Week 9, Semester 2, 2026
Your Weekly Student Newspaper
First Printed 1929
Acknowledgment of Country EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Victor Zhang
EDITORS Madison Burland Anastasia Dale James Fitzgerald Sice
Honi Soit publishes on stolen Gadigal land. Sovereignty was never ceded.
The University of Sydney is a colonial institution that upholds Western knowledge as superior to First Nations knowledge systems. We reject this hierarchy. As student journalists, we recognise that mainstream media has been complicit in silencing and misrepresenting
Indigenous voices since invasion.
We commit to centring First Nations perspectives in our reporting, to challenging the colonial structures embedded in journalism, and to amplifying the voices of those resisting ongoing dispossession. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and to all First Nations students and contributors. Always was, and always will be Aboriginal land.
Kuyili Karthik Alastair Panzarino Firdevs Sinik Sebastien Tuzilovic
In This Edition:
Victor Zhang
4 NSW parliament releases blueprint for reversing university corporatisation
WRITERS
6 Up to two-thirds of courses to be ‘reviewed’
Sophie Wishart
Calista Burrowes Anastasia Dale James Fitzgerald Sice Cyrus Fung Alastair Panzarino Lucas Pierce Kuyili Karthik Lara Kumar William Yang Victor Zhang
8 USyd management allegedly considering takeover of SRC elections 10 USyd Senate rejects call for Convocation 11–13 FEATURE: From Gadigal to Gaza 14 International students on the picket lines 15 AUKUS and You
FRONT COVER Sophie Wishart
16 Where did our weekly debate forum go? 17 The revolution will not be televised on the ABC
BACK COVER Sophie Wishart
20–23 SRC Reports/Puzzles/Comedy
Contribute
Do you have a deep-rooted longing to be a contributor but have no idea how to get involved? Apply to be a reporter or artist via the link in our Instagram bio: @honi.soit Or if you have a one-off pitch, tip for a story, complaint, letter to the editors, or more, email us at editors@honisoit.com. Scan the QR code if you'd rather send an anonymous tip. Send mail to Honi Soit at PO Box 974 Broadway NSW 2007. ISSN: 2207-5593. This edition was published on Tuesday 6 October 2026. Disclaimer: Honi Soit is published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney, Level 1 Wentworth Building, City Road, University of Sydney NSW 2006. The SRC’s operation costs, space and administrative support are financed by the University of Sydney. Honi Soit is printed under the auspices of the SRC’s Directors of Student Publications (DSP): Dongchen Yue, Sholto Mirrlees-Black, Lucy Sullivan, Ying Huang, Damien Lee, Hamish Evans. All expressions are published on the basis that they are not to be regarded as the opinions of the SRC unless specifically stated. The Council accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any of the opinions or information contained within this newspaper, nor does it endorse any of the advertisements and insertions. Please direct all advertising inquiries to publications.manager@src.usyd.edu.au. Email the editors at editors@honisoit.com.
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Is it then any surprise that our universities have been corporatised to this extent when the people governing our universities have scant clue what it is like to be a staff or student in the current day?
After the Howard-era university ‘reforms’ (butchery is a more apt word), University Senates and Councils were drastically reduced in size and composition. In particular, they mandated that a majority of membership on said councils must be external to the unviersity, that is to say not a current staff or student. Other requirements include a minimum representation of people with ‘financial’ and ‘commercial’ expertise.
Is it any surprise that the partner of a consultancy firm could be seconded to the high office of Vice-Chancellor in the case of UOW? (He awarded $3.8 million of work to his consultancy firm, which recommends sacking close to 200 staff. His story ends in the NSW ICAC.)
Editorial
Hello, I, Victor, am running for USyd Senate. What is the Senate you might ask? Put simply, it is the highest governing body of the unviersity, as established in the enabling legislation of our university.
Needless to say, our university councils increasingly have more corporate interests represented on them than staff, student, and alumni representation. Today, democratically elected staff and student representation is a distinct minority on all university councils or senates in the state. At Sydney, just one senate fellow is expected to represent all 45,000 undergraduate students.
I sat through various parliamentary hearings during the NSW university sector inquiry. The end result of that inquiry is welcome. Read about the final report on Page 4. Sure, Sydney Uni may have avoided the headlines that universities like UTS, UOW, and ANU endured. However, we cannot be complacent. In this edition, James and Staz write about the choice ratio requirement, that could see up to two-thirds of units in some majors be ‘reviewed’ (past experience
suggest axed, but this is not confirmed). The Senate needs a student who isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions to keep these bastards honest. Who better than an editor of this rag? Vote for Victor Zhang on the University Senate. Now for the rest of the pieces in this campus rag. Cyrus Fung writes about why international students should support staff on the picket lines. Calista Burrowes unpacks failures of ABC’s National Forum and mourns the death of the public broadcaster’s platform for national debate. Anonymous takes a closer look at how the ABC caved to pressure from Gina Rinehart and examines the pretense of liberal democracy.
Chuckie Chuddleson: I think it’s really weird that this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. Has anyone even read that Honi article? I didn’t even think it was digging at anyone really. Just seemed like a funny controversy the editors wanted to horse around with. Ha. Horse around.
P. Pickle: Why are you asking me about horse meat? I’m a vegetarian. Freak. Barry B. Benson: I love horses! They’re pretty chillaxed animals, as long as you don’t buzz too close, if you know what I mean. Chuddie Chuckleson: I don’t know.. I’m not super adventerous eater. I typically stick to standard meats. High protein stuff. Chicken, Turkey, Eel. What was that? Horse meat has similar protein to beef and pork? Woah.
Honiscopes horse meat edition
Aries: Cajun chicken. 4 instances of wage theft out of 5 Irish schoolchildren. You’re simple, slightly spiced, slightly swampish in texture. You’re bogged down by routine and work. Time to bleach your eyebrows or dye your hair? Taurus: Lamb Curry. 4 seaplane crashes out of 5 horses. You’re hardened and gummy from staying awake too long these days. Get some sleep. Stay away from bodies of water. Gemini: Lentil curry. 3 out of 5. While we understand that you view crunchiness as a lifestyle choice, others might view it as a lack of showering. Consider those around you. more in your daily life. Cancer: Stir fry beef over rice. 4.67 Kazakh officials out of 5 UN bribes. Would’ve given full marks, but I couldn’t get second servings. You are brilliant in all ways. Money can’t buy everything, though. Remember that. Leo: Curry chicken round two. 3 horses out of 5 glue factories. Your scepticism can be both endearing and alarming. Trust more in those around you. Nothing will go wrong. Unless it does.
Good Music House Party W/ Heart Shaped Aces, Chick, CTRL Pach Thursday 8 October 7pm @Oxford Art Factory MEAT SHOP: FRESH CUTS a production fundraiser Thursday 8 October
Also, come to Student Journalism Conference this weekend. It’s a terrific lineup!
@ The Lord Gladstone
My many many thanks to Sophie for the amazing front cover.
Epicure
8pm
Friday 9 October
What do USyd Students have to say about horse meat Peter Griffin: These people can say what they want. Those meals — horse meat or not — absolutely BANGING! I don’t care for all this politics around it. I like a banging meal for 5 smacks. Sue me!
What's On
Frenchie Frenchman: Hoh hoh hoh! How you say horse meat? Délicieux! They ah make the best.. how you say? Hor d’oeuvres! Oui! Bonsoir! B.K: Oh my god are you one of those campaigners? I don’t have any free hands to take a pamphlet. Please stop asking me about what I think about horse meat. I don’t care, I don’t know you. I’m just trying to get to class on time.
H. Orse: Neigh.
Virgo: Curry chicken. Tastes better than it looks. 3.67 UN bribes out of 5 enforceable undertakings. You contain a variety of multitudes, don’t listen to those who doubt you. Stay true to yourself. Libra: Chicken and beans over rice. 3.67 cans of beef out of 5 horses. When times are hard, you’re a trusty friend. Just like a can of beans. Check in on your friends. Scorpio: Pumpkin and lentils. 2.67 holidays paid for out of 5 Irish schoolchildren. You’re seasonal, like a casual employee that doesn’t get any leave. Good luck saving for Euro summer! Sagittarius: Miso sauce, vegetables. 3.5 out of 5. You’re tasty, with a penchant for adventure. But don’t take any unnecessary journeys or make serious life choices this week. Storm ahead. Best to stay indoors.
8pm @ The Landsdowne Honi Soit’s Student Journalism Conference Saturday 10 October Sunday 11 October 9am to 7pm @ University of Sydney Michael Spence Building Eastern Avenute Auditorium StuJoCon Edition: Trivia with the Honi Soit Editors Saturday 10 October 7pm @ Forest Lodge Hotel StuJoCon Final Night Party Sunday 11 October 7pm @ The Lord Gladstone for more, visit sydneymusic.net
Capricorn: Slow cooked beef and pasta. 3.67 out of 5. You do everything with precision and care, but it slows you down. The clock is ticking. You’re only mortal. Make a move! Aquarius: Veggie pasta. 1.67 effigies out of 5 contracts. You are not pastizzi, just don’t. You disgust all with your mediocrity. Stop trying to fit into boxes that don’t contain you. Your fight to be recognised falls short. Pisces: Horse. 5 out 5. Neigh, you slay. The wind in your hair. The sun on your face. You’re glorious. Beloved by all. Majestic even. There are those out there who aim to politicise your existence. Don’t let them.
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| NEWS
NSW parliament releases blueprint for reversing university corporatisation Victor Zhang reports. The final report of a NSW parliamentary inquiry found that public universities in the state have become too corporatised and strayed from their intended purpose of education and research. The NSW Legislative Council Standing Committee on Social Issues’ 300-page report recommended the enabling legislation of universities be amended to align the governance of the state’s public universities with the communities they are meant to serve. “The inquiry has revealed systemic weaknesses in governance structures and legislative settings that are no longer consistently delivering the transparency, representative decision-making, effective oversight and public confidence expected of public institutions,” committee chair and Member of the Legislative Council Sarah Kaine wrote. “In the committee’s view, the sector has, over time, drifted too far towards corporate models of governance and management, diminishing the centrality of universities’ statutory purpose and public mission: the promotion of scholarship, research, free inquiry, the interaction of research and teaching, and academic excellence. “The committee considers that effective governance reform must be grounded in reform of the universities’ enabling acts to strengthen the statutory purposes and obligations of universities.” The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) said the final report was welcome amid the embattled higher education sector faced with “mass job cuts, pervasive wage theft, and public scandal”. “However, this report presents the State Government with a concrete and evidence-based roadmap to setting things right,” NTEU NSW Division Secretary Vince Caughley said. “It begins with restoring the role of elected staff in university governance processes — those who are, unlike the current myriad corporate appointees — experts in education, finance, governance, psychosocial health, and teaching pedagogy.
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“It has been 30 years since New South Wales last reviewed the Acts its universities run on. It’s well past time for the laws that govern our universities to change, and the state government must act decisively to adopt and implement the report’s recommendations.” In August 2026, Universities Australia Chair Carolyn Evans told the National Press Club that she did not believe there was a “generalised crisis in governance in Australian universities”. Professor Evans was the then Vice-Chancellor of Griffith University and is now the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. While Professor Evans said that there were instances of governance failures such as wage theft, conflicts of interest, and bullying, which she deemed “unacceptable”, she did not accept it was a sector wide problem and said the term governance was being used in a “sweeping way”.
governance of universities in NSW. The report found that “universities have swung too far towards corporatisation” and consequently the corporate managerial practices “are having a profound impact on universities’ human capital and academic infrastructure, with significant consequences for staff, students, and the broader university community”. The committee recommended that the NSW government review the enabling legislation of all NSW universities to reorient them to their intended mission of education and research. The report recommended that universities be required to justify the pay packages of vicechancellors and disclose the key performance indicators they are assessed against.
The parliamentary committee took a different view. The final report identified significant governance across the 10 public universities in the state examined by the inquiry.
Overreliance on consulting services also formed a key focus of the committee’s report. A report by the Auditor-General found that NSW universities spent $139 million on consultancy expenses in 2025.
“Governance challenges facing New South Wales universities are not isolated incidents confined to particular institutions. Rather, the inquiry identified recurring and systemic concerns,” the conclusion of the report reads.
The committee recommended that universities be required to disclose consultancy expenditure in annual reports “including their purpose, justification, procurement process and, where practicable, the outcomes achieved”.
Concerns include, universities launching major restructures, often with significant input and support from consultants; diminishing representation of elected student and staff members on university governing councils; the concentration of decision-making power in small groups of senior executives; the sidelining of formal collegial governance processes; consultation with staff and students happening after decisions having being made; the prioritisation of financial and commercial considerations over education; poor transparency and cultures of secrecy; and conflicts of interest among university council members.
The report also recommended that universities be prohibited from providing staff or student data to external organisations for sector-wide benchmarking unless they have received the informed consent of staff and students.
Findings and recommendations The committee made 23 recommendations to comprehensively reform the
The committee interrogated Nous Group and their UniForum benchmarking program. The report notes that despite being used by university managements to inform restructuring and workforce reductions, the underlying modelling is proprietary and not subject to public scrutiny. Staff and students also told the inquiry that consultation over major decisions was treated as an afterthought. Universities treated consultation as a “procedural exercise designed to satisfy formal requirements” rather than wanting to genuinely involve staff and students in decision making.
“In the committee’s view, the sector has, over time, drifted too far towards corporate models of governance and management, diminishing the centrality of universities’ statutory purpose and public mission.” Dr Sarah Kaine MLC The final report noted the “widespread perception that consultation occurs after key decisions have effectively been made and that opportunities to influence outcomes are limited”. Recommendation 21 of the report suggested that university enabling legislation be amended to require universities to “demonstrate how staff and student feedback has informed major organisational change proposals before decisions are finalised”. The committee also said universities should be required to have their governing bodies and senior executives demonstrate effective oversight of wage compliance and report annually on wage compliance, remediation, and controls implemented to prevent recurrence of wage theft. “Wage underpayment is not only an institution-specific problem but reflects broader weaknesses in governance, compliance oversight, workforce management systems and organisational culture,” the report read. In July, UNSW signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman to repay $33 million in stolen wages to over 33,000 affected staff. Since 2022, the FWO has entered enforceable undertakings with 13 universities to address wage theft, including the NSW universities of USyd ($23 million), UTS ($4.4 million), UON ($6.2 million), CSU ($3.2 million), and UOW ($6.6 million).
NEWS |
Figures central to the corruption watchdog’s investigation, dubbed Operation Scandi, are former Chancellor Michael Still and interim ViceChancellor John Dewar. Dewar was a partner at the consulting firm KordaMentha prior to his appointment at UOW. Following Dewar’s appointment, UOW awarded KordaMentha over $3.8 million of work, while sacking close to 200 staff members for ‘savings’ of over $30 million. Aggregated NSW University Council Composition
A democratic governing council The National Governance Protocols were introduced through the Higher Education Support Act 2003. The protocols were a set of governance requirements universities had to abide by if they sought to receive annual funding uplifts. Under the protocols, university governing councils were capped at a maximum size of 22 members. At least two members of each council were required to have financial expertise, and at least one member having commercial expertise. External independent members who are neither staff nor students were required to form a majority on councils. University councils are composed of official members, self-appointed members, ministerially appointed members, and elected members. Official members on council include the Chancellor, ViceChancellor, and the Chair of the Academic Board (or equivalent). Self-appointed members form a plurality on most councils, while elected staff and students form a distinct minority. “The committee observed a direct line between the preponderance of corporate expertise on councils and the adoption of commercial priorities at the expense of public mission, and linked to this, the burgeoning use of consultants,” the final report read. “The committee does not accept that expertise resides only outside universities, nor that corporate expertise should be allowed to eclipse other competencies.” The committee’s final report recommends that university enabling acts be amended to mandate a minimum 50 per cent elected representation by and from academic staff,
professional staff, and students on university governing councils. The elected representatives should also form a majority on governing council committees dealing with remuneration and appointments to university leadership and councils. The final report also recommended that elected representatives should be able to seek advice from the constituencies they represent and not be overly barred by confidentiality requirements. The committee also said the president of a university’s student union should be an ex-officio member of the university’s peak governing body. The final report also recommended that university councils improve their transparency by publishing minutes of council meetings and the rationale for major decisions affecting staff and students. The committee also recommended that minutes and documents are redacted only where necessary. “Universities, as publicly funded institutions established under legislation, should operate with a high degree of transparency,” the report reads. “Staff, students and the wider public are entitled to be informed of the decisions that significantly affect teaching, research, employment and the operation of university communities, and to understand the reasons for such decisions.”
Former UOW VC may be in contempt of parliament It was first revealed at a hearing of this inquiry in December 2025, that the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was investigating the University of Wollongong.
The final report of the parliamentary committee said John Dewar may be in contempt of parliament. “The committee concludes that in aspects of his evidence Mr Dewar misled our inquiry regarding the nature of his relationship with KordaMentha and the extent of the conflicts of interest arising from his appointment,” the committee’s report reads. “It is also a very serious matter that Mr Dewar appears to have contravened his solemn undertaking to speak truthfully under oath.”
Troubles at the oldest university “While unlike other universities, USyd restructuring and governance has not been in the headlines, the strength of the evidence before us, … pointed to various problematic aspects of accountability, transparency, and overreach of power in decision making,” the report reads. The committee’s report observed weakened representation of elected staff and students on the Senate and expressed concern that Senate fellows may be operating in an ‘information bubble’ where their information came primarily from the Vice-Chancellor and Senate committees. The report said it was “vital” that Senate fellows “have access to all the information they require, both internal and external, and especially from staff and student stakeholders, to fulfil their role in holding the university management to account”.
Beyond the Senate, Street told the committee that while students were invited to sit on committees, she believed that the University regarded student participation as a “tick-box exercise”. “I don’t think that our feedback is taken meaningfully. I don’t think we’re given enough time or input to have these things impact the policies and things that do affect us,” Street said. SRC casework and policy officer Jazzlyn Breen contribution to the inquiry hearings was highlighted by the committee’s final report. Breen told the committee that the Senate fellows were far removed from the realities that students and staff face. “A lot of these people don’t know what it’s like to be a student,” Breen told the committee. “They don’t know that it’s currently taking almost two weeks to get the outcome of a special consideration application. They don’t know that the second-stage academic appeal board is so backlogged that it’s taking three times the time specified in policy to get students’ outcomes, which is sometimes delaying students’ progression by a year.” The committee also noted that “staff and student stakeholders do not regard current consultation arrangements as meaningful or influential”. Consultation that did occur was “perceived as fulfilling a procedural requirement, rather than genuinely participatory”. A spokesperson for the University of Sydney told Honi Soit the University will “continue collaborating with the government and make any changes as required by our governing legislation and reporting obligations. “Good governance is vital to ensure we continue to deliver our core purpose of world-class research and transformative education. We thank the Committee for its work and contribution to the sector, and will carefully consider the report and its recommendations to ensure our governance remains fit for purpose.”
USyd Students’ Representative Council president Grace Street told the inquiry that student representation on the University Senate was wholly inadequate and student Senate fellows could not engage and report back to the student body.
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| NEWS
Up to two-thirds of USyd units to be ‘reviewed’ James Fitzgerald Sice and Anastasia Dale report. Documents seen by Honi Soit outline new “curriculum design requirements” to be enforced by USyd management, which staff fear could lead to course reductions under the banner of “operational sustainability”. At the centre of the policy overhaul is a new “Choice Ratio” metric. In the latest version of the University’s “curriculum quality and sustainability tool,” the ratio threshold is capped at 2.0. Calculated by dividing total available credit points by the minimum required for a major, a 2.0 ratio allows a major to offer up to double the required credit points in unit options. Under Clause 67 of the draft requirements, faculties “must review and address” any courses or components exceeding this threshold, with final responses subject to mandatory approval by the Dean.
Majors most affected Honi’s analysis of undergraduate offerings suggests some departments will have to “review” over half of the course offering for each undergraduate major they offer. The new “design requirements” will lead to widespread “reviews” of a staggering number of units of study, with a department compelled to provide justification for the existence and importance of each unit of study which exceeds the minimum requirements for degree attainment. Leading the list of departments exceeding the 2.0 threshold is Economics at 66 per cent, followed by Music (63.6 per cent), Visual Arts (59 per cent), English (55.6 per cent), and History (51.5 per cent). These percentages are indicative of the amount of subjects that will need to be reviewed and potentially cut. By contrast, only a small minority of smaller majors, such as Sociology, Indigenous Studies, and Political Economy, currently sit at or below the cap. Honi compared each major’s current number of units against that 16-unit cap. The figures reflected in the chart are units above
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the threshold which will be ‘reviewed’. Figures in the chart count only units coded to each discipline in the 2026 Handbook, excluding crosslisted units from other disciplines and shared interdisciplinary project units, to avoid overstating what each discipline itself offers. The University’s definition refers to all units “available within” a component, which could include cross-listed units, and it has not released its own counts, so its figures may differ.
‘Structural challenges’: the University’s finances The University’s own documents point to financial pressure elsewhere. ViceChancellor Mark Scott’s latest report to the Academic Board described a more complicated financial picture. It said international postgraduate enrolments are at approximately 27 per cent below target, and that “constrained revenue growth, combined with increasing operational costs” mean the University must “address structural challenges now to ensure the University’s long-term sustainability and competitiveness”. The same report expects “a strong overall financial result” for 2026, with revenue “tracking above budget”. It does not mention the curriculum design requirements or the Choice Ratio. The requirements themselves use similar language, describing the framework as “an essential foundation for operational sustainability”.
How the Ratio Works In the original document released to staff outlining the new Curriculum Design Requirements the Choice Ratio was undefined. The document included a reference to a “curriculum quality and sustainability tool” which was accessible to Deans, but not to other academic staff. A subsequent version of the document was released with the Choice Ratio defined and outlined as 2.0. “Choice Ratio means a measure of curriculum choice calculated by dividing the total credit points of units of study available within a course or curriculum component by the minimum credit points required to satisfy the relevant requirement. The choice ratio is used to assess the complexity and sustainability of curriculum structures. The choice ratio is 2.0 in the 2025 version of the curriculum quality and sustainability tool,” the paper reads. “Faculties and schools must review and address courses and components that exceed the choice ratio threshold set through the University’s curriculum quality and sustainability assurance processes. Responses must be approved by the Dean.” The Curriculum Design Requirements discussed at an Academic Board meeting did not define the Choice Ratio as 2.0, only referring to the implementation of an unspecified Choice Ratio in one sentence.
Staff and Union Leaders Slam ‘Pavlovian Austerity’ For generalist degrees like the Bachelor of Arts, specialised subfields in later years are essential for providing disciplinary depth. Chair of Philosophy Alexandre Lefebvre warned that enforcing a Choice Ratio of 2.0 would severely restrict advanced study. “Philosophy has already undergone substantial curriculum consolidation. The number of PHIL-coded undergraduate units has fallen from 64 in 2017 to 25 in 2026. A Choice Ratio of 2 would reduce us further to 16 units”, Lefebvre said “Over the same period, undergraduate enrolments have increased. The challenge posed to us by a Choice Ratio of 2 is that the units we would have to retire are well enrolled and academically distinctive. “I have not personally encountered students asking for fewer choices in Philosophy or for a simpler range of unit offerings. I have, however, repeatedly heard from students who are concerned about reductions in the range of units available to them.” NTEU USyd branch president and politics lecturer Peter Chen said that while the NTEU was aware of the program, the union was not consulted about the Choice Ratio. Chen cautioned that “the concept of ‘curriculum sustainability’ has been used on a number of occasions in the University to date, which have tended to be associated with the reduction in the number of units of study.”
NEWS |
Chen warned that the new curriculum design would “reduce choice in electives, leading to frustration and students taking units they are uninterested in, lowering USS [Unit of Study Survey] scores and negatively affecting the learning experience of other students, and job satisfaction of staff.” “If they undermine the quality of education in general, then they run against the legislatively-defined function of the University of Sydney in its NSW Act of Parliament,” Chen said, reflecting on the broader implications of the curriculum redesign. “The loss of units of study reduces the academic freedom of educators to teach those subjects that they have identified as important to know. They are related to the intensification of work, through management of large units of study and the substitution of face-to-face interactions between teachers and students by computer systems. They have knock-on effects on the ‘span of hours’ of work. They can reduce the size of the academic workforce making some academic areas of specialisation redundant.” Nick Riemer, a senior English lecturer and current VicePresident (Academic) of the NTEU USyd branch, said it was one example among many of staff not being meaningfully consulted about major decisions. “Management’s obsession with cutting courses is nothing short of institutional vandalism. It will directly undermine the integrity and credibility of our degrees and the attractiveness of our offerings to students,” Riemer said. “Even though the university is in surplus, our managers can do nothing other than degrade the breadth of our curriculum even further. This is Pavlovian austerity, not leadership for good. The university badly needs to be run by people who value the work academics do, and share students’ appetite for learning. Course diversity has already been cut to the bone. It is inconceivable that it is yet again under attack. “If I had received the approval ratings that management have been given in the Sydney Listens survey, I would be conducting myself with considerably more respect for staff and students. The fact that management is doing the opposite highlights the urgent
need for governance reform of the kind called for by the recent NSW parliamentary inquiry.” Students’ Representative Council president Grace Street said the “SRC has had some input on the curriculum design requirements at the Undergraduate Studies Committee, the Academic Standards and Policy Committee, and Academic Board over the last two months, but only in short discussions. Most of our policy discussions focused on the Student Coursework Policy, and reducing special consideration timelines, the Replacement Exam period two changes and ‘Fit to Sit’ rule changes.” “When questions around the choice ratio were raised at USC, we were told it would “inform analysis... rather than determine curriculum outcomes”, which doesn’t match the draft’s requirements for faculties to ‘review and address’ courses and components over the threshold”, Street said. “This is the first time I’ve seen a number for the ratio, and no one has explained what ‘review and address’ actually entails. One can imagine that this is intentional ambiguity to make way for course cuts, as has been noted would be feared by particular faculties, such as FASS and Honours courses, which are often necessarily more niche and specialised. “Much of the curriculum does need cleaning up, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to cut courses and reduce student choice. The feedback I hear is that the University’s systems are what’s confusing, not its course structures or the range of units on offer, which is agreed upon by other academic board members I’ve spoken to.”
The University’s Response Honi put questions to the University about the purpose of the Choice Ratio, the savings or workload reductions expected from standardising degree structures, and how faculties are expected to respond to the threshold. A University of Sydney spokesperson confirmed that the Choice Ratio was 2.0, further stating: “As we develop our new curriculum structures that we expect to launch in 2029, our multiyear Curriculum Quality and Sustainability initiative
is focused on improving our student experience and delivering high quality, learner-focused and sustainable education. “The initiative includes our proposed curriculum design requirements that will make our future curriculum easier for students to navigate; it’s not intended to limit our disciplinary breadth or depth, or as a cost reduction measure. “We’ve consulted widely with our community and are now reviewing feedback ahead of governance consideration later this year. We’ll continue to keep our staff and students updated as this work progresses.” The statement did not say whether the initiative is expected to deliver savings. The University did not provide any financial figures or address staff workload.
The University’s research on students The spokesperson also pointed to the University’s own research: “Research undertaken with students, prospective students, alumni, and employers found that curriculum structure has a significant impact on the student experience”. “Around 35 per cent of students surveyed reported difficulty understanding course structures and requirements, with undergraduate students more likely to experience difficulty. Students also reported challenges navigating curriculum terminology, progression requirements and information spread across multiple sources “The research also found that students highly value choice and flexibility in their studies, with 90 per cent of respondents indicating that choice is important and 78 per cent indicating that electives are valuable.
What the University says the ratio is for In a separate written explanation provided to Honi, a University spokesperson said Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science students “face a wide array of choice”. The ratio “along with other curriculum requirements, is designed to make the choices available to students more consistent and transparent, so it is easier for them to navigate and make purposeful, informed decisions,” they said. The spokesperson said students will continue to be able to personalise their studies through minors, majors, extended majors, specialisations, and open electives. The spokesperson said the ratio “does not limit the components offered in a given discipline”, which is “why the choice ratio does not constrain disciplinary depth or breadth”. That reasoning concerns how many majors or minors a discipline can offer. The threshold, and Honi’s analysis, concerns how many units can sit within each one. The University said that where a component exceeds the threshold, “faculties may review the curriculum” to create additional majors, extended majors, or specialisations “that provide more structured and distinct choice”, simplify curriculum structures, redesign components or units, and “consolidate units with substantially overlapping content”. Importantly, the draft requirements seen by Honi say faculties “must review and address” such components, not that they “may” review them. Consolidating units would reduce the number of units on offer, as would some redesigns of components or units.
“Student feedback highlighted challenges navigating course requirements and curriculum options, which contributes to a high demand for curriculum support and advice. The work seeks to make it easier for students to understand and manage their study pathways independently.” Honi has not seen the underlying research.
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| NEWS
USyd management allegedly considering takeover of SRC elections James Fitzgerald Sice and Kuyili Karthik report. University of Sydney (USyd) management is allegedly considering an overhaul of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) elections following the controversy over the ‘Globalise the Intifada’ ticket, according to a source privy to proceedings of the University Senate. The source told Honi Soit that Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott raised the possibility of the University taking over responsibility for SRC elections during the Senate’s meeting on 25th September, in an unminuted segment of the meeting. The Senate meeting follows Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s public condemnation of the ‘Globalise the Intifada’ ticket during the 2026 SRC elections. Other figures that have condemned the ticket include Education Minister Jason Clare, Wentworth MP Allegra Spender, and Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher.
the conduct of the SRC student election,” according to a statement from Chancellor David Thodey. According to the statement, Scott told the Senate he was “profoundly disappointed that the safety and wellbeing of the community, especially our Jewish students, were not adequately considered by some candidates running in the election and then by the independent election organisers when endorsing ticket names.” Thodey said complaints arising from the election were being investigated, with disciplinary action to follow if breaches of policy or codes of conduct were found. No formal Senate paper on the alleged proposal was tabled by Scott, the source told Honi. The matter was raised in the unminuted part of the meeting, and some details were reportedly not restated once proceedings resumed on the record, meaning the official minutes may not reflect the full discussion.
Discussions allegedly involved SRC funding, moving voting entirely online, similar to the University of Sydney Union’s (USU) Student Board Elections, and imposing new “You cannot have an restrictions on in-person campaigning. authentic independent student
representation like the one USyd
It is unclear whether has enjoyed for the last 97 years, either proposal is under if the student union requires active consideration or was raised as a management’s approval, at any hypothetical option. stage, to exist.” Honi Soit asked the university whether SRC Timothy Roberts, NSWCCL funding would be made conditional on changes to its electoral regulations, whether Funding and SSAF the University would intervene in the administration of SRC The SRC received $3.57 elections, and what advice had million in Student Services been sought from the NSW and Amenities Fee (SSAF) Electoral Commission and the funding in 2026. The source Crown Solicitor. told Honi that Scott repeatedly referenced SSAF funding A spokesperson for the when discussing what would university did not answer these follow once he received specific questions and referred advice from the NSW Electoral to the public statement from Commission, formed a view, Chancellor David Thodey and communicated it to the released on 25th September SRC. after the Senate meeting. Thodey further shared The university has not that the university has confirmed or denied that it ordered and expedited an is considering taking greater independent review of funding control over SRC elections or arrangements for the SRC to moving voting entirely online. “ensure legal, regulatory and psychosocial safety measures Senate Briefing are being met.” The Senate discussion followed a formal briefing from ViceChancellor Mark Scott on “serious concerns regarding
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According to the source, Scott allegedly suggested that in the event of funding cuts rendering the SRC unable to administer
elections, the university would take over this responsibility.
Electoral Commission and Crown Solicitor Consulted Scott has also written to the NSW Electoral Commissioner “seeking advice on appropriate criteria and principles for the naming of groups contesting elections,” per an email reply he penned to a member of the university community. “I have also asked the Crown Solicitor for formal advice on whether these issues constitute any breach of the NSW Crimes Act,” Scott wrote. A university statement on 23rd September read: “While the SRC administers its elections independently and its Electoral Officer considers ticket names under the SRC Constitution and Regulations, without approval by the University, we are responsible for the safety and wellbeing of everyone on our campuses.” Scott said the same day that he believes “the SRC has exploited the existing arrangements for student elections on campus”.
SRC’s independence under threat As reported by Honi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made an intervention during the SRC elections to condemn the ‘Globalise the Intifada’ ticket. The source told Honi that when questioned by student Senate Fellow Ethan Floyd, Scott allegedly said he had been contacted by PM Anthony Albanese, NSW Premier Chris Minns, Federal Education Minister Jason Clare, and MP Allegra Spender about the ticket. Timothy Roberts, President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, told Honi Soit that a university controlling student elections would create a “massive conflict of interest” with management “writing the rules for electing the exact same student representatives whose job it is to voice student concerns and to hold management accountable”. Roberts said independence is what makes the SRC what it is. “You cannot have an authentic independent student representation like the one USyd has enjoyed for the
last 97 years, if the student union requires management’s approval, at any stage, to exist.” He rejected the idea that safety and political expression are mutually exclusive: “If you truly believe in your responsibility to the safety and wellbeing of students, then you should also take seriously the harm that can be done to the wellbeing of students if they are prevented from using their rights to political expression and participation,” Roberts said. Even subtle changes, such as vetting ticket names, would have a “chilling effect on political expression and association on campus” with students self-censoring “out of fear that their funding will be cut or their tickets disqualified”, Roberts said. Roberts said there are “no safeguards that will fully resolve this issue”, but that election disputes should be handled by an “independent student appointed electoral officer, not university staff, and changes to student governance should be voted on and approved by students themselves.” On the potential move to online voting, Roberts said student voting turnout fell to a historic low during the COVID-19 shift to online elections and has still not recovered. From 2013 to 2018, the USyd SRC saw an average voter turnout of 12.24 per cent of all students enrolled. COVID-19 saw these numbers plunge below 4.68 per cent, a number steadily climbing, with this year’s turnout reaching 9 per cent (4,065 students). Given its damaging impacts on student life and representative democracy, Roberts said the potential move to online voting, especially permanently, would require an “extraordinary” justification such as the intervention of a global pandemic— an “incredibly high threshold” which Roberts believes has not been met in this case. Michael Bradley is the managing partner of Sydney law firm Marque Lawyers, which he co-founded in 2008. Bradley told Honi that the “idea that if a group of students run for election to the SRC under the banner of ‘globalise the
NEWS |
intifada’, and the university finds that so shocking that they are contemplating preventing in-person voting and cracking down on campaigning, they have lost the plot. What on earth harm, seriously, could they have done.” “We’ve been in squarely McCarthyist territory for quite a while now and the universities have been out of control in their pandering… They should be standing up for the principles that they exist to advance, and defending the exercise of fundamental freedoms by students and staff,” Bradley said.
2026 Student Referendum and Elections he Senate meeting followed T the conclusion of the 2026 SRC elections, in which activist group Solidarity ran under the ticket name ‘Globalise the Intifada’ and campaigned for a referendum to sever USyd’s ties with Israeli institutions. The referendum passed overwhelmingly, with 92 per cent of the 3,833 formal votes cast in favour of the resolution. In Honi’s exit poll, the ‘Globalise the Intifada’ ticket polled 2.8 per cent of votes for the SRC Council, the second-lowest count of the nine total ticket groups. The current SRC President Grace Street told Honi Soit that the
university’s response to the ticket was “manufactured outrage to justify the vilification, defunding, and removal of the independence of the SRC once and for all.”
Students call for SRC’s autonomy to be safeguarded
Street said the SRC was not meaningfully consulted on the options allegedly discussed. The only communication received, according to Street, was being copied into an email from the Division of the Academic Registrar to the SRC Electoral Officer about the process for approving the ticket. She criticised the decision to discuss election measures “behind closed doors” and unminuted.
University of Sydney students have organised a petition to call for the autonomy of the Students’ Representative Council to be protected. This comes as the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor released a statement condemning the decision to allow the ‘Globalise the Intifada’ ticket to contest the student elections as “totally unacceptable”.
Street sees the response as part of a pattern of “the University silencing progressive voices in the community through draconian policies and investigations”, instances she described to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into University Governance earlier this year. “These past elections were both safe and a forum for robust political debate where students exchanged ideas and put forward their respective visions for our world. “Almost all candidates and voters endorsed or voted for pro-Palestine platforms highlighting the University’s complicity in genocide and apartheid, and it is no surprise that the University wants to try shut this down.”
Honi Soit reports.
Chancellor David Thodey and Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott released a statement on 29th September saying the University will commission an independent review on matters around the recent SRC elections. The review will assess campus security measures, staff and student codes of conduct, and “affiliation and funding arrangements for student representative groups to ensure compliance with legal, regulatory, and psychosocial safety requirements”. Earlier this week, Honi Soit reported that the University Senate considered a takeover of the SRC’s elections at their latest meeting. The SRC organised a petition calling for the autonomy and independence of the student union to be safeguarded. At the time of publication, the petition gathered over 450 signatures from students, staff, alumni, and wider community members. SRC president Grace Street said the University’s response to the elections was an escalation in a “series of ongoing attacks” on free expression on campus, citing the Campus Access Policy, introduced after the 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and the ‘Five Key Policies’ regulating expression. “The SRC’s independence is its greatest asset: Without it we would not be able to call out the University’s corruption or keep advocating with students’ interests in mind,” Street said. The University’s review also proposes “further contact with police and federal intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies”.
activity was detected during the course of the student elections. A University spokesperson said: “The safety of our community is our first priority and we’ll continue to carefully monitor national alert levels and heed advice from local police and government to appropriately plan for and mitigate potential risks, and consider any recommendations from the review of our security measures.” Honi Soit also asked the University of Sydney to clarify if the phrase ‘globalise the intifada’ in its entirety, a subpart of the phrase, namely ‘intifada’, or if the construction of the phrase ([verb] the intifada) was the source of contention. A spokesperson for the University said “The Chancellor and ViceChancellor have rejected the contention the phrase is innocuous. Our disciplinary processes continue to carefully consider all relevant context on a case-by-case basis when determining outcomes.” At the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott was asked whether the University considered banning phrases such as ‘globalise the intifada’ during the 2024 encampment. “There’s an expectation at a university that we will be bastions of free speech and academic freedom,” Scott told the Royal Commission. “They are not rights without constraint, but there’s an expectation that a university should be able to facilitate those things. “We came to a view that just in their own right, on their own, these were not matters for sanction, even though I did say publicly, I wished these phrases weren’t used; I could understand that it was causing concern and distress. But we also admitted that there would be circumstances where the phrases could be used and they would be antisemitic and they would breach our policies, and so it does depend somewhat on the context.”
Honi Soit asked the University if illegal or potential terrorist
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USyd Senate rejects call for convocation on Palestine Victor Zhang reports. The University of Sydney Senate has rejected the call for a convocation to be held on the University’s institutional ties to Israeli institutions, and the repression of free expression on campus. Instead, the Senate proposed holding a Universitywide community engagement forum in early 2027. In a statement released on 28th September, Chancellor David Thodey argued that “Convocation does not represent large parts of the University’s community, notably professional, casual staff and our students”. “Holding the discussion in early 2027 will allow the University community to fully consider the implications of the Royal Commission recommendations and regulatory changes for the University,” Thodey said. David Brophy, a senior lecturer in history and organiser of the call for convocation told Honi Soit his disappointment with the decision of the Senate. “Convocation has well established rules of procedure that ad hoc forums do not. I’m particularly concerned that in their new model, the University will try to avoid motions being moved and voted on,” Brophy said. “Criticisms can be made of Convocation as a structure, but there is a democratic purpose to it that must be preserved.
Brophy also rejected the notion that a meeting on the matter should wait until the conclusion of the Royal Commission.
and report to Convocation its determinations thereon.”
“Royal Commission recommendations or policy requirements can’t change the fact that staff and alumni have the right to express their views on University policy,” Brophy said. “ I don’t accept that we should simply wait quietly until the government tells us what to think.
USyd Students’ Representative Council president Grace Street also expressed disappointment over the decision not to hold a convocation. Street said it was particularly disappointing that Thodey justified the decision by saying the convocation was not a representative body.
“The University would probably prefer there not be a democratic body of alumni and staff enshrined in its founding act. But there is. The question of Palestine has clearly put the executive at odds with the wider University community. Convocation was designed to give that wider University community a voice. I’m dismayed that they’ve denied us that.” The Convocation, established by Section 14 of the University of Sydney Act 1989, consists of current and former Senate fellows, alumni, professors, and full-time members of the academic staff. The University of Sydney (Amendment Act) Rule 1999 states that the “Convocation shall submit for the consideration of the Senate such suggestions as it thinks fit with respect to the affairs and concerns of the University, and the Senate may take all such suggestions into consideration
Alumni and students disappointed
“We have now exhausted almost every available avenue — whether it be Student General Meetings or an overwhelming call for the Convocation — and the University will not budge on even meeting with their community to discuss their complicity in genocide and apartheid,” Street said. “It is disgusting that the University is focused on appeasing the government and lobby groups to protect their profits while the death toll continues to rise across occupied Palestine. Their statement does not even mention the words ‘Gaza’ or ‘Palestine’.” Alumni who’ve signed the petition for the Convocation expressed their disappointment at the decision. “For years, staff and students have fought to end our university’s complicity in genocide,” Luke Mešterović, a signatory to the petition
told Honi Soit. “For years, university management has not only refused to cut ties with Israel, but has actively worked to stamp out dissent among students and staff. “By rejecting our call for a convocation, Chancellor Thodey and the Senate have made a mockery of what universities ought to be — democratic spaces dedicated to independent critical thought, free speech, and crucially, serving the public good.” “This is yet another attempt by the University to circumvent democratic processes for the USyd community to express their outrage at the moral failure of the University to adequately address their complicity in the genocide. The University’s failure to even address the specific grievances put forth is telling,” Mehnaaz Hossain, another signatory to the call for convocation, told Honi.
Convocation revived at UNE The University of New England (UNE) revived their use of the Convocation in late 2022. The University of New England Act 1993 define the membership of the Convocation as the graduates of UNE, the members and past members of the UNE Council, present and past full-time academic staff at UNE, and “such other members or classes of members of the staff of the University as the by-laws may prescribe”. The UNE By-laws define additional members of Convocation as staff who have worked at UNE for at least 12 months and any “staff who are invited by the Council to be a member of Convocation”. The UNE convocation meets twice a year and has submitted 35 proposals since December 2022 to the UNE Council. The final report of the NSW Legislative Council’s inquiry into university governance notes UNE’s use of the Convocation as a “novel and highly positive model of collegial governance that other universities can learn from”. “Bringing together staff, alumni and council members to debate and submit formal proposals has created a valuable democratic forum,” the report reads.
USyd encampment. Photography by Valerie Chidiac
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FEATURE |
From Gadigal to Gaza Victor Zhang pitches a tent. On a Tuesday night in April 2024, students pitched the first tents of the University of Sydney Gaza solidarity encampment, inspired by the encampment protest movement that began at Columbia University. Within a week, encampments sprung up at five other universities in Australia. Students braved the cold, and often pouring rain, for eight weeks. Their central demand was that Universities sever ties with institutions and companies complicit in genocide. As Yasmine Johnson, the co-convenor of Students for Palestine and the current National Union of Students education officer, told the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion: “We had to do something more. We felt there was some sense of humanity that meant it was
not enough to just have a protest once a week, although those protests, of course, were important. But we had to create a visible and noticeable demonstration of our opposition to these crimes.”
From feminist philosophy to course fees Encampments are not a new protest phenomenon, not even at the University of Sydney. In June 1973, students and staff went on a month-long strike after the Professorial Board rejected a proposal for a feminist philosophy unit to be taught. Philosophy postgraduates Jean Curthoys and Liz Jacka’s proposed course ‘Philosophical Aspects of Feminist Thought’ was accepted, albeit by a narrow margin, at the faculty level but was resolutely defeated at the Professorial Board 40 votes to seven. Hundreds of students showed up to a Professorial Board
meeting on 25th June with a petition demanding that Curthoys and Jacka be allowed to teach the course. Students and staff set up the ‘Women’s Embassy’ on the Quadrangle lawns as part of the strike. The deputy vice-chancellor at the time wrote to the students expressing concern that their tents would damage the lawn grass. The students replied, saying they agreed with the concern and said they would move the tents daily to prevent the grass from yellowing.
permitted the course to be taught, under the compromise conditions put forth by deputy vice-chancellor William O’Neil.
The Builders Labourers’ Federation imposed a ban on all construction work on campus in solidarity with the striking students. NSW BLF secretary Jack Mundey said the ban would last until the university “altered its sexist policies”.
Other demands of the encampment are eerily similar to what a current day student activist might protest. “Fight privatisation; Oppose the VC’s 25 per cent pay rise; Democratise the university; Protest against all tuition fees”.
Four weeks later, the Professorial Board relented and
At the time of writing, protest encampments are occupying the streets of Madrid in Spain to protest the housing crisis after an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home.
In 1992, the SRC education department organised the ‘Tent Offensive’ from 24–26th March. The encampment protested the proposal to replace financial assistance scheme AUSTUDY with a loan scheme, a move the organisers characterised presciently as the “thin end of the wedge” for the introduction of wider student fees.
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A Global Movement Inspired by the encampment at Columbia University, students at the University of Sydney set up camp on 23rd April, 2024. Within a week, students at the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Curtin University, and the University of Queensland followed suit. More than two years on from the first Gaza solidarity encampment set up on the lawns of an Australian university, Honi Soit invited encampment attendees, organisers, and activists to reflect on their experiences during the encampment. This piece draws from interviews and submissions from encampment organisers and attendees. “We were part of a global movement and you could feel how special it was. It put Palestine on the map for so many students,” one attendee told Honi Soit, describing the encampment as a “formative activist experience”. “The most consequential action I’ve taken in my life thus far”, “The proudest moment of my university life”, “Felt like we were part of a bigger movement for change”, “The high point of student activism in my time at uni”, were among the contributions Honi received. Honi Soit spoke to Students’ Representative Council president Grace Street, who was an organiser at the encampment when she served as the SRC’s education officer. Street described the encampment as a place of “camaraderie and solidarity” where different political
groups came together to protest against injustice and genocide. 2024 editor of the UTS student publication Vertigo Ty Seeto told Honi that he stayed at the USyd encampment as a student journalist “to bring the story to students at UTS” about the USyd encampment and why the protest mattered. He noted that UTS, like USyd, had institutional ties to universities and organisations complicit in genocide. 2024 SRC president Harrison Brennan said there was an outpour of support from not just staff and students, but the wider community. “Every day, or at least every second day, we would receive another supply drop from locals and supportive campaign groups who wanted to feed us, make sure we were stocked up with essentials, or give us the materials (such as tarps) to weatherproof the encampment in the middle of winter.” Another student said that the community would come to provide hot meals for the encampment. “I can’t remember how many times on a rainy night the folks from Cairo Takeaway, Addi Road or just a big family would swing by with enough food to feed an army. We’d sit on the grass, swapping stories or anxiously reading the news.” “Camp meetings divided up major responsibilities, electing negotiators, media liaison teams, and organisers and speakers for protests and other events, among other key roles,” Brennan told Honi. A meeting would happen in the morning, to take stock of supplies, undertake
maintenance of the camp, then divided up duties for the day. “People would be out leafleting in the mornings as well when students come onto campus at around 9am or 10am to get word out for events planned for the day. There were probably two or three events a day. Maybe there was a protest, or a teach-in, maybe an arts-andcrafts thing, or a debate.” At the end of the day, another meeting would be held for attendees to debrief and for future actions to be planned. Dr Rowan Cahill, veteran activist of the anti-war student movements in the ‘60s and ‘70s, told Honi Soit he was “impressed by the order of the encampment” particularly when agitators attempted to confront the peaceful campers. “The peaceful solidarity in response and the refusal to react in the way the instigators intended, was beautiful and mature in its way.” Compared to other universities, USyd did not deploy as heavyhanded an approach to clear out the encampment. In late May 2024, ANU called police to their encampment to move the protesters on. The police threatened to arrest the encampment attendees if they did not decamp, prompting a snap protest. Students at the encampment at USyd followed updates from other campuses, and expressed fear that they too could be forcibly removed from the encampment. “We had no idea how long we would be camping for and focused most of our energy on forcing a response from the University,” Street said.
Photography by Ishbel Dunsmore
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“The fact that the encampment existed was a pedagogical contribution from the student body across Australia.” ‘A Pedagogical Contribution’ “The Gaza encampment started because students were watching, like all of us, a genocide happening on their phones. Any human being watching that, no matter their race, ethnicity, or background, if they had any sort of humanity had to act,” a Palestinian academic, who asked not to be identified, told Honi Soit. “The fact that the encampment existed was a pedagogical contribution from the student body across Australia.” “It happened because students said they were not allowed to speak about Gaza in their classrooms. So it overflowed out of the classroom onto the campus, to the grass, and to the tents. “How can you teach this generation of students without talking about what’s happening? Especially if you’re teaching sociology, human rights, law, or history, or many other topics.” A recurring theme in Honi’s conversations was how sharply the encampment contrasted the corporatised university environment. “At the moment, campuses are neoliberal spaces. There are no communal spaces for people to come together to share,” the unnamed Palestinian academic said.
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By contrast, they said the encampment “was a place of political imagination. A shared imagination of what a different university would look like, a different world would look like.” Students agreed with this assessment of the encampment. “On those lawns, we established a university in parallel, one dedicated to human rights and not complicit in genocide,” read the submission of one student to Honi. They added that the encampment was a place of learning with “teach-ins with academics who taught us about everything from feminism in the Arab world to the nature of apartheid to how activists fought against the Vietnam war.” Grace Street said the encampment was a “transformational” place of learning for her. “I learnt so much about the world and the university sector, which meant seeing some of my studies (Political Economy, International Relations, Languages) in practice,” she said. “Our camp meetings and teach-ins were a welcome departure from the onesided pre-recorded lectures watched online at 1.5x speed that are so normalised within corporate universities. The decolonisation of learning that Sydney faculties like to talk about was seen in the flesh by advocating for the end to our University’s role in occupation and genocide, and by inviting community members to teach us. “A personal favourite was a teach-in by John Clegg from the Department of Political Economy and two Palestinian students that offered a comparison between South African and Israeli apartheid. In conversation, each person shared their own relevant knowledge.”
Accused of Hate Much of the institutional response to the encampment was negative, and remains negative to this day. In the wake of the horrific terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in late 2025, some have been quick to connect the encampments to the terror attack. Greg Craven, a former Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor, who led the ‘antisemitism report card’ taskforce said universities were a “major factor in making antisemitism respectful” and derided
campus activists as “mutant radical groups”. The Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal opened a line of questioning on whether student activists were being influenced by foreign operatives. When Segal was asked about the organising and financing of far-right organisations at a NSW parliamentary inquiry on combating right-wing extremism, Segal speculated that far-right groups were funded by the same foreign interference groups she claimed funded protest movements. “It’s the same potential funding for them [the far-right], for university demonstrations, for the encampments and for other sectors like the arts,” Segal told the NSW Legislative Assembly inquiry. In particular, the University of Sydney encampment was accused of being infiltrated by Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir. The Australian government proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir as a hate group in March 2026. Despite the accusation that the encampment was infiltrated being oft-repeated, Scott told the Royal Commission that “There were no signs, no banners, no branding, no presence of Hizb ut-Tahrir.” Scott told the commission his chief of staff was told there may be a Hizb ut-Tahrir flag on campus. The flag, as it would turn out, was a Shahada flag, a symbol of faith. At the conclusion of the encampment in June 2024, the University of Sydney set up an independent working group to make recommendations on the University’s investments. This move was blasted by mainstream Jewish groups who claimed that the University had entered into “agreement with a group acting in concert with the extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir organisation” and that “no other university in Australia has gone this far”.
“No amount of rain… or threats could possibly compare to what was, and still is, happening in Gaza,” Reflections on the Aftermath Reflecting on why the encampments were negatively portrayed, Harrison Brennan said the criticisms of the encampment “did not come from any real engagement with
the encampment” and that the encampment had a code of conduct and no tolerance for racism of any form. “The media was raving about how we were all antisemites, despite having Jewish students stay with us and Jewish organisations endorse our campaign.” Conversely, Brennan said that when the camp was attacked, “often the case at night by masked strangers, we were never given any pity or sympathy.” Students for Palestine organiser Yasmine Johnson told the Royal Commission: “We stated right from the beginning that we stood against all forms of discrimination and racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism and so on. And those things were important to us. I think the very nature of the encampments themselves was a form of anti racist protest.” The fact that the encampments were a visible symbol of the anger and unrest felt by students and activists was why it was demonised, encampment organisers told Honi Soit. “Encampments are necessarily visible and clearly convey a message of “we will forgo our normal comfort and routines until things change,” which is a terrible look for the institutions being protested,” Grace Street said. “It forced everyone to look and reflect, and so mainstream politicians and media had to find a way to create cognitive dissonance and vilify us with false accusations of being filled with privileged, out of touch students part of a violent, hateful movement. Protest is meant to be disruptive, but at the same time we did not get in the way of anything other than perhaps a few graduation photos, and it was a totally peaceful form of protest.” Scott confirmed to the Royal Commission that the encampment cooperated with not disrupting events held at the Quadrangle such as the ANZAC Day dawn service, examinations, and graduations. “We sought the cooperation of the encampment to have none of those matters interrupted, and those undertakings were sought and given, and there were no disruptions to those important events in the university calendar.”
achieved, those involved in the encampments did not believe it to be a failure. At the conclusion of USyd’s encampment, the University set up an external divestment working group. The group recommended that the University divest from assets that profit from goods on the munitions list, but did not make recommendations on severing research ties with arms companies. “We can always look back and say we failed, and haven’t achieved what the encampments wanted to achieve. But it’s hard to measure the success and failure of movements because the effect is not always direct,” the unnamed Palestinian academic reflected. “The effects of the encampments are not finished. “The fact that the pro-Israel lobby kept pushing for it to be discussed in the way that it has, you can tell that this has had a massive impact. They want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” “Students, staff, alumni, and beyond saw the University’s true colours and are disgusted. You can tell the University is threatened,” Street said, adding that the University “continually dismisses our overwhelming, democratic calls for even just discussion on their ties to Israel.” At the recent student elections at USyd, students voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to call on the University to cut ties with Israeli institutions complicit in genocide. For many involved, the Gaza solidarity encampments were a moment of serious political awakening that fundamentally altered their personal convictions and theories of change. One student explained to Honi Soit there was “a clear demarcation can be made of the person I was before, and after it”. “No amount of rain… or threats could possibly compare to what was, and still is, happening in Gaza,” another student reflected. “To think that what we established on the Quadrangle in 2024 made even the smallest difference will remain with me forever.”
While the material demands of the encampment were not
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| CAMPUS
Why international students should support staff on strike Cyrus Fung joins staff on the picket line.
back for your next shift because you still need the job.
cheaper. Flexibility. Digital transformation. Innovation.
I pay international student fees. Of course I don’t want to miss my classes. When university staff strike, I do not get a refund in my bank account. The University does not look at my next semester’s invoice and go, “sorry about that one mate, here’s $300 off.” I have paid an obscene amount of money to be here. If my tutor does not turn up, naturally part of me thinks, “hang on, am I the one getting screwed here?”
So I have developed a slight allergy to the word “flexibility”. I know who flexibility usually belongs to. My manager gets the flexibility to send me home when sales are down. I get the flexibility to suddenly earn less money that week.
For an international student paying exorbitant fees, that sounds like a pretty shit deal.
Then I come back to university and I become someone completely different. At work, I am the casual worker whose hours are a cost to minimise. At university, I am an international student whose fees are revenue.
For a domestic student, seeing a picket might mean deciding whether you agree with it. For me, there is another thought that comes almost automatically. Am I even allowed to do this?
Somewhere between those two versions of me, I am apparently supposed to forget what being a worker feels like and get angry at my tutor for withdrawing their labour.
I know that supporting lawful industrial action does not mean my student visa will suddenly disappear. But knowing that and feeling secure enough to act on it are two different things.
Making burritos and teaching at a university are obviously not the same job. But there is something painfully familiar about the logic. Labour becomes a cost to manage. Hours get squeezed. Insecurity becomes “flexibility”. The worker is expected to make it work.
There is always this anxiety sitting somewhere in the back of my head. I am here conditionally. My ability to study here, work here, and continue living the life I have built here depends on a visa. One mistake can feel like it carries consequences much bigger than the mistake itself. So when I think about standing at a picket, part of me starts asking questions that I suspect many domestic students may not have to ask. Could this somehow get me in trouble? What if there is a rule I do not know about? What if I misunderstand something? Is any of this worth risking the life I have built here?
So yes, I understand why international students might be pissed off about another strike. I just think we are pissed off at the wrong people. International students are constantly reminded how valuable we are to USyd. By valuable, I mean literally valuable. We pay tens of thousands of dollars every year for a “world-class education”. After a while, the relationship starts to feel pretty simple. We pay. The University provides. We become customers, education becomes a product, and our degrees arrive in neat twelve-week instalments. Except education does not actually work like that. My education is not the Quadrangle, the USyd hoodie, or a photo under the jacaranda. It is labour. It is my tutor actually reading the essay I wrote at 3am. It is a lecturer staying back because I was too embarrassed to ask my question in front of everyone. It is the staff in student services untangling an enrolment nightmare while I quietly panic about my visa. Those people are the university I actually paid for. Maybe I notice this because, like plenty of international students, I am a casual worker too. After class, I work in fastfood. I have had shifts cut at short notice because sales were bad. I have been sent home early because the store was quiet. I have had a 30-minute unpaid break deducted from my pay on days when the store was so packed that actually taking that break was basically impossible. Sometimes equipment is broken and you just learn to work around it.
Artificial Intelligence makes this harder to ignore. USyd has just announced a multiyear partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT Edu to staff and students, while protections around AI are already being fought over in enterprise bargaining. At Macquarie University, an AI chatbot called Virtual Peer is now used in the online learning of two mandatory psychology units. Previous online versions included optional weekly Zoom tutorials with paid academics. This is not some futuristic argument about robots stealing everyone’s jobs. The possibility is much more boring, and hits closer to home. Casualise the tutor. Increase the workload. Move more teaching online. Automate what you can. Keep charging the student. There is always a nicer word for making something
But there is one part of supporting staff strikes that I find harder to brush aside. My visa.
That fear does something to you. It teaches you to be careful before anyone even tells you to be careful. Keep your head down. Go to class. Do not make trouble. Be grateful you are here. I hate that last one the most. Because I am grateful to be here. My family and I have put too much money, time and hope into me being here for me not to be. And maybe that is exactly why the instinct to stay quiet can be so strong. There is too much to lose.
But gratitude should not mean silence. I am not just passing through this university. I study here. I work here. I have built a life here. What happens to the people teaching me is absolutely my business. Perhaps the most convenient thing about treating international students as customers is that it encourages us to see staff as the people standing between us and the product we purchased. Tutorial cancelled? Blame the tutor. Picket blocking the entrance? Blame the union. We end up looking across the picket line at each other instead of at the institution holding our fees. That is what makes a strike so uncomfortable, but it is also precisely what makes it effective. Most days, it is easy to forget how much work goes into keeping this university running. You walk into class, submit something on Canvas, get your marks back, and move on with your week. A strike interrupts that routine. Suddenly, the people whose work we usually take for granted are not there, and everything stalls. The disruption is frustrating, but that frustration is also a reminder of how much the University depends on the staff who keep it running. Staff are not asking us to feel sorry for them. They are using the leverage they have over an institution that depends on their labour. Their fight over casualisation, workloads, job security, and AI is also a fight over what kind of education universities can sell us. So when my class gets cancelled, I could look at my tutor on the picket line and ask why they are not teaching me. Or I could look at the institution holding my fees and ask why it has come to this. Of course I want the education that I paid for, but I also want to be taught by a person with a secure job, enough time to teach me, and enough power to fight for those things.
None of this feels particularly dramatic when it happens. You shrug. You complain to a coworker. You check how much money you lost. Then you come
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Staff and students on the picket lines. Photography by James Fitzgerald Sice
OPINION |
Why America can’t afford an arms race and what it means for AUKUS William Yang will not enlist. In the aftermath of the Cold War, United States Vice-President Dan Quayle alongside certain historians and commentators claimed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was largely due to the economic pressure of matching Reagan’s military buildup and Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as the ‘Star Wars’ program. While acknowledging that excessive military spending put a significant burden on the Soviet economy, Professors Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Stein rightly argued that it was only a small contributor, rather than the cause of the wider legitimation crisis faced by the Soviet system. At this current point in the 21st century, it may seem like the US is attempting to redeploy this Cold War-era strategy. The Trump administration is talking about building up the Space Force and proposing a 44 per cent increase in the Pentagon’s budget, bringing military spending to US$1.5 trillion in a single year. However, on a closer look, it appears the positions held by the Western and Eastern superpowers during the Cold War have reversed. China now far exceeds the United States in shipbuilding capacity and the cracks in American attempts to maintain pace are showing. In what is described to be a ‘highly unusual move’, multiple naval officials told Nikkei this month that the US Navy is looking to commission warships to be built in Japan and South Korea. Regardless of whether weapons are bought or built, they come at a cost. In a protracted arms race, which current trends point to, For the first time in over 200 years, it appears in addition to weaker productive capabilities, the United States would also be in a weaker financial position than its adversary.
of debt, there is also a growing qualitative difference in the debt held by the two states. The Chinese state has a sharp advantage over the US in terms of borrowing costs. Despite the US dollar’s status as the global reserve currency, 10-year US government bond yields are currently hovering around 5 per cent, while China’s 10-year government bond yields sit below 1.7 per cent. China also has the advantage in terms of greater capacity to increase tax revenue. The American tax to GDP ratio is recorded at over 25 per cent, while China’s tax to GDP ratio is below 20 per cent. Keep in mind only nominal GDP was used as reference points for the ratios cited above, which favour the US. If the figures were to be adjusted for purchasing power parity to increase accuracy, China’s apparent advantage would be even larger. Facing the AI shock to social order as well as to both labour and financial markets. The United States further suffers from a growing legitimation crisis as its capitalist society heads towards a stage of decay and its social harmony continues to break down. This is a fact its leadership is acutely aware of, as even the most sycophantic of the Trump administration pledges no cuts to social security in an attempt to preserve the fragile social order. This isn’t to say the United States will collapse in a manner similar to the Soviet Union. In fact, there would be countless academically endorsed solutions to both the fiscal and legitimation crises challenging the US system. Furthermore, the current dynamic between China and the United States can also accommodate a peaceful readjustment of global power relations
Protestors against AUKUS outside of the 50th ALP Conference without the significant diminishment of either party.
manufacturing capabilities, and additional manpower.
Peaceful coexistence can occur through détente and arms control. In the long term, arms control would place greater limits on China’s military expansion and thus benefit the US by comparison. However, such an agreement would not be reached without concessions from the US, namely a peaceful and gradual retreat from what China deems to be its rightful region of influence.
What does it provide us though? An invoice of $368 billion to be paid by young people? A deal dependent on undisclosed “political commitments” made by politicians who will pass away long before AUKUS is complete? Integration into a declining empire?
If such concessions were made, the US would remain a great power, albeit clearly ceding its status as the ‘World Police’. While Trump at times has hinted he may not be entirely opposed to retreating to the Western Hemisphere, the US is not likely to voluntarily give up its status as the dominant global power anytime soon. In the foreseeable future, social, political, and economic factors clearly indicate that the United States has no way of beating China in an arms race without subsidies. The exemplar of that vital subsidy would be the AUKUS partnership. AUKUS provides the US with what it lacks most in the arms race: funds, a protectorate willing to make expensive investments in developing weapons
It’s all of those things. Whether the cost is worth it depends entirely on how much we believe our strategic interests align with those of the United States. Eight nuclear submarines won’t be enough on their own if we decide to support the US in an arms race. The declining empire will require far more subsidies to keep pace with China. I believe most people of my generation have no interest in sweating and bleeding for the losing side, especially when, more often than not, the actions of the US diverge from the interests of Australia and the demands of international law. Does that mean we’ll surrender to Chinese dominance? Certainly not. Southeast Asia is one of the fastest growing regions globally and serves as a natural barrier between Australia’s South Pacific neighbourhood and the great powers. We can free ourselves from both the threat of foreign subjugation and unequal treaties. The solution is closer to home.
The US Federal debt is now over USD$40 trillion, equivalent to more than 122 per cent of GDP. In comparison, the Chinese Central Government debt sits just above 29 per cent of GDP. Beyond the quantity
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| OPINION
When a public broadcaster can’t voice public opinion: Callista Burrowes questions. Where did our weekly debate forum go? When Media Watch signed off on Monday 26 May 2025, an absence was felt across the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s schedule. That absence was the lack of a new episode of Q+A, the long-running and beloved weekly talk show covering the most pressing issues facing this country and the world at large. Q+A birthed a number of memorable moments that have become embedded in our cultural zeitgeist: a pair of shoes thrown at John Howard in 2010 following his invasion of Iraq, Randa Abdel-Fattah’s expert dissection of the media narrative around Palestinian liberation in 2021, and criminologist Vincent Hurley’s impassioned criticism of the government’s lack of response to domestic violence in 2024. Is there a forum for national debate filling this void? A year later, Q+A has no replacement. One program has emerged from the rubble, that being National Forum hosted by David Speers. The program pitches itself as a facilitator of national conversation and discussion, yet as other commentators have noted, It looks more like SBS’s Insight than Q+A.
It features a shiny and trained panel of politicians and community leaders, and notably positions itself as “apolitical”, a show for “middle”Australia. The program comes at a tense time for the ABC. The Australian Communications and Media Authority reported that 60 per cent of Australians have high trust in the ABC, however, in context, this percentage is lower than previous years and has been declining since 2020 with 81% reporting high trust in the ABC in 2018–2019. Additionally, Lamestream reported almost 50 jobs will be cut from the ABC’s Screen division, with this news coming out of a now-delayed plan to axe the Indigenous TV department. National Forum is a highly curated version of Q+A. The audiences and guests are selected by the program’s production team — something that Q+A often featured. These programs, Q+A and National Forum alike, are best when audience participation is placed at the forefront. Unlike Q+A, which allowed the audience to ask questions both online and in person with live tweets shared on air, National Forum has no such function. Q+A’s most important and significant moments came from audience interaction, whether it be was a rogue comment from the audience or a panelist’s spontaneous response. These moments broke down the barrier obstructing public access to debate by putting politicians and leaders face-toface with their constituents. Now, we watch Andrew Hasties and Barnaby Joyce argue back and forth over party policy semantics on National Forum. Another disappointing feature of National Forum is that the program only runs when the ABC deems that a conversation needs to be held. Q+A was a weekly institution,
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and as such, it regularly responded to both nascent and enduring questions of the week. National Forum only erupts when the ABC deems fit, in the wake of the case of the 2025 Bondi shooting for example, or when there’s an uptick in discourse around immigration. Despite insistence that the program is “not a political program, and it’s not a program to hold politicians to account,” the format, in and of itself is political as it engages with topics that have been deemed worthy of an hour’s programming, even if it is not about politicians specifically. That decision comes down to what producers, in their view, are highlighting as of national importance, driven by a combination of what is seemingly pressing both online and offline. Is algorithmic performance really the metric by which a show should air?
suicide bombing of Israeli infrastructure and people. Whilst these details are not incorrect, it describes the Second Intifada as independent violence for the sake of violence, rather than a response to a longue durée of occupation. Moreover, during the discussion on immigration, Barnaby Joyce claimed that 1.29 per cent of temporary visa entries into Australia (no year specified) were nurses. I could not verify Joyce’s claim pertaining to the statistic he provided, however, publicly available information shows that about 17 per cent of the nursing workforce in Australia is trained overseas. Beyond the nit-picking of specific facts and instances of misrepresentation, the show is notably bereft of a combative voice coming from the Host. During the program, Speers doesn’t challenge these facts. This can be attributed to the nature of the program as a soapbox rather than a debate, however, I found no indication of Speers responding to or correcting misinformation following the airing of the show.
When I reached out to ABC to enquire how National Forum decides what topic is to be discussed in an episode, a spokesperson stated that “topical issues of national significance” are chosen as episodes, featuring “ordinary citizens, community leaders, experts and policymakers.” Given the sheer number of “topical issues” at our front door, National Forum’s lack of consistency is not a catastrophe, but it does not serve broad and diverse public interest in its framing of conversation around a single issue with the opportunity to speak seemingly by invitation only.
When I inquired about the show’s lack of fact-checking, the same ABC spokesperson also said that due to the program’s live nature, there is no opportunity for factchecking. However, “participants have the opportunity to challenge and counter [claims] as part of the dis bcussion.” In praxis, pushback and factchecking by participants is rare. If the public broadcaster has a role in shaping public opinion, then it also has the responsibility to point out instances in which opinion rests on dubious grounds or is misleading, especially from an institution which maintains a reputation of being trusted.
Social media has made this concept of a conversation an even more difficult and rocky path to traverse. Social media easily decontextualises and warps normal conversation at a rapid pace. Discussion is not the norm, but dogpiling and a quickfire output of opinion, misguided and thorough alike. Of course, social media is not the origin of echo chambers, nor is it solely responsible for a breakdown in communication, but these networks have undoubtedly galvanised niche communities unwilling to enter into conversation or challenge their own views, safe in their worldviews. The highly personalised and tailored nature of social media, especially those algorithmically-driven, provide less room for disparate viewpoints which can lead to an obfuscation on how to negotiate and confront these differences. The question of attention span arises, especially due to the nature of algorithmically-pushed shortform content, asking us not only if most people can sit through an hour long program, but if they can meaningfully engage with it. Undoubtedly, when opinion is the main content of a production, misinformation, and misrepresentation becomes a concern. During National Forum’s first broadcast focused on antisemitism, Alex Ryvchin, a prominent pro-Israeli advocate, when discussing the phrase “Globalise the Intifada,” offered a definition of the Second Intifada which characterised it as the
It is equally important to both support and critique public broadcasters at a time when they are under attack, specifically by the farright. The ABC maintains highly informative and necessary reporting in programs such as Four Corners, which has produced some crucial reporting on lobby power and systemic child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Media Watch, currently presented by Linton Besser, continues to expertly and necessarily critique news and media. The ABC’s Indigenous department also continues to report on the often marginalised and overlooked news of First Nations people and their stories. The ABC is still an important resource that is free and can evade the slide into being a glorified billboard, unlike other free-to-air channels. However, National Forum is not the complete solution to these problems, inside or outside of the public broadcaster.
Audience interaction and conversation needs to make a comeback to the ABC. Importantly, it is in the democratisation of their content where the ABC shines.
OPINION |
The Revolution Will Not be Televised on the ABC Anonymous watches the captured broadcaster. Here’s a story you might have missed while participating in our society’s ‘precarious work culture’ that has left you in ‘a state of constant exhaustion and overstimulation’. It’s an extraordinary case of censorship on the part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Freya Leach, a conservative commentator and alum from our very own University, also had a role to play. This concerns an episode of cult television series Race Around the World, rebooted earlier this year after two seasons in the late ‘90s. The series centres itself on the ‘edgy and original’ stories scouted out by amateur documentary filmmakers, each travelling to ten different international locations where they produce a short film in 10 days. Viewers are then privy to acclaimed film critics, producers, and performers dissecting the storytelling and cinematography within those films, in front of their makers and a live audience. It’s peak ABC television. The first half of the series aired without much controversy despite covering an eclectic range of topics with perfectly enough potential for it, from fish bombing, to “how Australian men can get their rizz back”, and selling manga depicting actual cannibalism. Instead, it was a very relaxing video set in the Scottish Highlands that would attract the ire of the right-wing conservative commentariat. Produced by contestant Kate McGuinness, a self-described “combination of David Lynch and Woody Allen”, that film promoted mindfulness, simple living, and the preservation of memory in a technocapitalist world, delivered as a parodic step-bystep guide alongside a wilderness survival instructor. McGuinness concedes to the viewer towards the end of the film: “If you follow all of these steps, all of your problems will … probably still be there, but you’ll have these skills.” An anticlimax, if it weren’t for the nowcensored conclusion: Cause when the revolution comes, will you hide under your bed? Or will you know exactly how to shove a stick right up Gina Rinehart’s butthole? Stirring it ’round, mixing her guts up nice and smooth, making her into one big sausage roll, to make something outta nothing. Post-screening, the three judges — composed of former show contestant and filmmaker John Safran, director David Michôd, and journalist Leigh Sales — all initially appeared reluctant to speak. In feedback that has now also been airbrushed out of the episode, Sales expressed that she “had a bone to pick” with a perceived tonal shift in the film. Instead of identifying capitalism as the root cause of a decaying society to which McGuinness
was likely hinting, Sales appeals to an interpretation that supposes there exist many disparate problems, and that the film was a call for individuals to exercise their social liberty and bond over the collective futility to solve these issues. But McGuinness does offer a solution, even if satirically, in class war. Sales calling it a “very easy, kinda nasty, gag about Gina Rinehart” which was effectively saying to the viewer that ‘we’re all in this together, unless you don’t share my politics’ is a mischaracterisation of the line and the film. “Unless you’re Gina Rinehart,” McGuinness astutely replies. Safran, a fellow satirist who infamously went streaking through the streets of Jerusalem wearing only a St Kilda Saints beanie and scarf in the show’s first season, revealed he was “currently in trouble for a Gina Rinehart joke [… that’s] currently working its way through the Ombudsman” and quipped that she “can look forward to that”. And correct he was. Though it wasn’t until nearly a fortnight after the episode aired on 12th July that the then Sky News Australia began launching its attack on the scene and, by extension, the program and the ABC. Via The Bolt Report, an ‘exclusive’ on the News Corp Australia owned channel’s website and assisted on social media by one of its former presenters Freya Leach, the onslaught of criticism was prefaced with sympathy for Rinehart as a taxpaying, philanthropic, and supposedly ‘self-made’ female billionaire. In fact, her philanthropy extends all the way to gifting land in Prairie, lands of the Yirandhali, to the Israeli military and/or Elon Musk, as well as her obvious contribution to (and denial of) the climate crisis. All of this to victimise Rinehart, the country’s richest resident, irrespective of gender, and villainise McGuinness, shifting the discussion from class to gender, to then slide in the usual questioning by the conservative right of the ABC’s nominal impartiality. Thought it should be noted that Andrew Bolt was reported in the exclusive piece to have conceded that “the powerful must expect to be targets of satire to keep them humble” as Rinehart is the richest resident in this country, but added that “what the ABC did last week is something much uglier and unforgivable”. Initially, the ABC defended the film as “intended to be satirical in tone and considered to be editorially justifiable within the context of the program”. Rinehart’s company Hancock Prospecting then accused the ABC of encouraging violence, demanded a public apology as “the minimum appropriate response” as well as an investigation and punitive action. Days later, Communications Minister Anika Wells then revealed that the ABC had referred the segment to the ABC Ombudsman’s Office. The ABC confirmed this in a statement the next day, alongside an apology from McGuinness. Hancock Prospecting then threatened
legal action after it said it received no “substantive” response. The next day, it launched legal action against the ABC. After this significant development, a flurry of more mainstream voices then ensued… and largely in defence of Rinehart. Even Sarah Hanson-Young, the federal Greens’ spokesperson for Arts & Communications, called on the ABC to apologise, though pointed out some double standards in media attention. The Ombudsman Investigation Report was released on 6th August, a week after the Minister revealed that an investigation had commenced. The report highlighted that the ABC Ombudsman initially received eight complaints about the episode, followed by a further 988 after the News Corp Australialed criticism. It added that “the target of the satire appeared to be Ms Rinehart’s public profile and status within contemporary political and economic debates rather than her gender”. Its conclusion was that, in the context of it likely being reasonably understood as “satirical and exaggerated commentary”, there was “sufficient editorial justification”, and it “did not breach the ABC Editorial Standards relating to harm and offence”. Despite this finding, the ABC concurrently released an apology, announced it would amend the aforementioned standards… and censor the film anyway. Only an ‘edited’ version of the film now exists on the ABC’s websites while feedback from Safran and Sales relevant to the joke have been scrubbed completely. The ABC is not a neutral institution and never has been. A more comprehensive piece would have explored the plethora of public-facing issues involving the ABC: the unlawful sacking of Antoinette Lattouf; platforming racists on the National Forum and then taking little notice as one of its panellists, Nyadol Nyuon, is subjected to racist attacks; differing standards in its conflict reporting; and undermining of its complaints process by anti-Palestine activist groups. Even Race Around the World has further issues that have not garnered as much attention as McGuinness’s film, but deserve such: the subtly racist treatment of the only contestant without European ancestry; what is, at best, a nervous and overcautious response to a comment that did not need to be racialised and, at worst, satirising legitimate responses to racism; an unsettling opening question to Kate McGuinness’s mum on whether she realised her daughter was a ‘communist’; and a flippant and dismissive treatment of a film on gross wealth inequality and mental health conditions. But amid the obvious rage farming by News Corp Australia, with regards to this particular joke, to culture war their way to abolishing the ABC, there were some genuine attempts in the ABC’s Religion and Ethics portal and in The Conversation at nuanced discussion about the ethics of satire. Indeed, beyond the political economy of media in this country, this saga is another case that exposes the pretence of our liberal democracy.
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| OPINION
The Origins of the Gay Identity We’re accustomed to think of the gay identity as something that has existed since the days of Sappho. This is not least because for decades, conservatives and bigots have argued that homosexuality is a disease that can be ‘cured’, or that one can simply choose not to be gay. However, thinking that the gay identity is transhistorical means we can miss how capitalism has uniquely shaped, restricted, and classified sexuality to suit its own ends. A Marxist framework can help us to understand the development of the gay identity as a unique product of capitalism, rather than an eternal type of person. A basic feature of all human societies is that, in order to continue, they must reproduce themselves. The extent to which a society can reproduce is dependent on its productive capacities i.e. if it can produce enough to feed more mouths. In class-divided societies, where a privileged minority owns and controls the social surplus and lives off the labour of subordinate classes, the terms of social reproduction i.e. in what arrangements humans reproduce themselves and their surroundings — also come under their control. In pre-class societies, there is little to no evidence of rigid sexual or gender rules. There are two main reasons for this: 1) the low, subsistence-level productive capacity of these societies meant there wasn’t a large incentive, nor possibility, for many children to be had, freeing women from a life solely based around child-rearing, and 2) wealth and property were collectively owned, reducing the importance of identifying direct blood lines which requires the controlling of women’s sexuality. So as procreation was not a pressure, and lines of inheritance no concern, heterosexuality did not have to be enforced. Hence why you could have ‘berdaches’, members of Indigenous American tribes who voluntarily changed genders, taking on the roles and responsibilities of the other gender. With class society, however, came greater restrictions on sexuality, and social, cultural and religious codes and customs. For instance, Hamurrabi’s code written in 1754 BC contains a mandate punishing a wife’s infidelity by drowning. Assyrian laws of the 11th century BC refer to punishment of samesex acts. But how about Ancient Greece and Rome? Was there not greater sexual freedom and tolerance there? And didn’t it reveal the existence of a gay
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identity before capitalism? Same-sex relationships in antiquity were not only tolerated but considered more noble than heterosexual ones. This wasn’t, however, because the ancient Greeks were uniquely open-minded, but rather due to slavery; when slaves are doing all the work, it means freeborn men face less pressure to sire children, making same-sex acts unthreatening to the reproduction of labour power. There was no such thing as the homosexual identity, because there was no separate ‘type’ of person who engaged exclusively in samesex activity — frankly, everyone did. The instances in which same-sex acts were punished, for example in the 346BC trial of Timarkhos by Aiskhines, reflected not an aversion to these acts, but social codes regarding the class status of its participants. Timarkhos, a free-born Athenian, was prosecuted for playing the submissive role conventionally reserved for slaves. Under feudalism, the vast majority of people were peasants, tied to a small portion of land which they tilled alongside their family. The peasant family was a unit of production, producing the food and goods needed to survive, and the surpluses which were extracted as rent from the aristocracy. For the peasant family, there was a strong impetus to have as many children as possible; more children meant more hands to till the fields. The unavoidable need to procreate and the high rate of child mortality meant that heterosexuality was a requirement of survival, hence why ‘sodomy’ meant all nonprocreative sex, not just same-sex relations. The other feature of feudalism which restricted sexuality was the limited nature of social life. Most peasants would never step foot outside the bounds of their local village before they died. The lack of opportunities to expand one’s social life imposed limits on sexual exploration, something that would change with the growth of urban centres. The emergence of ‘molly houses’ in the 17th century frequented by the masters and journeymen of burgeoning cities like London testify to this. This potted history of sexuality shows how the degree to which sexuality could be expressed and explored was as much, if not more, shaped by the material necessities of life — the primary being the need to have children —
Lucas Pierce examines. as the interests of ruling classes to make rules, laws, and so forth, governing sexual conduct. The advent of capitalism led to a series of social and economic transformation which uprooted feudal relations and life, laying the basis for the emergence of the gay identity. The key transformation that capitalism brought about was the breakdown of the feudal family unit. With the industrial revolution and rapidly expanding cities, peasants left their villages in search of work in the urban centres, or were forced to leave due to the enclosing of agricultural land. For the millions entering work in the cities during capitalism’s rise from the 18th century, no longer was survival “structured around participation in a nuclear family”, as American marxist John D’Emilio wrote, but secured through receiving a wage from a boss. This untethering of new masses of people from the main institution which regulated and limited sexual life for centuries — the feudal family — and their concentration in urban areas, had four main implications: 1) the unshackling of work from the family opened up the possibility for such a thing as a ‘personal life’ 2) free labour and urbanisation threw millions of both genders and without familial ties into overcrowded lodging houses 3) urban life created the possibility of anonymity 4) capitalist ideology’s emphasis on the individual provided a justification for people to form a personal life around their sexual desires. Given these conditions, how did the gay identity emerge? To begin answering this question, we must return to the family. Its breakdown amongst the working classes of the cities became a source of worry for the middle and ruling classes by the mid-1800s. Workers would die at an extremely young age — the average life expectancy for a worker in Manchester was 17 — which coupled with the drying up of the flow of new labour from the countryside, threatened future labour supply. The response of the ruling strata was to reconstitute the family along new lines, allowing for the privatised reproduction of labour power. As the family was no longer an organic unit, imposing it required new ideological justifications, prime among them being essentialist notions that nature endows men and women with separate duties and that heterosexuality is a biological
category. To accept same-sex attraction as normal meant undermining the nuclear family’s ideological pillars. So free labour and urbanisation was opening up the possibility for people to shape a personal life around their sexual attraction at the same time as the ruling class was imposing the nuclear family structure on the working class. As American socialist and historian Sherry Wolf wrote, “capitalism creates the material conditions for men and women to lead autonomous sexual lives, yet it simultaneously seeks to impose heterosexual norms on society to secure the maintenance of the economic, social and sexual order”. Gay underground sub-cultures and communities cropped up in major western cities like Berlin, New York, and Paris, prompting the state to play an even greater role in policing sexuality. The scientific community in Victorian England aided the state in constructing a sexual deviant, coming up with the term ‘homosexual’ before even ‘heterosexual’, to categorise a type of person supposedly afflicted with a congenital defect or kind of insanity. The behaviours and traits identified with gay individuals were consolidated with the example of Oscar Wilde during his trial on charges of public indecency in 1895. So, the gay identity is a unique product of capitalism’s contradictory impacts on social life. To quote D’Emilio again, ‘the constant interplay between exploitation and some measure of autonomy — informs all of the history of those who live under capitalism’. A marxist analysis allows us to break from the common conceptions that gay people have been an ‘invisible minority’ throughout history, or the bio-essentialist idea of the ‘gay gene’. Though these are often raised to defend homosexuality against conservatives and bigots, they end up mirroring the myth propagated by capitalism that there are fixed sexual categories we’re all born into. In a society free from capitalism’s underlying priority to privatise social reproduction, there would arguably be no need to straitjacket people into social categories defined by sexual orientation. Sexuality could be a private affair, without social consequence.
CULTURE |
Lights Down at Roseville: A 114-Year-Old Picture Palace Goes palace is pushed toward the but the clause asks it to consider, 1912 as a community hall. to Market margins by the multiplex cinema not to refuse. It can also approve A reproduction poster in the Lara Kumar watches the the credit roll.
I’ve driven past the Roseville Cinema more times than I could possibly count. Its position on the stretch of the Pacific Highway that conjoins Hornsby to Chatswood makes it near impossible to avoid. Of the shops and restaurants I drive past in that familiar stretch, it has always been this quaint arthouse cinema that catches my eye. It’s hard to put a finger on why, but I think its stubborn preservation of antiquity amongst suburban shops that have fought or died trying to keep up with modernity gives the building undeniable charm. The cinema has lived in its regal art deco form since 1936, and the theatrical bulbs that shroud its entrance give the place a spectral warmth. The flickering light reminds me the cinema is no relic. Roseville Cinema is up for sale. The sale was ordered by the Supreme Court of NSW in June, with a trustee appointed to sell the property of the cinema’s owner, Macos Holdings, to repay debts to ANZ Bank and the trust of the late Susan van Pinxteren, whose family has owned the cinema since 1974. Expressions of interest close on 8 October. The building opened in
cinema’s office advertises a war meeting held there in September 1915 to recruit soldiers. The building was remade in 1936 as an art deco picture palace, and still shows films to this day. The heritage site has also been rezoned to allow buildings up to 29 metres. So what does the heritage listing actually protect? A Ku-ringgai Council spokesperson told Honi the local listing covers the entire building. The Council has had no contact with agents, buyers or community groups, the spokesperson said, because the property is a private sale. Asked whether a buyer could demolish the building or build above it, the spokesperson said any development proposal would need consent from the relevant authority. The Council did not say whether that consent would be granted. Honi also approached the cinema for comment but did not receive a response by publication.
Under the Ku-ring-gai Local Environmental Plan, demolishing a heritage item, or building on the land it stands on, needs development consent. The consent authority must consider the effect on the item’s heritage significance,
uses the plan would otherwise prohibit if it helps conserve the building.
Put simply, the clause does not require anyone to keep the purpose of the building as it was. In fact, a developer may be far more incentivised to build up a residential high-rise or commercial development than keep an antiquated picture palace afloat. A heritage listing protects the bricks and mortar, but it doesn’t save the carpet, curtains, or screens. To facilitate the erasure of a building’s art deco furbishing and transform it from a cinema into an apartment or set of shops or a gym is not heritage protection. The heritage is uniquely within Roseville Cinema’s identity as a picture palace: in its regal theatre that brought luxury within reach of thousands of families over the century who have loitered excitedly by the box office, not in the naked infrastructure itself. The sale of Roseville Cinemas is not an anomaly. In recent years Sydney has lost many arthouse cinemas, with Palace Verona closing in February 2024 and Chauvel Cinema in January 2026. As the picture
franchise and digital streaming, we must remember what we are losing out on. Arthouse theatres, like Roseville Cinemas, have the independence to play whatever they want, not just whatever earns a pretty penny. This week that includes Maigret and the Dead Lover, a subtitled French murder mystery about the shooting of a retired ambassador.
Famed director Bong Joon Ho, upon winning a Golden Globe in 2020, urged audiences to overcome the “one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles”. Roseville is one of the few places in Sydney where you can still experience the transformative brilliance of international cinema. There are few places left where strangers share a room for two hours all submerged in a collective game of make-believe. A cinema is one of them. You queue, you eat an unsettling amount of buttered popcorn, you guffaw, cry, or gasp at the same moment as the person three seats along. It’s easy to forget what a place like that gives a suburb until someone puts a price on it.
| SRC OFFICEBEARERS’ REPORTS
President Grace Street (Grassroots)
Education Officers Jasmine Al-Rawi (SAlt)
I hope you’ve all enjoyed your midsemester break, or as much as one can when more coal mine expansions are getting approved by the government, when we find out that the AI company our University sneakily partnered with hacked into Medicare, and when the University, government and mainstream media are launching attacks on the independence of our undergraduate student union.
In only their most recent escalation from a series of ongoing attacks on our ability to protest, management is now threatening to defund our SRC and strip us of our independence. We have seen what happens to other student unions who are now de facto controlled by management. Our SRC is the most independent, fighting student union around the country. We have been at the forefront of major campaigns not just in the past few years but for decades, from anti- Vietnam war activism, the Freedom Rides & the fight for First Nations justice, the fight against apartheid in South Africa, women’s liberation struggles, staff strikes and workers’ rights, and of course the Palestine liberation movement most notably with our Palestine solidarity encampment.
treating us like cattle and introducing the Campus Access Policy. Their allegiance to pro-genocide lobbies and their introduction of their 5 key policies, like the Flag Policy, which now treats the Palestinian flag as a threat to social cohesion and psychosocial safety.
These threats from management don’t exist in isolation. We have seen their response to our encampment by
We have also organised a rally for Thursday, October 15th at 1pm @ Fisher Coffee Cart. Be there!
The response to our new “Hands off the SRC” open letter has been great, with over 500 students, staff, alumni and community members supporting our battle against university management. This is an important, but not unique, moment – the University has long stood at odds with the SRC, particularly as we necessarily oppose
their treatment of students and staff, their unethical investments and partnerships, and much more. However, this is a time in which the government and mainstream media have also launched their own conservative attacks on universities and activists, so we need support more than ever to safeguard independent student unionism across this continent. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read the demands of the open letter and sign it here (see bottom of page). On top of all of this, I am currently finishing off our big 2027 SSAF application, reopening discussions with the University to install some free period product dispensers from On the House, and weighing in on proposed policies regarding academic integrity, special considerations, and much more. Keep an eye out for more updates on the SRC Instagram and website soon!
International Student Officers
Aoyue Cao, Anu-Ujin Khulan, Lucas He, George Feng (PENTA) Recently, we have continued working to support international students across their academic, professional and everyday university experiences. We successfully organised a Career Panel, providing students with practical insights into professional development, employment opportunities and workplace experiences. We are also preparing an Academic Pathway initiative, which aims to help students better understand further study, research opportunities and possible academic directions. At the same time, we have been progressing the International Student Document Translation Project by contacting translation companies and exploring suitable arrangements. We hope this project can reduce language barriers and make important
information more accessible to international students. We have also remained active on social media, sharing useful information and responding to students’ questions. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, we shared our wishes with students and celebrated this important cultural occasion with the international student community. Overall, our work goes beyond organising individual events. We aim to connect international students with information, opportunities and support, while helping reduce the barriers they may face. Through practical initiatives, communication and cultural engagement, we hope to strengthen students’ sense of belonging and contribute to a more inclusive and supportive university community.
Queer Officers
Ydie Lardillier and Wendy Thompson SIGN ON TO THE DEFEND OUR SRC OPEN LETTER! Management has threatened to take over SRC elections and cut funding over the use of the phrase “globalise the intifada.” We need to stand with Palestine against continued genocide. We need an independent student union to fight against bigoted university and government policy, especially amidst crackdowns on migration and vicious fee hikes for international students, cuts to trans healthcare left and right, and the Australian government’s repression of Palestine activism. Sign the open letter, as a student, staff member, or community member, at @ src_usyd on Instagram! QuAC joined the Gender and Cultural Studies staff at the Victoria Park stairs picket line to support the first NTEU strike. As USYD management attacks free speech and Palestinian freedom, pushes through sweeping AI partnerships, and denies gender affirmation leave for all staff, it’s more important than ever to stand in solidarity with the NTEU. JOIN US ON THE PICKET LINE for the next 24 hour industrial action on Thursday, October
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Dana Kafina (Grassroots)
This university is ours. It should not be management’s, it should not in the hands of businesses and greed. If you are a student at this university, this fight is ours. Our next meeting is in collaboration with USyd enviro, on Friday at 3pm. Please come to organise in support of staff strikes (October 22nd) and to build our collective struggle in numbers.
Women’s Officers Maxine McGrath (Grassroots) Welcome back to uni!! We are pleased to announce the the collective has voted on formally changing our name. We are still listed in the constitution as the Women’s Collective, however, we recently decided to rebrand as the Feminist Action Bloc (FAB). Throughout the year, we have been having discussions regarding trans inclusivity within the collective. The previous name implicitly excluded transmasc and non-binary members of the collective. During the rise of the far right, the systemic erosion of trans rights, and the normalisation of transphobic rhetoric, we believed it was important to ensure that we place trans welfare at the forefront of our feminism. We were so proud to help organise the Student Strike Against Sexual Violence. This was a grassroots initiative planned by students where we marched to NSW parliament demanding a substantial response to the femicide crisis. At the time of the protest, 49 Australian women had been killed; this number has since risen to 54. This has been a distressing and triggering time for victim-survivors, with the publicisation of the Cornell
Rapists’ case. This case is not an isolated incident confined to America, as the same misogynistic culture seen within American fraternities is also observed in our Residential Colleges. For almost a century we have seen the university fail victim-survivors, enabling sexual violence. We must understand that internationally, we must all join the same fight against elitist institutions, and recognise their inherent violence. I send all of my love and support to victim-survivors who have been retraumatised; please take care, and do something kind for yourself. Our university has once again shown that it does not care for the demands of students. Our student union has been the home to radical activism and has played a central role in the Palestine campaign. Due to this, USyd management has recently threatened the SRC, aiming to defund or sever its independence. This is the most open attack upon our freedom of speech, and we are doing everything in our power to fight these proposed changes. We will continue fighting for a free Palestine, and an end to the genocide. Please sign the petition if you have not already.
22nd. Victory to the workers! Over mid-sem break, QuAC members travelled to Wollongong for the National Union of Students’ Diversity Conference. QuAC delivered a workshop on transformative justice, challenging carceral approaches to interpersonal violence and proposing alternative community responses. Stay tuned for our next transformative justice workshop, which we will be running during Radical Education Week! Our meetings are held once a week in the Queerspace (Level 1, Manning House) and our Discord at 1:30pm Thursdays. Join us this week to prepare for the upcoming Radical Education Week and Trans Day of Resistance (21st November). Follow us on Instagram @usydqueer and join our organising Discord, to keep in touch with QuAC’s campaigns and join us in the fight for queer liberation! Unionise, mobilise, globalise the resistance.
Hands off the SRC! Sign the petition now!
SRC RESOURCES |
Alcohol, Drugs & Gambling: How to Get Help
Ask Abe SRC Caseworker Help Q&A
Group Work
Dear Abe, I’ve just received a letter from the Faculty saying they think I’ve breached academic honesty rules for a group assignment. I didn’t bother reading the whole assignment because I was busy, but I know I didn’t break any rules. Can I get into trouble for someone else’s cheating? Am I going to get kicked out of uni? Does your escape from uni and from life’s hardships come in liquid, powder, pill, or even in plastic (credit cards)? Chances are that you’ve already tried something, taken a gamble of some sort, or you may be trying to help someone out of a destructive habit. Our campus community should accept that a person is not defined by what they are addicted to or dabble with. Unfortunately, an escape that involves substance use or gambling can quickly become a trap. If you are between 1624 years old, you are at greater risk of getting stuck with the consequences of substances use. It’s fair to say that drug-taking is widespread and accessible in the tertiary environment (and in the city). But getting help & moderating your participation in it is also accepted and encouraged.
usage but are keen to cut back. For instance, tips on how to drink but not get drunk, or how to party and get home in one piece. Gambling has also increased given the availability of apps, Australia’s love of sports, and the false hope of solving financial hardship with a big win. However, gambling is not an investment; it’s designed to make players lose more than they win. Sports betting companies use social media to normalise gambling, and make you feel a like part of the squad…except that you pay the bill for all rounds. Gambling is especially hard to stop as many do it in isolation. Help is available for free throughout Sydney via GambleAware: Their program considers your beliefs about
Group Work Sucks
Dear Group Work Sucks, The expectation in group work is for you
to be acquainted with the assignment, know its requirements, and collaborate with your peers, contributing equally to the assignment. The Uni’s website has information about academic honesty, with specific reference to group work. If you receive an allegation for breach of academic integrity, it is best to be as honest as possible and explain exactly what happened. You can ask an SRC caseworker to provide feedback to your response before you submit it to the Faculty. The Faculty absolutely cannot kick you out of uni for this. Abe
If you need help and advice from an SRC Caseworker, start an enquiry here. bit.ly/contact-a-caseworker
EXAM TIMETABLES ARE RELEASED OCTOBER 12TH
Help is available for free throughout Sydney via GambleAware: Their program considers your beliefs about gambling, your treatment goals, and other problems such as anxiety, depression and relationship issues. We encourage you to ask for help and offer support for those who’d like to reduce substance dependence. If you’re not ready for others to accompany you, you can explore self-help options. Turning Point Australia offers free online counselling related to drugs, alcohol, and gambling. ReachOut offers some alternatives if you’re not ready to give up your
gambling, your treatment goals, and other problems such as anxiety, depression and relationship issues. Although substance use and gambling may be encouraged by peers, the SRC Caseworkers can help connect you to support towards your quest for a clearer mind and regaining your financial freedom.
gambleaware.nsw.gov.au/i-need-support
IF YOU HAVE TWO EXAMS SCHEDULED AT THE SAME TIME, THE EXAMS OFFICE WILL CONTACT YOU WITH ALTERNATIVE ARRANGEMENTS. IF YOU NEED A SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT DUE TO ESSENTIAL COMMITMENTS OR RESPONSIBILITIES, APPLY THROUGH THE SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS PORTAL WITHIN 14 (CALENDAR) DAYS. FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE: SYDNEY.EDU.AU/STUDENTS/EXAMS
srcusyd.net.au bit.ly/contact-a-caseworker
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| PUZZLES
The Crossword Puzzle by Some Hack
Across:
1 Picture A; Party that lost power in a landlocked European republic in 1957 due to their use of undated resignation letters (11) 7 Picture B; infamous renegade according to Lenin (7) 11 “Close, but no ___” (5) 12 To follow; triumph (7) 13 Disgusting scum that cross picket lines (5) 14 Numbers to crunch; Picture C (4) 15 Type of [4D] too offensive to be said (4) 16 “No thanks”; these get degrees? (4) 17 Star Trek pilot episode; enclosure (4) 21 Anti-imperialist Cantata and Concerto named after a river in China (6) 23 MOBA competitor to League (4) 25 Passes unnoticed (5,2) 26 Provide food for? (5) 27 Automated sender of unwanted emails (4,3) 28 Standards; Judging specifications (8) 31 Technophobe (7) 32 Radioactive element 84 discovered by the Curies (8) 33 They may be Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa? (7) 34 Massive, according to the orange dictator (5) 37 Strands at a ski lodge, perhaps (5,2) 39 Lisan Al’Ghaib sister (4) 40 Victor Hugo story turned Broadway musical (3,3) 42 Union covering train drivers (4) 43 Liability; obligation (4) 45 Acronym describing law enforcement (1,1,1,1) 46 Coyote vs ___ (4) 50 Part 3 of 1A (5) 52 Chivalrous (7) 53 Prefix to surgeon or transmitter (5) 54 Wide open space; also 24th space opera series (7) 55 Social butterfly, adj. (11)
Down:
1 2 3 4
Work allowance for illness? (4,4) Time of day to retire (5) A certain something you may want to max out (4) Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries, for example (6) 5 Seasoned snail (8) 6 Paragon; archetype (8) 7 “Great job!” (5) 8 Pre-1991 abbr. on maps (4) 9 Vast salty expanse (3) 10 A time bygone (10) 18 Former name of the USyd business school building (3) 19 Part 2 of 1A (9) 20 Crude carrier, may be stuck in the Straits of Hormuz right now (3,6) 22 Place for a pin (5) 23 Bit of info; Singular of 14A (5)
24 Botanical appendage (7) 25 Off-the-wall; very peculiar (6) 26 Layout concern of newspaper editor (6) 28 Keyboard shortcut to select all? (4,1) 29 Bailiwick; Sphere of influence (5) 30 Sign of possession (10) 34 Prison stormed in 1789 (8) 35 Mass power generation unit (8) 36 Vesta, Pallas, or Hygiea (8) 38 Globe; ball (3) 41 Cuban leader Fidel (6) 44 Two under par; American symbol (5) 47 Tally up (5) 48 Song of praise (4) 49 Leg joint, one may take an arrow to (4) 51 Tear; letters for the dead (3)
Dusting Off The Cobwebs
The 1992 SRC Education Action Group Tent Offensive, held from 24th to 26th March, 1992 on the Quad Lawns. Remarkably similar things students fought for back then we are fighitng now.
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Editor Victor won a shirt from that encampment in a raffle a few years back!
A The People Want Answers! Here are the answers for all previous crosswords from this semester.
B
C
UNETHICAL SATIRE SINCE 1929
Libel
Slander
Defamation
Proudly hateful
USYD STUDENTS ATTEMPT TO REVIVE UTS STUDENT LIFE “TO GET THEM OFF OUR CAMPUS”
Dividing the USyd student community
NIGHT GARDEN FOR SRC PERFORMS SURPRISINGLY WELL
“How the fuck,” one campaigner from a rival faction began, “did those IgglePiggle, Upsy Daisy, Tombliboo-ass motherfuckers BEAT US?!” A group of USyd students have recently begun a campaign to revive the student life of the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) after noticing an unnervingly large presence of UTS students milling around campus in the past weeks. “Honestly, it’s kind of sad, like they have nowhere to go”, an anonymous student told Honi while peering at a gaggle of UTS students roaming across Eastern Avenue. “I think we need to make their campus more vibrant, more fun. I know we talk about doing that here, but no one ever talks about the risks of having too vibrant a campus. They’re like bogong moths to the flame,” another student commented. Another student said: “Look, I guess I don’t mind them being around, but it’s weird when they start posting about USyd as though they go here. Like, transfer or get over it lowkey.” USyd itself is reportedly looking into measures to mitigate the amount of UTS students present on campus and involved with USyd happenings due to a deluge of student complaints. Honi has received a tip that a large part of the UTS facade may be plastered with advertisements for USyd transfer pathways in the coming weeks. This is a developing story. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The campaigner continued to frustratedly explain to Honi that at Susan Wakil, Makka Pakka was the sole Night Garden campaigner, and had spent most of the day ambling about collecting stones. ‘Night Garden Creatures for SRC’ went on to win the Susan Wakil booth with 100 per cent of the primaries. Night Garden is a newcomer faction to USyd SRC Elections, though as their campaigners have had to repeatedly state, they are not a joke ticket. They are genuinely just creatures from the TV show ‘In the Night Garden’ who want to be represented in the SRC. “They say they’re not a joke ticket, but they’re the fucking laughingstock of Eastern Avenue, I’ll tell you that much”, a faction member clearly abandoning the tenets of FriendPol told Honi. Unexpectedly, the class-character of the Night Garden became a point of contention during the campaign. This followed a few Night Garden creatures unveiling a banner reading ‘Mikka Makka Moo’, a slogan historically associated with the Pontipines. In addition, an AI-generated Google Doc was posted by a Night Garden creature in defence of the USyd $5 Canteen potentially serving Hahoo meat. When asked how they’d performed so well, a Ninky Nonk reported to Honi that its faction was “locked in”.
In Next Week’s Edition... Finding Farterhood: What Lactose Intolerance Taught Me About Masculinity It’s time to start listening to the farts of women, ones that have often gone unheard (or unacknowledged).
nf er en ce in T he re is a br ig ht co yo ur fu tu re .
stujocon ‘26 Saturday 10th October
10–11am Event registration 11am–1pm Unfucking Australian Media: Michael West, Lamestream, and Antoun Issa in Conversation 1–3pm Lunch 3–4pm Protecting Journalism in the Age of AI: Shona Martyn & the MEAA 4–5pm Literature, Art, and the Critic: Geordie Williamson and Neha Kale 5–6pm Tigest Girma, author of ‘Immortal Dark’ 6–7pm Comics, Caricatures, Political Cartoons: A workshop 7pm Trivia with #editors at the Forest Lodge Hotel
Sunday 11th October 10–11am Antony Green: The ABCs of Psephology 11am–12pm Journalism in Conflict: Patricia Garcia and Jake Lynch 12am–1pm Amy Remeikis: The “Incivility” of Political Journalism 1–2pm Lunch 2–3pm Violet CoCo on Protest & Liberation for All 3–4pm Purplepingers on the State of AusPol 4–5pm Vogue to Van Gogh: Arts Journalism with Gladys Lai and Megha Kapoor 5–6pm How to write a poem: a Voiceworks workshop 6–7pm Make your own Zine 7pm Finale party at The Lord Gladstone