything. Take a look at the sky. We’ve mapped out the stars, named each constellation, stood on the moon, and sent satellites into orbit. And still, when we see a star streak across the night sky, we close our eyes and make a wish. It doesn’t make much sense — but that’s the point. Despite logic, heartbreak and knowing better, as a collective we keep wishing, hoping that something out there is listening.

4. When you see the first butterfly of the year.

5. When your eyelash falls out — you need to blow it from your finger.

For as long as we’ve existed, humans have been creatures of superstition and secret rituals, no matter what. We’ve prayed, made offerings at temples, knocked on wood, tied red ribbons to trees. It’s interesting to see how even now in a (mostly) secular and scientific age — dominated by tech advancements and AI and what have you — we still seek magic Small soft acts of magic reflected through the simple human act of wishing, a subtle rebellion against our all too overbearing reality.

6. When you find a dandelion or catch a thistledown. Let it fly to carry your wish.

7. When you find a four-leaf clover, you must carry it with you.

The art of wishmaking is one that has spanned cultures and eras, from sacred texts to street-side rituals, Japanese ema plaques and Turkish evil eye beads. Throughout time we’ve built countless ways to give shape to our inherent longing for ‘more’. An innately human, ancient desire of reaching beyond what is, into what could be.

his parents and young siblings, and set off. Just as he crossed the threshold, his mother called him back. “Khalid! Don’t go tonight, wait till tomorrow!”

That night, the Pakistan army conducted Operation Searchlight, massacring students and professors in their dorms across all universities in Dhaka.

She saved him. Mother’s instinct. But it is more than that, it is borne of a superstition I still practice. Never call someone from behind as they leave, for if you do, they should hang back for a while.

As a child, I would wait till my father would come home from work, hiding behind the door. As soon as he would ring the bell, I’d open the door without showing myself, and hide behind it. He would roam around the house saying “where is Audhora? Where’d she go?” I’d giggle and wait till I heard his footsteps come towards the door once again. At that point I’d be running through an adrenaline rush.

“There you are!”

I’d jump up to hug him as he softly closed the door, laughing gleefully. This would be our routine every day.

But when he would leave, sometimes I would call after him, “Baba!”

The small wishes we make through life, on stars, ladybugs and eyelashes become something like time capsules: tender reflections of who we were, our desires and the hopes we fear to say aloud. Wishes that trace the evolution of our imaginations and the constancy of our hope. We keep reaching, keep hoping; even when there is no guarantee of an answer.

8. When you sneeze four times in a row.

9. When you walk under a bridge when the train is crossing it.

10. When you catch the moment when the streetlights come on or go out.

But what does this resilience of hope against all odds show us about humanity? Are we foolish? Are we delusional? Are we asking for too much? Perhaps we are instead displaying a deep and tender strength. Beneath our skepticism, we carry a deep, enduring belief in the possibility of more.

In a world that consistently disappoints us and brings us pain, we continue to be strong, holding onto the small elements of magic hidden to the naked eye. The persistence of looking for something extraordinary in our everyday lives is not irrational; it is an ode to everything we are reaching for. More love. More joy. More experience. Wishing in itself is a soft refusal that in a world that often feels indifferent, it is still possible to believe and

He would turn back and stay with me and explain that he doesn’t like it when I call after him. That if I do that, he’d have to stay and be a little late. That it could mean that a bad thing would happen. It is a cultural superstition, as much as it is a deep, painful memory.

Historical fear embeds itself into intimate habits, becoming acts of emotional shielding during violent uncertainties. Reflections of their time of origin, carried into the present through blood and remembrance. It has become instruction cloaked in superstition. These are no longer beliefs but profound psychological responses — conditioned behaviors that haunt or comfort. Becoming muscle memory.

In Bangla, there is a word, ‘pichutan’. It describes a feeling that is beyond nostalgia: a pull into the past, feeling so enmeshed with your memories as though they are engravings in your bones. That is what these little superstitions are for me.

So I tug that ribbon, performing a dance with my ancestors, my family, and my childhood self. It is not what I believe, it is what I refuse to forget.

Avin Dabiri makes a wish.

reach for something better

11. When you throw a coin into water: a well, pool, pond, stream, the sea.

12. When you break a wishbone.

13. When the time is 11:11.

Throughout life we are faced with hardships, consistent uncertainties and pressures that plague all our days. And so I endure you to keep holding onto magic. Taking the moment to reflect on such simple moments — even if it is just a time on a clock — offers strength, hope and wonder. Wishmaking is anything but childish, it is essential to our enduring humanity.

Although we may not see it at all times, blurred by reason and logic, quiet magic continues to persist. So keep being strong, holding on and wishing for more, for better. The magic of the wish is not in its guarantee of an outcome, but the daring to want anyway.

14. When you see a white horse — but only before you see its tail.

15. When a ladybug lands on you.

16. When you see a double rainbow.

17. When your necklace clasp moves to the front and someone else fixes it for you.

Audhora Khalid follows the ribbon home.

Necessary Chaos: Markus Zusak on the owning and loving of three wild dogs

When I walk up to Markus Zusak outside Surry Hills Library, he’s leaning against a bench in a green shirt, carefully leafing through a copy of In the Garden of North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff, one of his favourite authors. Marking The Book Thief’s 20-year legacy, he addressed fans at Sydney Writers’ Festival on May 22 with talk of his latest memoir, Three Wild Dogs and the Truth Literary stardom is no new concept. Markus’ books have spent over a decade on the New York Times bestseller list, winning numerous international awards and multiple screen adaptations. Love, death, and chaos are recurring themes of his works, and yet none have peeled back so intimately as this memoir. Structured around the terrible antics of his wild animals, Three Wild Dogs is deeply raw, personal, and unconstrained. It’s a rare opportunity to “sit down at the kitchen table” with an author and hear not just about them, but about the messy — and furry — entanglement that shapes their writing life. It’s him pulling up a chair saying, ‘oh boy have I got a story for you…’

Lotte: Was writing from personal experience easier or more challenging than writing fiction?

Markus: It reminded me of when I first started writing, when I was 16 and I wanted to write my first book. Everything felt new. The way I wanted to become a writer was reading novels. It was like a magic act of reading a novel, knowing it’s not true but believing it when I was inside it, and I thought that’s what I want to do with my life. It’s really interesting then, that when you write something that is non-fiction, you still actually have to do the same thing. Even though they’re true stories, you still have to make the reader, or myself as the reader in the writing of it, believe it while I’m inside it. I just want to be transported to that place and so that I’m feeling it, seeing it and that I’m there. It was a different excitement in that, I kind of knew that I could do it, I knew that I could finish it — whereas I think with a lot of the books I write, I’m never sure I can actually finish it. I kind of like that idea of pushing yourself into the unknown a little bit, but this was quite a known idea. For me the joy of it was that I’ve had these dogs that were such a big part of my life, and I got to be with them again and I got to believe that I was with them. So it was a really beautiful part of my life to write this book.

on the weekend’. The problem is we have to go through those stories first to then be able to tell the stories, but I think we also know that we’re going to find some kind of beauty in that as well. When people say to me, ‘oh when you wrote this book and you wrote about your dogs dying, was that really hard?’, I just say that’s what I’m in it for. I want to feel that kind of intensity because otherwise what are we alive for, if we don’t have some sort of intensity in our lives? Something that we feel that we do love wholly, completely, and that we are devastated by when we lose them? That’s part of a good life. When I’m driving home from the beach, for some reason there’s just one spot that I always think of our second dog, Archer, and I always think oh my god I miss him but I also think I’m grateful that I get to miss him. I wish I had him back but at the same time it’s actually a privileged life to have something like that, that you can miss because you know you loved it. I think that all bleeds into that idea of chaos. It was tough, but it was beautiful at the same time, and I think to recognise that is a great part of your life.

L: When you start writing your books, do you know how they’re going to end?

M: I basically think of the beginning, the end, and the title. They’re almost the first three things I think of every time I write a book so they give me these sorts of parameters and then within that, I start listing chapter headings. I’ll

interviews.

words, but you put two words that wouldn’t normally sit together in a sentence and all of a sudden they burst into life. It’s a little bit like a positive and negative charge to make lightning. My favorite line from a novel is from Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which won the Pulitzer Prize in the early 2000s. He describes an ocean liner coming into New York Harbor and the boat’s name is the Rotterdam. He says the Rotterdam came into New York Harbor like a mountain wearing a dinner jacket, and you know, you just imagine a white suit jacket with the black buttons and that simile is so extraordinary because they’re not uncommon words but put them together and you have something amazing.

L: Great characters are a defining feature of your novels. Your dogs seem to mirror this as largerthan-life beings, in fact, you speak of them like people. Do you connect with animals as deeply as humans?

L: You write about welcoming chaos and it seems to be an enduring theme in many of your books. Why is chaos important and how does it shape your writing life?

M: Well, I think we’re all a little bit addicted to chaos. I just remember some of the decisions that I’ve made, whether it is taking on a second dog when we already had a pretty full-on first dog. I think we all understand that to have full lives, we need to go out of our comfort zone. The right amount of chaos tests us and shows us where our stories are. We all want to be able to sit down and be able to say, ‘oh you’ll never believe what happened

and land inside what I’m writing. I like the idea that as a writer, you live in two worlds: you live in the normal, real world and then you live in the world that you’re trying to create. A lot of the time when you’re writing, you feel far away from it, and then you’ve got to walk 10 miles, beat the door down, and scratch your way into the book. The closer it is and the more readily you can be inside it, that’s when you know it’s going well. It’s the hardest thing to get and the easiest thing to lose.

L: Your writing is known for its vividness, almost lyrical with its arrangement of really strong, immediate words. Is this a driving force of your work?

M: I’m not an academic or I’m not hugely intelligent, so I always say to people ‘don’t think that to be a writer, you’ve got to be gifted in any way or have a huge vocabulary’. I don’t have a great vocabulary at all but what I do have is an understanding that you can have a small pool of ordinary

An Interview with Art Simone

In the lead up to her panel at Sydney Writers’ Festival “Drag Storytime for grown-ups: Because reading is fundamental”, fabulous camp drag icon Art Simone joins Honi Soit to discuss her book Drag Queens Down Under, how she approaches the history of drag in Australia, and some wild tales from her storied drag career.

Will: Can you start us off with a little intro of yourself and your book Drag Queens Down Under?

Art: Yeah! I’m Art Simone, I’m a drag artist, I live down in Melbourne, and I’ve been doing drag professionally for almost fifteen years now. I’ve performed all across the world, I’m loud, technicolour, ocker, unashamedly bogan, I love everything about drag, and that’s what brought me to doing this book. I’ve been very fortunate and privileged to have a lot of opportunities come my way, but I’m only a product of my environment and all the drag queens before me who paved the way for me to reach the heights that I have. I really started Drag Queens Down Under

M: I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I think I’m just trying to get by, especially with the animals that we’ve had because, you know, when I describe my two original dogs Reuben and Archer, I write them as gangsters, gunmen, soldiers. You’re talking about dogs and describing them in those terms, again you’re bringing these ideas together and that’s what’s quite unusual, but it’s also true because they were like that. I needed to make them like soldiers or else they would have just caused so much carnage. They were just great animals and they loved our kids, and they were amazingly loyal. So as far as connecting better with animals than with people I think I just subscribe to the idea that you just show up. I have our dog now Frosty, who’s the wildest one of all of them really, he’s the happiest but naughtiest dog we’ve ever had and he had this problem of attacking us on the street. This book is not one of those ‘this is how to wrangle your dog’, I’m not an expert. It’s just me talking about my family, with no veneers, about how we’ve handled these situations. In this case, it was getting to Frosty’s level and just going okay, ‘we’re fighting for who’s the boss here and that has to be me and if I lose this, the next 10 years of our life is going to be a misery’. There’s nothing like the first time when your dog doesn’t attack you, or that dog you’ve got from the pound stops and sits instead of launching at you.

L: Final question, is it true you hate cavoodles?

M: Absolutely not true. We just like the rough-aroundthe-edges dogs that cause all sorts of chaos, problems, and danger. That’s just who we are, but someone’s got to take them on, and someone’s got to take the cavoodles.

A week after our interview, I receive a postcard from Markus — a pleasant rarity for my generation to open anything in mail form. The postcard is titled, ‘a torrential afternoon’, his favourite black-and-whie shot of Reuben and Archer, crystallised mid-muddy avalanche in a mist streaked oval. Striding forever, the most unruly gangsters.

as a love letter to all those queens. Being on a show like RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under is a vehicle for a minute amount of artists. Numerically, it’s only ten queens per season, and seven Australian queens, but also, with the styles of drag and the age bracket of drag, it really only fosters a certain type of drag artist. I wanted to harness this new interest in the Australian drag scene and turn the spotlight back on the people around me who aren’t able to be on a show like that, or get the attention I think they deserve.

William Winter interviews.

W: Is the book more of a look at the current state of play of drag in Australia, or a sort of canon of Australian drag history?

A: It’s a celebration of the history of Australian drag. We start off in the Les Girls era, then right through into the Priscilla [Queen of the Desert] times, then the Drag Race times of today, into what I think the future of drag could look like, people on the scene who I think are pushing drag to new stages and phases and audiences. We go through the whole

Lotte Weber

Haunting Our Ruins: Mariana Enríquez in Conversation

Emilie Garcia-Dolnik interviews.

It is a privilege as a reader to have a favourite writer. An author whose books are unfailingly captivating and brilliant, that stay with you for long after you have read the final page. Mariana Enríquez is the writer whose works I read without hesitation. My breath hitches in my throat when I see her new releases in a bookstore. She is the author of short-story collections Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, as well as her major novel Our Share of Night. In 2024, she published A Sunny Place for Shady People to critical acclaim. Her writing is deeply rooted in modern Argentina. It delves into the macabre, the sinister, and the supernatural, and often concerns modern politics and collective memory. It was an honour to speak to Mariana on the 17th of April in the lead up to her talks at Sydney Writers Festival.

Emilie: Was there a particular moment in your life when you knew you wanted to pursue writing professionally?

Mariana: That’s a tricky one because I started publishing before I really thought of [myself] as a writer or considered writing as a career. My first novel I wrote when I was 17, in high school. Then, that got published when I was 20, by a series of events. I didn’t know anybody who was a writer. I didn’t know anybody in publishing. The sister of a friend of mine was a journalist, and she started working at this big publishing house. She had written the biography of the president. It was a hit because the president was insane. She knew that the publishers were looking for a novel by someone young. She knew I had written a novel. She took it to an editor, the editor liked it, and they published it. It was rushed. It was fun, but I wasn’t thinking of a writing career. It was useful for me because I started working in journalism very fast [after studying]. I was studying journalism, and I was torn between proceeding with [journalism], though I loved literature. I wasn’t sure, so it took me a while. I published another novel in 2004, and at that time, I was almost 30. It was like: yeah, this is what I want to do. I very quickly also changed my style and started writing horror. It was a slow development. Now, I don’t even understand. I see my [first] novel, and I don’t know if I like it. I haven’t read it in ages. I remember that I wanted to write about my generation and rock ‘n’ roll. I was pretty punk rock. I’m working on a novel now, and the amount of work… I remember myself at 17. I was a very wild child. I think: when did this happen?

E: Where do you draw your inspiration from? How much of it is imagination, and how much of it is derived from reality or experiences?

M: It’s mostly imagination. Many of the things are taken from real events, but not necessarily real events from my life. I sometimes think of the things people tell me, the things I read somewhere. News. I am a collector of news. Of course, people you know. They’re twisted enough not to be about anyone in particular. When I do write about myself and my experience, I just do it. There is a lot of non-fiction work I have that is going to be translated.

In journalism, I do a lot of first-person things, but in literature, I really prefer to go to another world.

E: It’s interesting that you say that. You have talked before about how your stories feature supernatural elements, but fear comes more often from police, neighbourhoods, poverty, violence, and men. Why do you choose to bring in the supernatural to work alongside these real, terrifying elements?

M: Every writer has a voice, not just [a] style. It’s what things make the experience of writing your own. The things you enjoy yourself, and have something to say about. I choose to write about violence, fear, and trauma. But I’m not interested in writing about those issues in a realistic way. The main reason is that I enjoy horror literature. I enjoy fantastic literature, the gothic. I think it has amazing metaphors that, for me, work better than realistic features for some things. I’m going to use a very obvious example. The figure of the ghost works better to talk about trauma and something that keeps coming back, and something you can’t get rid of. Something that makes your house not feel like your house. I find a better vehicle to talk about the things I care about [in horror] than just in a realistic fashion. In a realistic fashion, to me, it’s a bit dry. Not for everybody, but for me, when I write it, it’s like — okay and? But, when I add the supernatural, the fantastic or the gore or the satire, it really honours the literature I enjoy. It makes the whole procedure something I enjoy, and the writing something fun. I am a journalist too, so I know how to document stuff. In literature, I don’t want to document stuff. I want to think about it. I’m not addressing the issue itself, but working around it. Then, you end up with this ghost story. A lot of very talented writers can do it with realistic fiction, but I’m not that good with that. But maybe it’s also just not what I like.

E: I think your ability to bring the supernatural out of everyday, particularly urban, settings is truly something distinctive to your work, as is the concept of place. Has your relationship with Buenos Aires, and Argentina more broadly, shaped the way you choose to write horror?

M: Yes. Buenos Aires especially as a place that is an urban metropolis of South America. It’s an ultra-intense experience, but once you get out of the city, Argentina is a bit like Australia. It’s a very big country with not many people. There are a lot of empty spaces. After you get out of the 15-million people, ultra-metropolis, there’s The Pampas, and then there is nothing. That contrast that you experience there is something that really shaped what I do. Both places have, for me, different kinds of mythologies, different kinds of vibes. The fact that they’re so near each other is interesting. Mostly, I write about the city. What I write is very Argentinian, but it’s also the experience of a big city, of middle-class women and urban poverty. Something we all know, even in richer countries.

There are characters in my stories that live on the streets, for example. They could be set in New York or LA. In fact, they are sometimes. I was in LA, I thought: “There are more homeless people here than in Buenos Aires. This is amazing”. Amazing, not in a good way. It’s very surprising, for us. In South America, you think rich countries are perfect, and then you realise it’s not like that. Even at my age. I really like to haunt. To me, the gothic genre had to do with ruins. Those ruins were, especially in [works] written by women like Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley, of places that represented power or power that was [dwindling]. Cathedrals, churches, monasteries. The fading power of the church, and the soon-to-be fading power of the monarchy. Castles. But, the power was still there. I think in cities you can really see the decline, or this late-stage capitalism. The abandoned inner-city, the CBD. It’s crazy. Or the empty parking lots, the supermarkets that people don’t visit. People buy everything online [now], especially after the pandemic. Those places are like empty temples, they are our castles. They’re ugly institutions. We made very ugly ruins, but they are our ruins. I like to haunt those places. That’s why the genre works for me. I don’t want to do this as a realistic post-industrial city [setting], but more as you would think of an empty castle.

E: In the same vein, do you think your relationship with Argentina has changed as you’ve become a writer?

M: Yes, but at the same time, no. Argentina is not Buenos Aires, and I’m very much a writer who is from the city. The country is not [the same] as the rest of it. Though, what Argentina has that is always the same — It’s a bit of a loop, a phantasmagoric loop — is that we are always in crisis. My relationship has changed from it being very traumatic, when I was little with the dictatorship, and then trying to get used to the insanity and being hyper-alert. You find ways of doing things. In the later years, I was very weary of it and very tired of this never-ending [loop]. There’s something I’m really grateful for in Argentinian culture, and it’s the permanent curiosity of the people and the literature. It’s very interesting to be a writer in a country where the main literature, the canon, is Borges and Cortázar. It’s fantastic literature. Even today, the writers, such as Samantha Schweblin, work in the fantastic and supernatural. For some reason, magical realism was a very particular thing that happened in a certain time, in certain countries, written mostly by men. Since the 60s, it was sort of abandoned as a style, and it changed a lot. In Argentina, the way we treat the fantastic genre is more short-stories and less marvellous. It’s more Kafkian. That tradition, to me, is a gift as a writer. You go to school and they give you the short stories of these [writers], when you’re eight or nine, and you’re reading fantastic things. It’s not literature meant for children. Very early, you have this [tradition]. I always really liked it. It has to do with migration, being a country that is very mixed. It gives you a certain openness. Argentina is a country that can be very difficult, but it’s very interesting too.

Find our full coverage of Sydney Writers’ Fest, including the full interviews, on our website!

thing, and through that, I get to spotlight thirty different drag artists.

We’ve got Vonni in the Les Girls era, who was one of the original Les Girls housed in Kings Cross, and the first ever trans woman to play Bernadette in the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert musical in the Southern Hemisphere. Traditionally, that role is played by a cisgender male, and the story of Bernadette is about someone who used to be in Les Girls, so there was this amazing authenticity and full circle moment with that. Moving to the Priscilla

era and you’ve got Cindy Pastel, who inspired the character of Priscilla. She tells us about the journey of the movie coming out and what happened to her life after that. While Priscilla saw all these big, spectacular things like the Oscars, that was all happening while [Pastel] was in the dole office watching the movie on TV.

Then we move on to some Drag Race favourites like Maxi Shield. She’ll be on the panel I’m doing, she has lots of fun stories. She was part of the closing ceremony for the Sydney Olympics, she

was part of that big drag queen tribute that came out at the end. She explains that it was all hush-hush cause it was still taboo at the time. They were told they couldn’t say they were ‘drag queens’, they just had to say they were there ‘for Priscilla’. Then we move on to artists like Space Horse, who’ll be on the panel as well. Space Horse is pushing drag into new spaces, new stages, and new audiences. She’s an AFAB [assigned female at birth] drag queen, and one thing I love about Space Horse is that she celebrates and reinvents all the camp of Aussie drag before her.

We have the whole breadth of drag, and I can talk for hours about all thirty of them cause I love them all so dearly.

W: Do you have a favourite unconventional location you’ve performed at?

A: I once performed on a pontoon in the middle of Sydney Harbour while Neil Young sang ‘Love is in the Air’ for a live telecast. It was the most random thing of my life...

Anonymous interviews.

An Interview with Louisa Lim: Building the Future of Hong Kong Identity

The following interview is with journalist Louisa Lim ahead of the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Lim is an award-winning journalist, academic and author renowned for her in-depth reporting on China and Hong Kong. Raised in Hong Kong, she has carved an astounding career as a former correspondent for the BBC and NPR, dedicating over a decade on covering the shifting political and social landscapes of the region. Her books — Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong and The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited — blend rigorous journalism with deeply personal storytelling, confronting state control, historical erasure, and the fight for identity. In this conversation, she discusses with me her book Indelible City, the stripping of Hong Kong’s democratic rights, China’s global impact and the future of Hong Kong identity.

A: In your book, you mentioned that you grew up with a British style education in Hong Kong. It was at a time where kids were systemically taught to value British culture and language whilst reducing Hong Kong culture and Cantonese language as lower class. Now education in Hong Kong is state sanctioned history, set by Beijing and prizes Mandarin. There is risk associated with questioning that history. How does historical erasure or censorship shape the identity of Hong Kongers, especially the next generation?

L: I mean that’s a really good question. You know, we are seeing that historical erasure in front of our eyes. We see it as books disappear from library shelves. It’s happening overnight: the disappearance of the entire archive of Apple daily, the most popular pro-democracy newspaper [in Hong Kong], from the internet. That was just, for me, a stunning, shattering moment because as a journalist, you think that your work has value. Then one day an entire archive can vanish just like that. So, we are seeing that historical erasure happening. And I think historical erasure absolutely shapes the identity that people have. I guess nowadays, there’s also a question about what kind of identity people who live in Hong Kong are allowed to have because the expression of Hong Konger identity is now, more or less, prohibited under the National Security Act. The Nati onal Security legislation, which is being rolled out bit by bit and, even yesterday, more new draconian clauses and laws were announced. I think they are [purposely] quite vague, so that almost any act of extolling Hong Kong identity distinct and separate from China could now carry risks.

So we’re seeing that bifurcation of identities, where Hong Kongers who lived in Hong Kong who then moved overseas have got a very strong Hong Kong identity. Whilst if you were to start primary school today in Hong Kong, all your textbooks would be telling a very different kind of Hong Kong identity.

In Conversation with Thomas Mayo

James Fitzgerald Sice interviews.

Thomas Mayo is a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander author, union leader and activist whose work has become indispensable to Australia’s reckoning with its colonial past. As a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and a driving force behind the Yes 23 campaign, Mayo co-authored “The Voice to Parliament Handbook”— awarded multiple Australian Book Industry Awards in 2024 — and has since emerged as one of the nation’s most prominent advocates for constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples. Published in September 2024, his latest book, Always Was Always Will Be: The Campaign for Justice and Recognition Continues, lays bare the slave-like conditions endured by generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and charts a forward path of structural reform and self-determination.

J: In your recent book Always Was Always Will Be, you describe the slave conditions in which generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been forced to work to build the wealth of some of the most powerful companies and families in the country. Why is it important that non-indigenous people living in Australia understand this history?

T: Because people need motivation to act, right? There has to be something that compels people to act. There are three parts to the book. The second part is about history, but not just history. I’m no academic. It’s key moments in history that lead people to understand why things are the way they are today. What I hoped for [the] middle part of the book is that it would make people angry. It would make them sad. It would compel them to do something.

Then the final part, the third part of the book is about action, and that’s where I mentioned what universities should do. It’s a powerful sort of blow-by-blow account that explains that there was slavery in this country, but then brings it all the way through to what is often highlighted by politicians who are seeking to use “tough on crime” as a political tool to try and win votes. Like the youth crime in Alice Springs. You can link from the massacres, to the enslavement, to the working for rations, to the kicking off Country because they had to pay equal wages when the Industrial Relations Commission ruled that way, to being forced onto welfare, to having those welfare dollars exploited, and the hopelessness in those communities exploited, selling alcohol to them, and then the social issues that follow from that and why people are disaffected and running amok in that young people are.

An Interview with Anna Funder

Last week, Pia Curran logged onto what is now the most insightful Zoom call of her university career. In an astute discussion of ideas to be raised in her already sold-out Closing Address for the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival, internationally acclaimed author of Stasiland and Wifedom Anna Funder put long and glitchy Zoom lectures to shame. We talked about the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and systems of political oppression such as patriarchy, the complexities of artistic ownership, and what it means to be human and creative in the 21st century.

P: What do you think are the similarities between modern anxieties regarding technology and artistic ownership, and the long history of male authors claiming and profiting from female work?

A: That history is part of the necessary blindness of patriarchy. In order to think that you’re a ‘good bloke’ or a decent male human being, you have to push out of your consciousness the privilege that you have and the fact that you are relying on the work of others, often women around you, to get down what you’re doing. AI is the biggest act of copyright theft we’ve ever seen. They have copied all of our books, all of my books, and given them to these machines that are imbued with a lot of anthropomorphic-sounding behaviours — ‘training,’ ‘learning,’ ‘hallucinating’ and so on. That kind of model is fairly similar to other models of obtaining or taking power. Look at empires which conquered, invaded, colonised other countries. They took the land from the people who lived there, often enslaving them. The British did a lot of this, and Orwell was actually in Burma as part of this colonial administration.That is a model where you are taking stuff that is not yours, you are not paying for it, because you are subjugating the people that you’re taking it from. So it’s as if you are getting it for free. And with women it’s a little bit the same. Women are socialised to owe our time and labour to our male partners, husbands, children and families. That’s not paid, and because we live in a patriarchal culture, it’s not seen as work. It’s part of showing that you are a good woman or a decent daughter or wife. Those definitions of what it is to be you as a female person come with work attached, and because they come with work attached, in a way they don’t. It looks like that labour isn’t happening.

Find our full coverage of Sydney Writers’ Fest, including the full interviews, on our website!

Pia Curran interviews.

The 2025 Honi Soit Writing Competition was, once again, an incredible demonstration of our student community’s talent. This year’s competition saw over 130 submissions across our fiction and non-fiction categories. Writers were tasked with submitting pieces with the theme of artificial What is real, and what is not, in our modern era?

Judged by esteemed writers Amani Haydar and Siang Lu, here you’ll find the winners, as well as second and third place, in our two categories. We’d like to also congratulate Jaseena Al-Helo and Sagar Nair, our Editor’s Choice prize recipients.

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition! All of your writing was read by the editorial team, and it was truly phenomenal in calibre. You can find all shortlisted pieces and the full pieces from all the winners on our website.

2025 Fiction Winners

my roots

Fiction Winner: Sidra Ghanawi

“O moon, o moon, don’t climb up the tree”

My mother would sing to me

But curiosity bested me

So instead I dug And rich was the soil that nourished my roots Beneath the rubble-encrusted earth

Even the Jasmine trees are tired, mother

Each flower stained with dignity lost, and yet to be found

Their roots shrivelled, still holding onto hope In this kidnapped revolution

I am sewn between the artificial borders of memory and map

Oh the lies they told Betrayal is the coldest enemy Of my land Is it my land?

For I am afraid she has forgotten me before our meeting

Patience will not unoccupy my soul of its yearning

My identity occludes me, waging a forever war

Am I a fool? To think that one day I may return. How naïve, to pray for a life my ancestors left behind

Perhaps the torture of foolishness is more forgiving than the unbecoming of hopelessness

A bullet in my heart.

Violently still, but I would not dare wish it away Call me crazy

For this pain is but a necessary visitor

Whispering reminders of our post-colonial circumstances

This exile – no accident but architecture

A passport cannot name my truth(s)

I climbed the tree, mother; And I can’t get down

Forever suspended between Earth and Exile – am I

Enmore Psychogeography

Fiction Second Place: Barnaby Smith

algorithms determine the falsehood of dirt & intimate architectures blur gravitational reality

i am taken in by the illusion of depth— except you this morning, eminently thing-like,

might sit as the street laps at the living room just feet away— it’s unwelcome here: in crossing the enigma of a tight kerb there is repose, or so the city tells itself, even in the ripest hours when the Jets have won, or some weather event

b

on chipper streets new brickwork glistens as jewels: ephemeral sectoring soon to be overgrown waiting to be scrawled & mangled— the dumb physicality of buildings murmers on in protected sleep until the fall-out from large numbers renders them expendable

my little pier of space is now invaded by an onslaught of the myrna—’the large conspicious passerine’— of compassless feeds & a malaise of song

we’re on their time now for big eventings at home & create our machine senses to be convinced of charm in the real out there

Yield

Fiction Third Place: Cate Chapman

Knife cleaves flesh. White, crisp, the floury texture visible like pores in the unforgiving light of the kitchen. Brown mars its core. The sickness spreads, weaving veins of ochre into the flesh of the other white cheek.

Turning back to the fruit bowl, she selects a new option, squeezing it to test for ripeness or bruises. This candidate is hard, stiff and glossy as though draped in a lick of varnish. The knife squeals as it pushes through one side to the other, relishing in the crisp cut. The interior is whiter than teeth.

She has always felt guilty for liking the sprayed-silken-waxed apples over the expensive organic ones her father brings home from the Saturday market.

She has driven with him there in the truck and she would hoist herself up from the shin-high step and push forward the passenger seat and clamber into the back as it bends for her. She always sits in the back when her father drives, even though she’s twenty. She’s not sure why. Her denim skirt and the underside of her thighs cling desperately to the plasticky seats.

But on the way home, while the truck trundles over the loose gravel and the skin of her cheek shivers as it rests on the window, she would bite into an organic apple and wonder why it tasted so bland, so floury, why its shine is so dull, its surface spotted and marred.

“I love those organic ones. Don’t you, Mary?”

She’d nod in agreement. To agree with her father is a rule she feels not in her chest but in her skin: unvoiced, but it shrouds her completely.

“Very nice. Thank you, dad.”

She’d wonder if he could even hear her over the raspy pottering of the truck, lurching over the the unsealed road.

As juice runs between the cracks of her trembling knuckles like thawing rivulets, she thinks the pesticides and the wax are not all that bad. She feels proud. Lucky us: we have learned to treat ourselves so well. Lucky us: we can have our apples polished.

She’s been having this dream recently where she’s climbing down a ladder, like one propped between the clusters of leaves and the swollen fruit, because if she looks down she knows she’ll focus too much on her footing and her arches will slip from the rungs like drooping skin like wrinkles like string once pulled taut. She’s been having this dream for a while, where, despite that knowing sense that dreams robe themselves in, she looks down and sees her arches sliding and her toes releasing and her feet meeting air, thick and sweet with the heady fumes of the cider-heap (the one she thinks she’ll soon be meat for, which doesn’t make sense, of course, but the notion is enrobed with that sense of sense that dreams are insensibly clothed in). She’s been having this dream for as long as she can remember: it always has that same ending where she falls to her death, to her brokenness, to the flesh-for-cider-fate, but the strings catch her, snagging, twine pulling taut and tortured at her elbows and knees and neck, which is fitting because she is a marionette, wooden and stiff, dangling before an audience of apples with their splitting sides and grinning teeth, laughing and laughing. She doesn’t know what the play is about, but her mouth’s moving and she’s delivering the lines that come to her hinged jaw with mechanical ease. Easy dramatics amongst the sweeping curves of the amphitheatre ripe with Pink Ladies and Granny Smiths alike. She wonders if they feel the fingerprints of the playwright on the glossy surface, hollow and bruised beneath.

2025 Non-Fiction Winners

Non-Fiction Winner: Jayden Nguyen

Patterns of a War-Torn Conscience: Towards a Healing Conceptualisation of Praxis

When one slapped one’s child in anger the recoil in the heart reverberated through heaven and became part of the pain of the universe.

— James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

Concepción, one of two volcanoes which form the island Ometepe, Nicaragua last erupted on 16 May 2024. My father showed videos of black ash billowing from its vent; though it was impossible for me to comprehend the eruption’s magnitude, because I (still) had yet to see that part of home for myself.

My grandmother wanted to sell land she inherited before fleeing to Costa Rica, then Australia. I forgot what her reason was, I (still) cannot ask her fluently myself. I inferred; she felt an urgency to access its liquidity, clinging onto whatever market value her fraction of home was worth. She now sends money home to her siblings after receiving Centrelink payments.

The communists are taking the land and selling it, my father relayed to me; but as I pursued the social sciences, I became desensitised to the turbulences of diaspora rhetoric. Perhaps there was no fundamental difference to the way I thought, as I lost patience for a politics other than mine. Daniel Ortega wants to turn the country’s flag red and black; my grandmother insisted this news was true. Indeed, she (still) resists, ornamenting her flat with plateware and napkins in blue and white. They have, in fact, become her favourite colours. And in broken English, she speaks of parallels between our modern world and the Book of Revelation. I use these reflections as points of departure.

Critical theorists in the social sciences have maintained a nostalgic notion of praxis. There is ultimate desire for theory to materialise as practice; in Max Ajl’s words concerning Palestine, “intellectual production for national liberation”. I do not content this power of anti-capitalist and anti-colonial synthesis. But from the position of diaspora, there is only an artificial concept of liberation available through a normative, economic presupposition. This limitation extends to my father, and his mother. There is incoherence to liberation if the reciprocal constructs of race and gender are maintained in post-capitalist reality. Although we have not met such an economic occasion, movements toward it stumble from the incoherence.

Deconstructing a conservative ideology, formulated by nostalgia; fear of the future; instantaneous misinformation; a wartorn consciousness, requires attention beyond a class dialectic. Eradicating material contradictions could not, alone, constitute an authentic healing process. An intersectional proposition must address the alignment of self to foreign values when forced into a new condition of life. If we maintain that theory only finds purpose

when our lives put it into motion, then, (in Judith Butler’s words) our precarious bodies demarcate this conjuncture. The body as ontology is a social phenomenon; maintaining Butler’s thesis, being vulnerable by definition.

Nicaraguan socialist revolution — which overthrew the intergenerational Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and prompted United States (para)military interference until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 — collateralised Nicaraguan bodies; into what this period denotes as proxy. My matrilineal family of a separate continent, to whom I owe my surname Nguyễn, shared this conditioning. In both spheres, my people warded off puppet regimes through guerrilla resistance. But the consciences of my grandparents from either side are caught in a contradictory American–sentimentalism paradigm, despite being violently displaced by that state. Perhaps only with retrospect can I identify, thus critique, the artificially sequenced; propagandised defences of America in their logic; given that war has lived through me just discursively.

As I gather that life is precarious, the very circumstance which induces my Abuelita’s fear of the colours red and black, thus her assurance in blue and white, is vulnerability. The condition of resistance is vulnerability at its climax; lives become wielded by an ideology dependent on an accurate selfconceptualisation—aware of bodies as threatened from returning whence they came — tying purpose into the lands called home. She does not fear communism, she fears a loss of self, through a loss of space and memory — she fears non-existence

Maintaining Butler’s thesis, these contemplations circulate around a notion of ‘grievability’ in context of war. When existing bodies; a person’s essence; enter the oppressive transition into collateral, we (observers of war) learn to differentiate. As Butler writes, “An ungrievable life is one that cannot be mourned because it has never lived, that is, it has never counted as a life at all.” So, by accepting the epistemology of nationalism at this limitation, lives are not just variably grievable in a discursive sense. Rather, “we are talking about affective responses that are highly regulated by regimes of power and sometimes subject to explicit censorship.”

My Abuelita evidences this synthesis; a life’s grievability is determined by a material distribution of power, which reinforces itself through violence. Here, we observe the inner logic afforded to, what Gayatri Spivak called the ‘subaltern’, in response to the systematic reduction of their bodies as collateral. The framing of Nicaraguan

independence today as communist thus evil, attempts to reconfigure the historical placement of Nicaraguan people from collateral; as proxy; towards the centre of an Americanised sympathy-paradigm. Because what unfolds before me, as I had witnessed Concepción erupt not through an English-speaking media, but a WhatsApp message transmitted from Ometepe — what is conferred onto me as I learn of the United States’ contempt towards public international law in Nicaragua v. United States (1984) — are mounds of evidence which place Nicaraguan people at the periphery of the grievable paradigm; beyond such scope, their lives were indeed non-existent

If I am to contribute towards a theory for which an authentic healing process of intergenerational war–trauma occurs, then I must reiterate the inter-situational condition of her fear; anti-colonial notions require cross-reference. Thus, I consider Edward Said’s critique of Zionism’s collateralisation of Palestinians resonant with Butler’s framing: “Epistemologically the name of, and of course the very presence of bodies, in Palestine are — because Palestine carries so heavy an imaginative and doctrinal freight — transmuted from a reality into a nonreality, from a presence into an absence.” To accomplish the praxis of ‘national liberation’, diasporic bodies must re appear into the realm of existence; of vulnerability, and our role as later generations is to reconfigure this ‘ontology of the body’ into one always critical of neocolonial state powers and their synthetic narratives of restoring old nationalisms.

What I have proposed is a revised deconstruction of ‘knowledge production for national liberation’, whereby the reactionary placement of oppressed (subaltern) self within conservatism is explained as traumatic (causation). Basing this inquiry on the epistemology of ‘grievability’, in an ontological context of the body as a ‘social phenomenon’; ‘vulnerable by definition’, a fear of communism, thus, one’s diasporic association with a nonsensical conservative nationalism, is deduced from the more embedded traumatisation of the war-torn body as collateralised. If this psychoanalytic framework is employed, our (we, children of diaspora) collective movements towards ‘national liberation’ include a necessary healing process in local acts of praxis. The passive nostalgia for an artificially autonomous nation—a distant place feared of return — becomes reconfigured, through an authentic process of resistance against our deduction into collateral by colonial actors. Here, we formulate a theory of ‘national liberation’ with the diaspora assured of an active position.

The night has its own logic

Non-Fiction Second Place: Ava

After years of talk therapy and antipsychotics did nothing to assuage my friend’s fear of fear that, once again, she might lose her mind completely, she returned to psychosis intentionally. She tired of talking about it, words always one step removed from the truth of things. The logic of the day is senseless when it is brought into the night, she said. The night has its own logic.

The hope was that this time, she would touch it, learn to move with it, she would greet it like an old friend. The hope was that she could come into a new way of living with the world. She took 250 micrograms of LSD on an empty beach crested with honeycombed cliffs that pierced a sheer hundred metres into the ocean, hours from the city, and without phone service.

She returned, thankfully. Having finished with fear. I was with her as much as she needed me to be, trip-sitting, as it were. I write this alongside her, at her request. She no longer tastes the metal that would materialise in her mouth before the fear. It turns out the metal taste was a self-fulfilling prophecy, not a premonition.

The ‘treatment,’ could it be called that, is by all metrics warned against. Despite its outcome, we might just call it insane, a terrible naïve idea. A precarious way of dealing with oneself that shouldn’t even be talked about lest it be encouraged. Thank Goodness nothing bad happened. Going against that, I think it deserves consideration. It speaks to the way we orient ourselves towards the world, and ourselves.

The logic of artifice is one of pure repetition, and it is everything that my friend resisted through her return. This logic recognises that every object that is the same can be treated the same, explained the same way, and exists consistently overtime. From laptops and kettles, to forces like gravity or causality. I call it artificial not to moralise – it is not fake or dishonest – but rather because it smooths over details to create models of the world that are nevertheless separate from it. It is about explaining things that are made to be identical or construed as consistent. So, we are speaking both of a method of explanation, and of the objects it appropriately applies to. I call it a logic of artifice knowing that a category is necessarily reductive, but I am not immune to convenience.

This kind of thinking can be very useful, proceeding from observation to generalisation. However, thinking predicated on artifice has bled into how we think about singular phenomena, too. Things that can never be repeated, whose essence lies in their difference: nature, history, self. I worry about what happens when we subdivide interconnected systems into smaller and smaller objects and then turn these objects inwards. An isolated organism is a dead organism.

It would be reductive to heap responsibility for this thinking on ‘the sciences’ as it may be easy to do, because this would be too narrow a genealogy. We must look at the individuals who reflect it. All of us are tempted by neat explanations and treatments, to make sense of the world. To bring this close to home, we want an answer to ourselves. A narrative that makes sense of our choices and troubles, an explanation that comes neatly wrapped up with a clear way forward. Further afield, to explain war, historians might look for an explanandum that focalises one individual or event to justify how and why atrocities became possible. Trying to force rational systems to explain irrational processes comes up against the problem that the logic of the day is senseless in the night.

Broinowski

Like with any paradigm or ideology, artificialist thinking becomes an identity, carving out the angles of a glass prism up against which the individual presses their face. They see the world through it, eventually forgetting the prism itself. Categories and the language that rigidifies and repeats them, set limits upon what is conceivable.

Despite how rationality laughs at faith, the artificialist mode of rationalising feels a little bit religious. It aligns with the aspiration to find a single reason for all of this. Treating parts of the world as though they were repeatable and explicable brings us closer to that elusive theory of everything. The whisperings underpinning psychiatry and religion, personified, say turn yourself over to those who have the answers, to the world, to your pain, and you too might be saved

In her book Romantic Empiricism, on the titular tradition in philosophy, Dalia Nassar writes of the assumption in experimental research “that the only way by which to understand natural phenomena is by looking for something behind or beyond them, looking for a force than can somehow “explain” them.” Expositing artificed laws places us behind or beyond the phenomena in question into the hidden realm of explanations. But to fully know something, we must see for ourselves. You could read a hundred books on meditation, pouring over descriptions of the steps of the practice and relevant phenomenology. But until you have lived through the exercise, you don’t really know it. Words, always one step removed from the truth of things.

My friend was no longer thinking through the artifice of repeatable categories: sane, insane, sickness, treatment. Her afflictions simply could not be comprehended or softened in a state of measured reflection. The causal chain of events that led her to psychic break, if there ever was one, was certainly remote from her after the fact. So, in trying to create an explanation of herself, she fell beyond herself into the chasm that always heaves between concepts. To pass through the vertigo staring down into a fractal of divisions, return was necessary.

I am not worried about encouraging her course of action because for anyone else it is no longer the same action. Actually, it would probably be a terrible naïve idea. Were we to call it treatment, this would be the very move that leads us back to artifice: to suggest that her actions are in any way repeatable.

“I was at the start and end of time. The years between this and the other breaks were illusions that had been dropped into me through a pipette. I had voted that morning, election day. So I thought I had just made up politics, this was darkly hilarious. But still, I had either died or never lived in the first place. And there was just purgatorial nothingness, forever. I was so lonely. After the terror I can’t speak of, I slowly invented physics, ethics, and language… Then the sky became beautiful. Hiking back to the port was coming back into the hands of things that make sense.”

Bringing the logic of artifice into my friend’s life forgot, for a long time, that the categories heaped upon her were just that. They were names for approximate parts of a flow that is unyielding, unreeling, vital and vulnerable. A whole body in place and time, whose environment and self exist through each other. Becoming is not linear, not hierarchical. She was never something made, broken, to be taken for easy repair. Certainly, she is hardly replaceable.

Non-Fiction Third Place: Cecily McCrann

According to Microsoft, the application OneNote lets you “combine the power of digital ink with the natural feel of a pen…sketch, annotate and highlight.” Copywriters advertising digital software love tricolons. The productivity tool Notion apparently helps users “write, plan and collaborate”- a slogan placed centrally on their website’s opening page. You could “dream it up, and jot it down” with an Apple Pencil, which retail from $219 AUD.

My pen of choice is a Pilot 6-207 in black, which costs $4.99 from Officeworks. It writes notes smoothly and dries quickly. I am afflicted by a neuroticism that does not seem to affect others, best described as an ‘obsessive personality.’ As a result, I refuse to write with any other pen.

Note taking is an integral aspect of both my life and our wider typographic culture – highlighted through the ubiquity of digital programmes which apparently aid in project development and management. However, this shift away from print based forms forces us to think critically about digital writing and editing.

Bettina Funcke describes a note as a “trace, a word, a drawing that all of a sudden becomes part of thinking, and is transformed into an idea.” Put differently, marking a page with a note makes a thought real. Contrastingly, digital notes are defined by their intangibility. They can be permanently deleted, erased, and are stored in a non-physical, mythical like entity called “The Cloud.”

This raises questions about the implications digital writing tools have on creativity. Do softwares like OneNote, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Notion enhance creative freedom? Or do they restrict it? More urgently, does the immateriality of these softwares rid creative production of its human characteristics? The answer appears as a long winded advertisement for Moleskine.

Humans have transcribed the monotonous aspects of their everyday life for centuries. In Ancient Mesopotamia around 1750 BC, a dissatisfied customer called Nanni addressed a letter of complaint to the merchant Ea-Nasir. The complaint was recorded on a clay tablet, and claimed that the merchant sold poor quality copper. Ancient graffiti from the Romancity Pompeii hasrecently been excavated; over 2,000 years ago, a patron scrawled “I screwed the barmaid” on the walls of a bar.

What fuels the urge to transcribe? Perhaps we are passionate about terrible customer service, or enjoy boasting about sexual encounters. Personally, I am afflicted by the obsessive belief that one day I will wake up and forget everything. I’ll start the car only to mix up the accelerator and brakes, or forget to breathe in oxygen and release C02. So, firstly, recording means remembering. It serves as a visual reminder of what I have learnt, and what interests me. Secondly, I transcribe hoping that one day the mindmaps, bullet points, and preliminary sketches will lead me to that final epiphany – a singular sentence which clarifies everything.

Anyone committed to notetaking knows that it is a serious art: Samuel Beckett wrote the original French and English drafts of Waiting for Godot in an A3 lined notebook. The German philosopher Walter Benjamin kept a record of every book he had read since he was 18. During

1927, Benjamin kept a journal that recorded musings and descriptions of the streets of Paris. The diary uses a navigational guide based around colour and symbols to organise excerpts and quotes. Nikola Doll highlights that Benjamin’s colour coded system represents the psychological tension between structure and the “potential of the open field of interest.” The notebook reminds us that creativity occurs in the space between structure and chaos.

Partially inspired by Benjamin’s note taking system, I recently attempted to categorise my various notebooks thematically. However, my attitude towards daily life is at best hedonistic, and at worst careless. My system failed – a journal originally intended for beginners French writing exercises is now marked with notes about calling electricity locals, booking the dentist, and feeling depressed.

Digital writing softwares thus fulfill my need for structure, which I often neglect in the routines and habits of daily life. At their most basic, these programs are a simulacrum of objects: pen and paper, clocks, or highlighters. Tools like headings, toggle lists or highlighters give the illusion that creative production and ideas can be systematically organised. Literary critic Katherine Hayles puts it well: “one of the insights electronic textua lity makes inescapably clear is that navigational functionaries are not merely ways to access the work but part of a works signifying structure.”

Hayles point becomes abundantly clear when I consider my font of choice – Times New Roman. The font was created by the British newspaper The Times in 1931, and was visually inspired by a style of typeface popular in Early Modern European print. Times New Roman is popular in academic writing and newspapers because of its readability and crisp design. Thus, the fonts’ association with highbrow intellectual texts gives my work a veneer of prestige and sophistication.

Elaborating on this, indents signify a new paragraph, while italics emphasise important points or words

Bold Headings with Capitalisation Signal A New Idea, or Body Paragraph

The google document thus offers something the page could never: an appearance of order, of structure

The productivity software Notion does more than just organise notes and documents – advertising itself as a personalised “workflow.” Upon reflection, I don’t know what “workflow” actually is; apparently it refers to a series of processes, or steps that are needed to complete tasks. Workflow is one of those semantically empty phrases you encounter a lot in the contemporary climate, like “supercharge” and “productivity.” Coincidentally, One Note lets you “supercharge your productivity.”

Do tools like daily time blocking planners, calendars, toggle lists, dividers actually make production easier? Or do they fundamentally alter the creative process? These digital instruments are useful as they make editing and research easier, and store one’s assortments of notes and drafts in a singular database. However, these tools constantly survey and measure output – making the writing process synonymous with efficiency.

President

Angus Fisher

Together, we’ve made it to the end of Semester 1. I couldn’t be prouder to represent USyd’s undergraduate student body. As President, I’ve ensured that student voices were heard across university management, government, and public forums, and that the SRC works for students first. Here are only some of the things I was able to achieve and do for you:

1. Defending Student Rights and Academic Freedom

- Preserved 5-day simple extensions despite proposed cuts to 2 or 3 days by negotiating with the university.

- Attended every single committee meeting, from the Academic Board to the University Executive, to ensure students have a voice at the table.

- Led submissions on the five controversial draft policies restricting political and academic expression.

- Fought the university’s Campus Access Policy (CAP) and successfully prompted a review into notice procedures for student demonstrations.

- Negotiated directly with university leadership to protect SRC independence from university surveillance, notably ensuring student safety and autonomy during a 200+ person SGM.

- Coordinated the SRC’s submission to the People’s Inquiry into Campus Free Speech on Palestine.

2. Political Campaigns and National Advocacy

- Led USyd’s contribution to the highly successful ACTU’s “Don’t Risk Dutton” campaign, warning students of the Coalition’s threat to HECS, student services, and job security.

- Spoke at major rallies, including the National Day of Action for Palestine, the CARR rally

against far-right extremism, the forum on repression at universities, and the rally for solidarity with striking Woolworths workers.

- Attended the NSW Drug Summit and contributed to the post-Drug Summit youth statement, highlighting the flaws of the event. Hosting a follow-up forum on Tuesday, 3rd June, 6:30 pm, about the future of drug reform.

- Represented USyd undergraduates at the NUS National Conference and President’s Summit.

3. Campus Engagement and Student Unionism

- Ran 6 fortnightly high-impact BBQs and outreach stalls, handing out hundreds of tote bags, sausages, and campaign materials to reach students the SRC has never spoken to before.

- Launched a $1000 logo competition to rebrand the SRC and engage creative students (Winner TBA, it is close!).

- Worked to relocate the SRC office for improved visibility and better working conditions for the SRC staff.

- Initiated a joint push with SUPRA for a $5 student meal canteen and have established a working group with the university and USU to deliver the canteen by the start of next year.

- Delivered a new migration law service via the SRC Legal Service for international students.

You voted for me to be your SRC President because you wanted to be able to feel the IMPACT of the SRC’s work. I will continue to work hard for you in my remaining 6 months as President. Let’s keep it real.

In solidarity,

Angus Fisher

Environment Officers

Deaglan Godwin, Lilah Thurbon

These past weeks have brought fresh reminders of the climate crisis. Flooding in Northern NSW has damaged upwards of 10,000 properties and displaced or isolated people five times that. The memory of life-threatening floods is a fresh one for communities on the North Coast, with the one of the worst flooding disasters in Australian history having swept across the region in 2022.

Further south, weather events of the other extreme are wrecking South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. Prolonged drought has caused cities like Adelaide to begin the process of desalination, and farmers are ordering in trucks of water while they await the “Autumn Break”, the first major rainfall of the wheat growing season.

These “once in a century” weather events are becoming regular fixtures in Australia and across the globe. Readers may be wondering whether the recently re-elected Albanese Labor government might use their record breaking mandate to do something about combatting climate change. Voters wholesale rejected the anticlimate, pro-nuclear agenda of the coalition, and opinion polling shows the electorate cares a lot about action on climate change.

Unfortunately, your environment officers don’t think a departure from the lacklustre policies of Albanese’s first term is on the cards. This is the same labor party that is beholden to big business and the coal and gas lobby, and has sold workers and the planet down the river.

General Secretary

Grace Street, Anu-Ujin Khulan

It’s our last report of the semester, and it’s been a big one!! Good luck to all for your final classes, assessments and exams – don’t forget to check out the SRC Casework resources online for any questions or difficult academic situations you find yourself in.

From December to February, we were busy (single handedly) preparing and packing all of the SRC merch and cooking up the SRC Welcome Handbook for Welcome Week. Many students and staff remarked that it was one of the best looking and most organised Welcome Weeks yet!

All within a couple of months, we completed the 2025 Office Bearer department and collective budgets, provided monthly updates to OBs on said budgets, hired a great new caseworker, completed staff consults, attended SRC Legal Service and Legal Committee meetings, and are in the process of selecting our 2025 Electoral Officer.

Anu has been supporting the international students collective with its recruitment to expand its outreach. There’s more international students representatives joining the community which we have formerly formed with ANU representatives, hopefully we can create a better solution to the issues international students are facing with the communication and networks we have currently.

More recently, Grace has been keeping the SRC up to date with its activist orientation and activities, particularly with the rally to commemorate 77 years of Nakba and the National Day of Action to cut ties with Trump’s America. She is spearheading the free vaccination and voucher program this week as part of DisCo’s masking campaign, which has over 90 students involved.

We’ll see you in Welcome Week and for Radical Education Week next in Semester 2, keep your eyes peeled!

Interfaith Officers

In today’s world, faith is often seen as something opposed to reason—as if belief begins where thinking ends. But within the Christian tradition, and especially in the Catholic intellectual heritage, faith and reason are not enemies but partners in the search for truth.

The Gospel of John opens with a profound statement: “In the beginning was the Word”—Logos—a term that means not just “word” but reason, order, and divine wisdom. This belief that the universe is created by a rational God shaped a Christian view of the world as intelligible and worth exploring. This wasn’t just theory. It inspired the scientific contributions

of faithful Christians like Gregor Mendel, father of genetics, and Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest who proposed the Big Bang theory. Their belief in a rational Creator led them to expect a world governed by discoverable laws.

As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “All truth is God’s truth.” Real faith is not afraid of questions—it invites them. It seeks understanding with humility and courage. Even across different beliefs, there’s a shared conviction: that the human mind is made to seek truth. And the best conversations are those where both faith and reason are free to speak.

Global Solidarity Officers

Dana Kafina, Kayla Hill

The Global Solidarity Officers did not submit a report this week.

Womens’ Officers

Martha Barlow, Ellie Robertson

The Womens’ Officers did not submit a report this week.

Rose Zoori, Kehan (Coco) Lu

Tips to help you be EXAM-READY!

Get Exam Ready

Exams are a stressful, yet normal part of university life, and it is normal to feel a little bit anxious in the lead-up. Luckily there are steps you can take to make your exam experience less stressful.

Before your exams, find out what topics will be covered in the exam, and what kind of exam you will be sitting. Remember; an open-book exam does not mean you can use the Internet! Usually, it means that you can use paper or locally saved notes only. Carefully read the specific rules for your exam, and if you are unsure, ask your unit coordinator. The library runs an “exam ready” program with lots of helpful tips and resources.

Exam logistics

It is important to know where your exam will be, and how you will get there. Have a look at the doors for the room so you can get to another door if the first one is locked. Check the date, time, and location of the exam in your exam timetable, which was released on 29th April. If you miss an exam because you misread the timetable it is unlikely that you will get the chance to do a supplementary exam instead. You will need to bring or show a valid form of photo ID.

Check: your seat number, what you need to bring into the exam room, what you are not allowed to bring in, and what materials you need to have approved (E.g., a calculators must have an approved sticked from the Student Centre). Read the exam instructions carefully and ask your

unit coordinator if you are unsure. When you get into the exam room, turn your phone off (not silent, off) and put it in your bag. Make sure your pockets are empty. Place your bag where you are told. You are not allowed to wear headphones in an exam.

What if I’m unwell?

If you cannot attend an exam or your performance is impacted by an illness, injury, or misadventure that was unexpected and beyond your control, you can apply for Special Consideration, even if it is a replacement exam. Special Consideration applications must be submitted within three working days of the exam date, and you must provide appropriate supporting documents. Usually this is a Professional Practitioner’s Certificate covering the date you were impacted, including the date of the exam. Please note that you should see a doctor on or before the day of the exam. If you were impacted by misadventure, it is helpful to focus on the way that it impacted you, not the event itself. For example, if your grandparent died, get a PPC from your doctor for the grief you are experiencing, rather than focusing on the death of your grandparent. See the SRC’s website for more information about Special Consideration.

Academic Integrity

If you are accused of academic dishonesty, the SRC can help. You can use the contact form on our website, or you can call the office on 9660 5222.

Ask Abe

SRC

Caseworker Help Q&A Special Consideration for Exams

Dear Abe,

I got special consideration for my exam, but I’ve become sick again. Will I get a fail for the exam if I don’t sit it? Should I just do the exam even though I’m sick? What should I do?

Cheers, Still Sick

Dear Still Sick,

You can apply for special consideration for a replacement exam. Provide a new supporting document, like a Professional Practitioner’s Certificate. It should be from a GP, psychologist, or psychiatrist, registered in Australia. Make sure it’s from the day of or before the exam.

Cheers, Abe

For more information about Special Consideration: bit.ly/3xQcS5o

Puzzles

‘Quick’ Crossword

Across

2 Stimulating substance, briefly (3)

4 Ancient Greek region (5)

6 Prices, Universities? (7)

8 Collective-bargaining establishment (5,4)

10 Milky gems (5)

11 A shoulder ___ on (2,3)

1 Author of Wretched of the Earth (5)

2 Australian islands (5)

3 Top spot (5)

4 With no warmth (5)

5 Literally, “for this” (2,3)

6 Data crunching (9)

7 McCarthyist target (9)

Week 12 Crossword Answers

13 Without sparkle (5)

15 Goodbyes (5)

17 What pests do(5)

18 Union for uber drivers (3)

19 Gave a hand (5)

20 Skedaddles (5)

22 Mary-Kate or Ashley (5)

8 Sends to the cloud (7)

9 Extols (7)

10 Part of a pound (5)

12 Alpine call (5)

13 “Phone book” of the internet (3)

14 Pained expression (3)

16 MP’s counterpart? (3)

21 Editor puts back in (5)

23 Text tweaks (5)

25 The Tempest

26 Without aroma (9)

28 Actor’s dream (5)

29 Berlin’s “Blue ___” (5)

30 Musical gift (3)

22 Sandwiches for desert? (5)

24 Slithering serpent (5)

25 ___man: a city councillor (5)

27 Courtroom event (5)

Across (by individual row): Sak, Shrew, Scanner, Turkey Leg, Genie, Asses, Polyp, Hints, Korea, Clr, Seeds, Pacts, At Sea, No Sir, Flail, Meridians, Neglect, No Ink, RnD

Down (by individual column): Carne, Shake, Kenya, Scrip, Welsh, Sun Yat Sen, Resistant, Telecom, Genesis, Goran, Steel, Pop, BLF, SDA, Siren, Alack, Rigor, Fiend, D Line

Honi in

the

20s: “Should men pay women students’ tram fares?”

Lotte Weber delves into the archives.

On May 31, 1929, in its first year of publication, Honi printed an anonymous letter in full, noting it as a “contentious matter”. Titled, Should men pay women students’ tram fares, a firstyear — or rather “Fresher”, paints his predicament. “Every morning I meet one of the women of my year at the tram — she’s always there first and so I can’t dodge her — and we ride in together and I pay her fare… should I pay her fare seeing that I only met her a few weeks ago?” The penman goes on to calculate exactly how much this chivalry costs. “As we are both doing Med, we will travel together for six years and that means 36 pounds. Further since everyone fails in Third Year we will have to stay seven years at the ‘Varsity and that makes it 42 pounds. It doesn’t seem a bit fair to me that this girl should cost me so much money.” Honi responded by promising to poll opinions of several “Women Undergrads” and noted a call-out for “some Senior men’s views”.

Puzzles by Some Hack

Special Buys Bad. Same.

STU DENT JO URNALISM CON FERENCE

15 – 18 August | University of Sydney

Free admission

TICKETS

INFO

Dominic Knight Samantha Maiden

David Marr Cathy Wilcox Cheng Lei

Richard Glover Benjamin Law

Featuring: and more!