Volume Five: A House Divided

A House Divided

UTS acknowledges and recognises the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation as the traditional owners and holders of knowledge where our UTS campuses now stand. UTS also pays respect to Elders past, present and future for sharing their knowledge and the significant contribution that Australia’s first peoples make to the academic and cultural life of our university.

Maree Graham, Deputy Director, Students and Community Engagement, Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research, University of Technology, Sydney

Acknowledgement of Country

Editorial 4 Contributors 5 Editorial Letter 124 Support

Arts &

81 106

Creative

Lifestyle Mac Miller, 1992–2018 Joshua Kindl In Praise of PLAYLIST—Where Women's Stories Rise James Gardiner

Writing 6 26 32 50 51 64 68 84 2

Politics

The Last Grocery Run Rebecca Cushway Clouds & Fossils Lachlan Barker

& Law

Over The Wall Doria Katos

19

A brief, generalized seizure Matilda Gould If you are pregnant or think you might be pregnant, do not give this medicine to a child Matilda Gould (There's a hole in my bedroom and everyone has an opinion about it) Aishah Ali What We Are(n’t) Tooba Anwar In The House of The Witch Emma Green

Contents

The Politics of Lovelessness Alyssa Rodrigo

38

There's No Such Thing as the Middle Class Rebecca Cushway

43

Racist Profiteering In Government Employment Scheme Leya Reid

Business, Science & Innovation 10

Socio– cultural

Time is Elastic Mariela PT

22

Showcase 13 28 34 49 59

Nowhere Near Eden Thea Kable

70

Considerable Difficulty That I Remember Jack Barrueto

86 99

3

94 96

Sutherland Nancy Li South West Joseph Wells

108

The Bureaucracy of a Hunting Ground Madeline Lucre In Response to UTS Rants Revived Dashie P Does Queer Eye Need a Makeover of its Own? Tahlia Nelson & James Gardiner Who Is The Fairest of Them All Amara Khan

Abject Nature Sophia Melika Intricacies of Expression Gianna Hewitt-Brown & Josephine Wyburn

Meet Me Halfway Ella Sanderson Split Rachel Tse

B–Side 114 116 119

Violet Growth Ros Hooper

120

Comms Student’s Last Nine Profile Pictures Promoting Shows Lucy Tassell

121

“This Might Be In The Exam” Says Tutor Who Thinks This Is Some Kind Of Fucking Game Lucy Tassell

Contents

I'm kinda angry?

Nicole De Palo Valuable Class Time Spent Learning How To Use The Library Lucy Tassell

Lily Cameron, Freya Howard, Leya Reid, Srisha Sritharan

SUB-EDITORS

Aisha Ali[64] Tooba Anwar[68] Lachlan Barker[26] Rebecca Cushway[6, 38] Nicole De Palo[116] Matilda Gould[50, 51] Emma Green[84] Doria Katos[32] Amara Khan[108] Joshua Kindl[81] Madeline Lucre[22] Tahlia Nelson[96] Dashie P[94] Mariela PT[10] Leya Reid43] Lucy Tassell[119, 120 & 121]

WRITTEN

Jack Barrueto @jackunicorn[COVER ART, 70] Isabelle Coury @issayyay[39] Gianna Hewitt-Brown @venusinfur_ [59] Ros Hooper @ros_arts[114] Thea Kable @theakable[13] Janey Li @jane.ey[65] Nancy Li @nlianderthal[28] Danni Luo @dd_luo[95] Isabella Meagher @kovvu[7] Sophia Melika @sophiamelika[49] Ella Sanderson @sander.hag[86] Georgette Stefoulis @georgettestef[68] Erin Sutherland @ezose.png[32, 82] Will Thompson @willbeurt[84] Alice Tran @alice__trn[20] Rachel Tse @racheltse_[99] Rosemary Vasquez-Brown @rosemaryglenn[108] Joseph Wells @joeyjwells[34] Josephine Wyburn @josephinewy[59] Nicole Yeom @yeomah[11] VISUAL

4

Contributors

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

EDITOR

Alyssa Rodrigo

Joyce Cheng

James Gardiner

Volume 5: A House Divided is the last Vertigo of 2018 and our last as an

editorial team. To end the year, we are showcasing work that extends its vision toward the future. Everyone has their own idea of what the perfect world would look like, and also their own idea of pure hell. Our hope is that within these pages are visions for the future you can relate to, and perhaps a few warning signs for what could lie ahead.

In Sociocultural, Madeline sheds light on university policies a year after the Australian Human Rights Commission’s report into sexual assault on campus, while in Business, Science, and Innovation, Mariela waxes lyrical about the elasticity of time, reflecting upon their time in South America and the structures of a 9–5 working life.

This volume’s Politics and Law section sees Alyssa explore how Australia’s government policies could be shaped by a love ethic, while Rebecca Cushway agonises over groceries during the apocalypse in Creative Writing. Over in Showcase, Jack focuses on the hours between midnight and morning, a period of time that straddles the line between known and strange.

Thank you for your support over the span of this year! There’s nothing more rewarding than filling a stand with magazines and finding it empty two days later (special shout-out to the savages over in building 6).

Vertigo is an important part of student culture at UTS and wouldn’t exist without the outstanding contributors who give their time and expertise, or the readers who take the time to engage with the work. Seeing writers and artists express themselves, and learn and grow through the process of publishing their work will be one of the most rewarding things we ever do.

All our love, The Editorial Team

5

THANK YOUS

FUCK YOUS

SHRUGS

Baths Potato gems 80s pop hits

Annotate Unpaid labour Dudebros in tank tops

Student elections Corporate social responsibility

Editorial Letter

The Last Grocery Run

ART

WORDS

Isabella Meagher

Rebecca Cushway Green apples, green bananas. Nothing was ever the right colour. Her fingers slipped over the monochromic flesh. Waxy? That seemed… wrong. More like plastic. Leather, almost. An unripe banana was like soft leather pulled tight.

She had been standing in the store for at least an hour. She had three things in her basket after all this time, and had allowed the luxury of thinking she could put them back later as long as something was in her basket. Dear god it had been an hour and she had nothing to show for it. Now that she was thinking about it, maybe the saltreduced soy sauce was a mistake. How important was salt intake, really? Important enough to forsake flavour? No. Definitely not.

Maybe not.

Was 2% of daily salt intake a lot? And per 100ml... how many millilitres did she use at once? She should’ve measured last time she attempted homemade noodles. Now that she was thinking about it, if she was using salt-reduced soy sauce, wouldn’t that mean she would need to use twice as much to get the same flavour anyway? Thus negating the purpose of buying salt-reduced in the first place?

She left it in the basket and put the banana down. She would come back later if she changed her mind.

She wandered back through the low aisles, trying not to look in the direction of the counter, where she knew the shop clerk would be watching her make her umpteenth lap around the store that couldn’t be more than ten metres squared. She could feel the heat from the sun through the tall glass windows, and hear faint laughter coming from somewhere beyond the quiet street. Only slightly more quiet than normal. The sun was going down. A shadow slowly sliding down a chalked 2 for $5.99 avocado sign.

Milk. Milk was easy.

She knew she didn’t like full cream. Brands, not a big deal, but the kind of milk, yes a big deal. Ethically, almond and soy are better choices, but that was more of an ethical choice borne out of guilt and therefore not really a choice. More an obligation to be better than dairy-farmed milk. Last time she brought almond milk home she used

6

Creative Writing

it once and left it in the fridge for three months because throwing it away was admitting defeat. She could get both, but then she was still supporting the dairy industry, and really only kidding herself that she was going to put almond milk on her porridge. Almond milk was more like cloudy almond water anyway.

Okay. No inauthentic milk purchases today. Light or skim. What was the difference? There was an ad she saw once that made this clear but she couldn’t remember which one she decided on in the end. Fuck it. Both were going in the basket. Someone would drink it. She was getting sick of herself.

As she let the fridge door slack shut, the light flickered out. She gently hit the fridge a few times with her palm, and it flickered on and off. All the fridge lights were off when she looked at it properly. God. Rage induced damages costs. Over milk, milk for God’s sake.

This was karma for not picking the almond.

The first four boxes of pasta her hands touched went straight into the basket to make up for past indecisions. All dry pasta was the same.

She could hear the boxes rattle in time with her footsteps on the cold tile floor. There was no one else in the shop for the noise to bounce off as it echoed.

She stopped at the dishwashing soap. Lemon, lime. Strawberry?

Too much. Strawberry wasn’t a clean dishes smell. Lemon and lime smelled like victory over an empty sink with bubbles up your arms.

She popped the cap off the top to compare, and as she did a huge metallic crash sounded outside.

The sound started loud and with a long descending screech fell into silence. A few panicked voices rose up after the sound stopped.

In the distance, a siren.

So, lemon then.

She saw a sign advertising 2 for 1 stonefruit and even though she hadn’t eaten a stonefruit since high school, she picked up a peach.

Was it red or yellow? How could you even tell when the outside was purple? How come the colour peach didn’t look like any part of a peach? She didn’t know if she even liked peaches, it had been that

7

Creative Writing

long since she had them.

Maybe 2 for 1 stonefruit wasn’t worth it. Unless avocados counted as stonefruit. They had a stone. They were a fruit, she thought.

She looked around for a shop assistant. Nothing. There wasn’t anyone on the floor. By the time she walked up to the counter she had forgotten all stonefruit-related questions and just decided for herself that avocados counted towards the tally.

But no one was at the counter. No one was in the store at all. Surely they hadn’t closed already, surely she hadn’t taken that long. She checked her watch, but the hands had stopped. She looked around the shop for the time, but all the screens had flickered to black. Along with the fridges and lights. Well, if they’d closed the store with her still inside then she might as well finish her shopping.

A little faster this time, she went back to pick up flour (easy), tomato paste (mostly easy), and eggs (much more difficult). She paced back and forth before swapping out the salt-reduced soy sauce for

8

Creative Writing

regular, and put back a tentative dark cooking chocolate purchase.

Back to the bananas, pale green, two in the basket.

Even though no one was there, she brought her items up to the counter. 12 or less, except for the gum and avocados painstakingly chosen with the knowledge that they were doomed to fail. She had never timed an avocado right. Even with alerts set on her phone.

She watched the sun outside the window as she waited. It hadn’t moved down the sign. It was warming her feet through the window, warming the tiles beneath her. No one had come to the counter. She sat down on the warm ground.

The human noise had stopped. The faint sound of traffic, and the yelling from earlier all silent now. She couldn’t hear a dog barking or birds screeching either. No music in cars passing by. No music in the shop either. No lights, no music. No sound.

Dust was blowing down the small street past the window, more red than you would expect of a city at the end of the afternoon, and getting thicker by the minute. From the silence came another screeching crash.

Then a deafening thud. Crumbling more than thudding, continuous thudding to the ground. Like concrete on glass.

She watched the building across the street slowly slide and crumble in on itself. The air was thick with the heat and noise of it. Yet still it seemed so quiet.

When she came out today, she thought she would at least get to see people. Someone. A person to share this with. Her brother was back home with mum and dad, and she had no one. Hadn’t called them. They knew. They were the kind of family that knew. No teary farewells here, no need for it.

The sun was getting warmer on her feet, almost burning but not quite. The light getting brighter and more blinding. Gleaming off the apples meticulously piled in front of her.

She didn’t think the end of the world would be so quiet.

The peach from earlier was still sitting in her basket, she had forgotten to put it back. Running the pads of her fingers over the soft downy flesh, she bit in. Now she remembered; she hated peaches.

9

Creative Writing

TIME IS ELASTIC

ART

WORDS

Nicole Yeom

Mariela PT Time is elastic. We know this. I have just woken up from a nap that felt like a restless fifteen minutes but, by the clock, was almost an hour. Whether it’s because of that last hour of work limping by or the assignment you swear you had way more time to finish, we have all experienced the fickle nature of time.

Time is elastic. We know this. Ethiopia, home to the ancient remains of humans and one of the most ancient alphabets still in use, runs on its own measure of time: the calendar sees a year made up of 13 months, and the day starts at dawn (a subjective moment with great annual variability). It is called, officially, Ethiopian Time.

In this world there exists plenty of other “Times”, as well. However, the teeming majority of these times are culturally alternate, rather than officially different measures. I think a key element of this is due to differing values and lifestyle emphases—but before I explore what it means more deeply, I want to examine what these different times look like.

Time in sprawling México City (CDMX) is unusual. The city itself is a dazzling paradox of old and new; as the downtown colonias fuse their traditional, folkish charm with more modern, alternative flavours, the impoverished communities of ‘old’ Santa Fe are struggling to persevere alongside the choking construction and developments of ‘new (and improved)’ Santa Fe. In these budding commercial zones of CDMX, universities and formal companies run like an oiled bike chain: lectures never run overtime (a very new experience for me); business people clock out at 5 pm on the dot; and if an established business says it opens at 8 am you can bet it won’t be opening its door until that second hand reaches the 12.

But this city is spilling with people, almost splitting at the seams, and most of them don’t live in these flashy new districts that track time to the second. As a result, lines of professionals and students wait to cram themselves into buses that don’t have a schedule to run to—a nice albeit frustrating concept which means they can never be said to run late, nor early. Then—the opening expanse of a night that offers the world: bars open until they morph into cafés to satisfy the

10

Business, Science & Innovation

late-night reckless and the early-morning restless alike; 9 pm, the time I normally begin my pre-sleep unwind, finds dinner barely even starting.

Here, life goes on, always. Here, the twenty-four hours of a day are stretched and kneaded, crammed full and pushed out. With a population of 24 million people trying their best to get by on a minimum wage of 88 pesos (about $6 AUD) per day, it’s not difficult to see why time in CDMX is so expansive—a paradox of passing so slowly it’s almost luxurious and yet filling each day with as much work as possible. This is Mexican Time.

In recent years, scientists and researchers have been focusing in on the concept of time; particularly how we conceive it in our Western cultures: as a universal law, unchanging and constant, dictating every element of our day. The results are marvellous, if not devastatingly indicative of how ignorant we are to the ways of the universe. Clocks tick slower in a stronger gravitational field. We cannot truly share the present moment with anyone, because of the time light takes to travel.

Time is not linear; it does not travel from past to future. The present, in universal terms, is not thin but “horrendously thick”, or so argues theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli in his lecture on time at the Royal Institute, London.

To understand this, contrast Mexico’s paradoxical valuing and use of time with the languid and lackadaisical Paraguay; a tiny, landlocked country nestled into the heart of South America. Here, the days are hot and the humidity almost oppressive—at the height of summer, daytime temperatures can reach the mid-forties with humidity at more than 85%. The siesta punctuates the daily routine of almost every working Paraguayan: a post-lunch nap to escape the hottest part of the day. And yet, the knowledge that this pause is constant in its quotidian approach does nothing to rush the people here. The WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised/Individualised, Rich, Democratic) concept of exponential growth—professionally and personally—does not exist here, or at least not to the same extent.

In Paraguay, it is generally acknowledged that things take time,

11

Business, Science & Innovation

SPANISH TERMS Colonias Siesta Despensa Tereré

Chipa

neighbourhoods; suburbs nap, generally taken midafternoon or after lunch convenience store a quintessential Paraguayan drink made with mate tea leaves and best enjoyed out of a personalised thermos South American hot cheese bread

and people are more than willing to oblige. As in México, there is no official timetable for public transport—but in Paraguay, there aren’t even official bus stops. Step beyond the main highway running through the capital city of Asunción and a bus stop might be a tree on the corner to make the most of the shade or out the front of a despensa so you can lick on an ice cream while you wait. Shocking to someone who has grown up in a culture so strictly regimented that, even if delays do happen far too frequently, we are updated in real-time about exactly when our bus or train will arrive—yet everyone in Paraguay gets to where they need to be. An hour-long commute into the CBD at 5:30 in the morning is a lightning flash when you can sit with your head against the jolting glass and fall back to sleep, or sip your icecold tereré to gently wake up.

The value in Paraguay isn’t on productivity, or exponential growth, or success—at least not in the way we understand these terms through the lens of late capitalism. My family in Paraguay, every day, reminded me of how lucky they were: to have a roof over their heads, to have the freedom to drive through the lush countryside come the weekend, to be making money from their own businesses that allowed them to work as they like, to have their country free from dictatorship and imperial presence, and to have their families. Time, and the pressures that arise from keeping it strictly, doesn’t factor in to any of that which they find a blessing. This is Paraguayan Time.

In the hazy, sunken heat of a Paraguayan evening by the river, time passes differently. As the chipa vendor cycles past, selling his hot and cheesy wares, despite it being just before dinner time on a Wednesday afternoon, you buy one. You sink your teeth into it, tongue blistering as you sit next to someone you love so dearly, and they laugh at you: your impatient, time-hungry self. This is the inconsequence of time.

This is the richness of our timeless, human existence.

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Business, Science & Innovation

(an excerpt from)

Nowhere Near Eden a comic by Thea Kable, based on real attempted Utopias

The days seem longer now that it’s just us; the dust takes its time to linger in the air for a moment after being disturbed, before falling slowly down again.

Everything takes its time to breathe now, just slightly.

13

Showcase

Maria was first to go, a comm-blast from back home in Moscow sent her running.

It was cowardice, atafirst, that made us back stay behind; Maria was first to go, comm-blast from home in Moscow sent her running. the fear of failure, of uncertainty and the end.

It was cowardice, at first, that made us stay behind; the fear of failure, of uncertainty and the end.

It should have all ended there, the air-lock broken, but we sealed ourselves in again.

It should have all ended there, the air-lock broken, but we sealed ourselves in again.

14

Thea Kable

Then we lost Penderson.

A sickness claimed him before the medical staff could even arrive.

It wouldn’t have mattered if it was a slower death anyway.

They never did come.

Our calls kept going unanswered.

No funeral services.

Nothing at all.

The wind was still and silent outside the walls.

The plants started eating up the sky.

15

Showcase

16

Thea Kable

We were unprepared for the harshness of intentional living.

Intentional living is a funny term, hey?

It makes it sound like the rest of the world was just living by accident, a casual happenstance that they all just rolled with.

In reality, it means something akin to a planned Utopia, but our intentional living is nowhere near Eden.

17

Showcase

It’s hard to know what to do when you lose someone, when you lose everyone.

sickness claimed him before the me The anger and denial burns out until all you have leftAin a hole in your chest.

It wouldn’t have mattered if it

The days seem longer now that it’s just us;

Our calls kept going unanswered. just two people holding each other’s secrets, and isn’t that just the way that the world turns.

Everything takes its time to breathe now, just slightly.

No funeral services.

I mean, why not? Time is all we’ve got.

The wind was still

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Thea Kable

THE POLITICS OF LOVELESSNESS Content Warnings: Self-harm, suicide, death

ART

WORDS

Alice Tran

Alyssa Rodrigo Author and intellectual Cornel West once said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” He speaks of a love that is healing, restorative, and nurturing. One which is unifying against division.

And yet, in turning to the public sphere of this nation, with the designer of the torturous and widely condemned “Operation Sovereign Borders” as prime minister, we do not see love, or healing, or restoration.

Instead, we see the permeation of lovelessness, and an abolition of care and empathy and all the things that make us good.

In mid-August, Buzzfeed reporter Lane Sainty wrote about how children on Nauru were descending into a catatonic state known as ‘resignation syndrome’. Children in detention centres are reported to have lost hope, some no longer eating or moving from their beds.

Children as young as ten are committing self-harm and attempting suicide—a twelve-year-old girl reportedly set herself on fire. The conditions on Nauru have been described as “dangerously chaotic” with doctors and lawyers warning politicians and policy makers that if urgent action is not taken soon, a child is going to die.

While reading the article, there is a constant search for hope.

Perhaps somewhere between the lines there is a distant hope for change and a willingness on behalf of politicians to make it happen.

This hope is left unrequited.

Instead, a week after news of the children on Nauru broke, the Liberal Party descended into a chaos of its own.

Peter Dutton, Australia’s leading example of lovelessness personified, challenged Malcolm Turnbull for the position of Prime Minister.

This is a man who is complicit in the death of twelve refugees. A former policeman who built his political career on xenophobia, racism, and fear.

After first losing the attempted spill 48 to 35 in Turnbull’s favour, Dutton once more challenged Turnbull, only this time the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, and the Treasurer, Scott Morrison threw their name in the ring.

What ensued was an embarrassing mess of partisan politics and factional drama, a mess made all the more atrocious in light of the responsibility these ministers were elected to fulfil. In a scathing

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Politics & Law

20

Politics & Law

Again and again,

speech, Greens leader Richard Di Natale called the Liberal Party out on their bullshit, saying, “You are so focused on yourself, that you have forgotten what you have been elected to do. And that is to govern for them, not for you. You don’t deserve to govern. You deserve to be turfed out.”

In his speech, Di Natale mentions a slew of more pressing issues the government should be paying attention to, one of which was the prevalence of domestic violence and the fear women face going home to an abusive partner. The spill led the coalition to adjourn parliament, meaning the government was unable to debate a reform bill which would put an end to the harmful practice of domestic violence victims being directly cross-examined by abusers.

Again and again, the government, including the Labor Party, has failed to exemplify basic principles of love and care. And it extends far beyond policies related to refugees. The inaction on climate change and the pillaging and contamination of this nation’s soil, oceans, and air is loveless. The complete and utter disregard for homelessness in Australia is loveless. The push for neoliberal policies which alienate and further entrench poverty is loveless. The coalition’s denial of the Uluru Statement From The Heart, which calls for a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, is loveless.

In a political era marred by racism, xenophobia, and homophobia, it is difficult to be positive about the future. Though few and far between, there are instances of politicians, activists, and policy makers who are fighting to imbue love, empathy, and hope back into our cultural and political zeitgeist.

The utopianism of the Black Lives Matter policy platform, which calls for the defunding of prisons, the demilitarization of the police force, free college education, and the abolishment of student debt. The rise of democratic socialist style policies in Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, which offers an antidote to the dehumanising American healthcare system that prioritises profit over people. Over in the United Kingdom, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, runs on a policy platform demanding the renationalisation of transport, water, and energy services, and remains steadfastly against war and nuclear weapons.

Back home, we see the galvanisation of the grassroots Stop Adani movement, where Indigenous organisations such as SEED rally against the destruction of sacred Indigenous land.

Australia’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison is a devout Christian and regular layman at the Pentecostal Horizon Church.

Philippians 2:3 reads, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”

Across the waters, refugees on Manus and Nauru stir anxiously, waiting for a miracle.

the government has failed to exemplify basic principles of love and care.

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Politics & Law

THE BUREAUCRACY OF A HUNTING GROUND Content warning: Sexual assault

ART

WORDS

Joyce Cheng

Madeline Lucre A white banner hangs over the overpass billowing in the breeze as students stream along the old tram tracks towards central station. It reads “We will not be silent, UTS think—better, change—culture, do—better.” Next to the appropriated tag line of the university is an image of an overturned and melting ice cream—a snub to the Respect.

Now. Always. campaign: “Wanna spoon? Ask first!”; a campaign so vague in its intentions that one student told me they thought it was an environmental campaign similar to the ban plastic straws campaign.

Early one morning at 7 am before students drag themselves to university, a group of students plastered the university with bold red posters reading “Zero Tolerance unless you’re an Activate Executive” or “Hey UT$, what’s the cost of student safety?” These posters caused quite a stir, with university security tearing them down as fast as we could put them up.

It has been one year since the release of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Change the Course report into sexual assault and harassment at university. The actions were part of the National Union of Student’s Women’s Department’s campaign We Will Not Be Silent, a series of protests and actions calling out university inaction on the issue of sexual assault and harassment at universities around the country. The report found that at least 51% of students had experienced sexual harassment at university. 30 international students are sexually assaulted every day at university—a statistic that was vastly underreported by the university controlled survey.

And one year on, how are universities doing?

Some, like the University of Sydney, decided to release an online reporting module 2 weeks out from the anniversary of the survey in a veiled attempt to claim they have taken action. This online reporting mechanism was plagued with roadblocks, like timing out after 10 minutes, and having a word limit. The insensitivity with which this module was created fails to account for the emotional and psychological toll that reporting sexual assault and harassment takes. It expects students to divulge a deeply personal and painful experience to the university in

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Sociocultural

a concise and timely fashion, ultimately demonstrating the university’s priority for PR over student welfare.

UNSW on the other hand has taken a keen interest, unlike the University of Sydney, in student consultation—working out the bugs in their own system and creating a transparent online reporting module for students to direct how they would like their issue dealt with. Within the reporting process, students can opt for what course of action they would like to see taken, be it reporting to the police, disclosing to counselling, or moving classes to be away from the perpetrator.

One only has to look at the video content from the UNSW On Safe Ground campaign to see the cultural shift they are trying to instigate.

Unlike other universities, UNSW’s proactive stance sees the issue as a cultural one where institutional power has failed students who have experienced sexual assault or harassment. The campaign also makes a larger social comment about the culture of slut shaming women, and critiques a culture where women are disrespected and not believed.

The university has been working with a dedicated research team known as the Gendered Violence Research Network to develop their strategy to tackle the institutional issues and failures of the university in dealing with sexual assault.

Yet it seems no good work goes without completely eviscerating the point you were trying to make. In mid-September, UNSW sent an email to staff and students following a sexual assault in the surrounding neighbourhood which suggested “maintaining awareness of your situation.” Don’t walk alone, with your headphones in or with your head looking down at your phone. Be sure “to walk with confidence and purpose.” UNSW’s email purports that victim blaming and a woman’s vigilance can prevent sexual assault, proving that practice doesn’t always follow PR. Here’s a newsflash for UNSW, “walking with purpose and confidence” doesn’t prevent rape.

So how does UTS stack up?

While UTS’ treatment as a university on the issue of sexual assault is not as abysmal as that of the University of Sydney, UTS has been far

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Sociocultural

UTS’ EFFORTS TO ADDRESS SEXUAL ASSAULT AND HARASSMENT AT UNIVERSITY HAVE FELT HALF-ASSED, VOID, AND DOWNPLAYED THE SEVERITY OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

24

slower to the game than UNSW. The mandatory completion of the online module “Consent Matters” is a noble first step—and I say first step because that is what it should be. Yet the university, so far, is only focused on pushing “Consent Matters” as the sole and primary concern in their approach towards tackling sexual assault and harassment on campus. Little has been done by the university to mandate consent trainings for all students on UTS campuses or conferences. Little has been done on social media to create an effective and well understood awareness of the Respect. Now. Always. campaign and its push to normalise consent in sexual contexts.

For a university that prides itself on being a technology university, and with some of the top communications courses in the country, we do struggle to communicate and effectively use technology and social media. I have heard countless conversations in bathrooms, friendship circles, and women’s collective meetings about the campaign and very few of these conversations were positive. Many students, myself included, feel that the treatment of a serious issue like consent being aligned with a cute and effeminate imagery like ice cream downplays the severity of the issue—not to mention that many students are confused by the messaging. The intention behind the campaign was to create a platform for which students from all backgrounds, including international students, could approach the idea of consent from a base level; hence the tagline “Wanna spoon? Ask first!” The doubleentendre here, however, is often lost on many international students as the concept of “spooning,” that is, hugging someone after sex or in a romantic setting is Australian slang.

How does UTS stack up to the 10 recommendations released by the National Union of Students into how universities should be addressing the issue of sexual harassment and assault at university?

Sociocultural

NUS RECOMMENDATION

UTS RESPONSE

Mandatory student representations on advisory bodies/working groups

UTS does have adequate student representation on boards and working groups despite organisational conflict

Greater university oversight of colleges and residencies

No action taken

Adequate information provided to international students to prepare them for Australian university culture

No action taken

Face to face cultural and linguistically diverse sexual violence training

No action taken

Increased funding and support for external sexual violence services

No action taken

Centralised and survivor centric reporting processes

UTS has an online service but not a centralised unit or face-to-face triage system

Increased funding for counselling with dedicated sexual violence units

UTS has increased funding and has dedicated trauma trained counsellors

Sexual violence response training for academic and support service staff

No action taken

Standardised policies and procedures across all areas of the university

UTS is in the process of standardising their policies and procedures

Annual release of all data that is related to sexual violence on campus

No action taken

Despite “best efforts” by the UTS Provost on Sexual Assault to create a more adequate form of student engagement, bureaucracy and governance have stalled their progress for over six months. Many students have felt that this movement has been non-existent, or highly inadequate, and you cannot deny that if the university was the one who created these groups, they are at least partially to blame for their ineffectiveness. Regardless, over the last year, UTS’ efforts to address sexual assault and harassment at university have felt half-assed, void, and downplayed the severity of sexual assault.

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Sociocultural

Clouds & Fossils

ART

WORDS

Joyce Cheng

Lachlan Barker Sand brushed off an old Fossil Grooves deep and sharp and preserved By sheltering and excuses and the whispers of time let go That same old worn-down feeling uncovered again It’s already exposed!

Careful with your brush and chisel Don’t let your hammer fall too hard Or freely flow old brackish waters freely flow things undone and untended freely flow Dead things Don’t wipe it dry It’s too soon for this Old fossil To be placed on that new pedestal

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Creative Writing

You are not tainted but no longer will you look With hope and trust To people offering love and solace (with hearts of lust) Take up your mantle And smash it in the name of Jesus For no Church will grant reparation For harm offered (as a gift) The clouds are pink tonight Rippled and fluffy like brushed cotton And against a lilac sky they remind me of love (My eyes are damp but my heart is quiet)

Those coarse fragments of former stones are whisked And shining from within that fossil An amber gem An insect trapped within Fast and fleeting in life entombed Let out those old brackish waters Let out untended things unended things And done, Done.

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Creative Writing

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Nancy Li

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Nancy Li

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Over the Wall

WORDS

ART

Doria Katos

Erin Sutherland

Content warning: Rape

You build a world The way you know how; Forging the things you need With the people around.

Your life is content, It is what you’ve made it.

Your duty to others: To protect the wall.

Always and always, We protect the wall.

No one goes near it.

No one dare touch it.

No one ever climbs Over the wall.

But what lies there, You ask so fair.

Predators, says Mother.

Rapists, says Father.

But these are not things, You declare with such flare.

Who is it, what is it, Over the wall?

There’s greasers and wetbacks, They say in contraire.

But how can it be, With nothing to see?

Nothing to see Over the wall.

It’s on one day With the ball you play, That you end up aside it so tall.

It stares you down Like a bear with its prey, Casting a shadow of fear in its wake.

You stay, unafraid, Inching closer, hands splayed.

It’s cool and it’s hard, As it seems from afar.

But there’s a hole So tiny, near your right pinky, Streaming gold light from a place Over the wall.

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From first true glance You’re in a trance, For you hear no haunted cries.

You see a world That looks like yours: Roads, cars, trees, blue skies.

Ahead is a home, Different to yours.

But its face and its frame are the same.

A figure appears, Kicking a ball.

How odd, you ponder.

They have balls Over the wall?

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He is but a boy, A boy like you.

His skin only dark, His speech only true.

So why does the boy Live over the wall?

It was the fraud they elected Who divided us all.

Creative Writing

SOUTH WEST

WORDS & ART BY

Joseph Wells

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The South Western suburbs of Sydney can be an unforgiving place.

There’s an underlying shout of pride from its people that echoes outwardly through the way that we conduct ourselves. This brazen behaviour is so simple to understand when you’re a part of it. It’s a bond you share with others and is something that makes you proud of where you’re from and who you are.

I grew up in the South Western suburbs of Sydney and reside there now. I became homeless at 16 and managed to finish my high schooling while couch surfing. Finishing high school was extremely important to me because I didn’t want to follow the path of my family.

Both of my parents dropped out of high school at a young age and both of my siblings did too. As the youngest in the family I wanted to break that cycle and graduate. That was one of the best decisions I have ever made, it gave me confidence in myself and helped me to understand that my goals could be achieved if I worked hard for them.

Joseph Wells

Growing up, I struggled a lot with my identity, everyone around me was getting into trouble and I didn’t want to go down that path.

Creativity became an outlet for me and as I became interested in photography. I got an old Samsung phone from my friend and started taking photos of people on that. I was always in love with people that I would meet and chat to and I would always ask them if they would share their stories with me, I am grateful that so many people have trusted me with such personal topics, With photography I felt like I was able to capture frames of these stories to show the world and that to me was so cool, showing everyday life as we live it in the Southwest suburbs of Sydney.

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Joseph Wells

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Joseph Wells

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THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS THE MIDDLE CLASS

ART

WORDS

Isabelle Coury

Rebecca Cushway

There's No Such Thing as the Middle Class

Right now, on paper at least, Australia is operating under a capitalist democracy. If the combination of these terms makes you immediately switch off, then for the sake of this article I will explain it thus: you can become powerful in Australia when people either vote for you, or give you money.

The first epiphany I remember having about capitalism and all its woes was when I found out that there is no such thing as the upper, middle, and working class. While this sounds like edgy-for-the-sakeof-edgy woke twitter bullshit, there is actually some great historical evidence to support it.

If you’ve spent any time scrolling through existential memes on social media, then you’re familiar with the concept of ‘constructs’. Such as, the concept of purity in virginity; a construct of a hetero society placing value on sexual conquest rather than sexual experiences. Also, days of the week; a construct of a society that just learned maths and wanted to segment the year into measurable parts. In the same way, there is no inherent reason for a society to be categorised by the income bracket jobs provide, and even less reason for those categories to be measured into the three parts widely recognised today.

The Invention of the Middle Class

When Australia was invaded in the 1700s, the Brits brought with them the seeds of capitalism. The first stock exchange opened in 1861, and basically it was all downhill from there. Australia experienced economic growth three times higher than Britain due to pillaging of natural resources (people, land, and wool), the gold rush was a thing, unions were formed and protested us into an eight-hour work day, and in 1900 we got a minimum wage. At this point we were operating almost on par with British political and economic development. Which is why the emergence of the ‘middle class’ in Britain is so significant.

Just before the time of the industrial revolution, there existed only the upper and working class in the minds of the public. There were those who worked, and those who did not. It was around the mid-1800s that a ‘middle class’ started to emerge. In the UK after the 1832 Reform Act, policy started to directly target middle class interests, which allowed

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this group to begin establishing themselves as a coherent body that had the ability to mobilise their economic and political power.

Because they were represented by a government body, they took shape as an official category of people. We are governed, therefore we are.

Work Hard or Die Trying

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Shortly after all this, in both the UK and Australia, came the growth of labour unions that allowed some blue-collar workers to work their way up the income ladder into a white collar lifestyle. The most important thing about this change is that it introduced to blue collar workers the idea that working hard could allow class mobility. It allowed status and prestige to people who otherwise were looked down upon, it gave them someone to sneer at and be better than, all the while enforcing that age-old adage of ‘you could do it if you just worked harder’. If you were to dabble in conspiracy theories then you might say that the powers-that-be introduced a new class of people to create greater barriers between the upper class and everyone else.

A middle class provides a level of opulence that appears attainable to the working class, while creating greater distance between the working and upper. If there were ever to be some sort of revolution, there would be a whole other class that needed mobilising in order to revolt against the bourgeoisie. The majority divided amongst itself, busy trying to stay in this nebulous ‘middle class’ bracket.

Being middle class is good. Not ethically, not because they are harder workers or better, more moral people, but because it is easier to be middle class. When the upper class are chastised for having three yachts and a butler, the middle class can exaggerate their 9-5 and overtime. When the media is harping on about how lazy and uncultured the working class is, the middle class can cite their university education. It is a convenient place to be politically. It is also a convenient place for employers to have the majority of their workers. The fear of dropping into or back into the working class keeps workers motivated out of fear, and the desire to move up an economic class keeps workers motivated out of aspiration. There is

Politics & Law

also less fear of revolt and complaint, because making the middle class conscious of inequity is nearly impossible when they don’t have the immediate concerns of blue collar workers. They are the white collar proletariat.

The Lucky Country

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Now the history of the middle class in the context of capitalism is all well and good, but where do we stand in this? How does Australia fit into a capitalist system? What are we supposed to do with this information?

Well, it’s complicated. As Australia is a nation of immigrants, and also a very new country to the ways of class division by income, we lack the class markers that are more obvious in places like the UK. We don’t have strong accent markers of class, and even though we do congregate like with like, our suburbs aren’t strong indicators either.

You could be forgiven for thinking, ‘Great! That means that the class divide isn’t so big in Australia! We’re one of the good ones!’

Well, no. It just means we are less skilled at being able to perceive class in our everyday interactions, and even less skilled at being able to accurately place ourselves within the boundaries of class. Now it’s widely agreed upon that there is no objective definition of the middle class. However, for the sake of this article we can classify middle class Australia as those above the bottom 20% and below the top 30%. For example, in my Sydney suburb that will count anyone earning between $35,000 and $145,000 per year as middle class. This means that a waitress, an accountant, and a tram driver would all fit into the middle class.

In Australia, in a survey about self-identification of class, almost 60% of upper class Australians considered themselves ‘middle class’, and over 60% of working class Australians considered themselves ‘middle class’. This huge disparity in perception vs. reality says something about where people would like to be seen. Like I said; being middle class is good. The middle class is the majority, and the majority of the middle class don’t care about traditionally ‘working class’ issues.

Politics & Law

Who Cares?

So that’s it, the big secret and tbh the entire point of this article. No one really knows what the ‘middle class’ means! Least of all those who actually fit within it in Australia. Everyone either wants to be in the middle class, or thinks that they’re already there. Corporations, employers, and government all benefit from this in huge ways though.

Our inability to easily identify class for ourselves and those around us means that we are more susceptible to targeted messaging in media and advertising. Until very recently that top 30% (the upper class) has had full control of what we see, read, and hear in the public domain. This has largely controlled the things we supposedly place value on in this country. Things like; hard work, persistence, ambition, ‘saving’ money, having ‘family’ values, and being humble.

It also encourages us to hate people who don’t fit into this; ‘dole bludgers’, the unemployed, single people (of all ages), and people who just aren’t busy enough.

Thank God for Instagram

This is changing though. Through rising tech, much like at the crux of the industrial revolution, we are on the precipice of a potential class overhaul. And this time we have social media to thank for it. Not only is education becoming more accessible, (with the UN pushing to get the internet classified as an international human right), but journalism is the next frontier for a socialist future. Journalism has shifted away from breadcrumbs of filtered and repackaged information being flung from the bars of ivory towers, and moved towards an all-seeing eye that never switches off.

Today I learned about bait trucks in Atlanta from the sister of an artist I love on Instagram. I scrolled through Twitter as I brushed my teeth and a professor from South West London broke down the history of Bengali women in England. Not only is access to the world’s collective consciousness more widely spread, but so is the ability to publish. There are less structural barriers preventing those that have historically been silenced from sharing their experience.

We can hear directly from people on Manus Island via Twitter, people who otherwise would never be interviewed or filmed. Black

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Lives Matter would never have gained the traction it did without the access social media provides to the wider world. Police brutality would have remained only an issue to those who it directly affected, because people with the power and potential to give a shit would never have seen it on the front of a newspaper.

Social media is equal-access journalism in a late-capitalist world.

It is the beginning of the end for this elitist socio-political power structure. By allowing the unheard masses to curate and control their narratives, we are wrenching back the reins from the money-hoarding top percenters. Another fun perk of all of this egalitarian knowledge access is that it allows marginalised groups to find one another. Groups that have to hide themselves for safety or are few in number, such as sex workers, queer subcultures, and refugees (amongst the multitude of other marginalised people Australia is aggressive towards), have the ability to find one another and band together. Remember when I said that smaller numbers were harder to mobilise in the event of a revolution? Now that barrier to change is becoming less and less.

Marginalised groups are connecting across previously unconquerable barriers.

So keep following people that don’t look like you, keep speaking up about things that don’t feel right, and share widely the stories of people who you don’t see in mainstream media. Our currency is our stories.

Besides, capitalism will be over soon. The revolution is coming, even if Instagram stories wasn’t the way Marx envisioned it.

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RACIST PROFITEERING IN GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT SCHEME

From the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system to the biased nature of medical accessibility, colonial Australia immortalises systemic racism through institutional structures and policies.

WORDS

Leya Reid

The lingering effects of colonialism (think high suicide rates, premature deaths, intergenerational trauma within Indigenous communities) in collaboration with remodelled forms of colonialism (e.g. gentrification and the increasingly bureaucratic control of Aboriginal affairs) serve to produce and sustain inequality. We live in a state where racism manufactures parliamentary consent for the economic exploitation of Indigenous Australians, immigrants, refugees, and people of colour, rendering the dichotomy between the powerful and powerless impenetrable.

The Community Development Program (CDP) is the latest of the Australian Government’s plan to divide, fracture and weaken Indigenous communities. Yet the conversations surrounding this racially discriminatory work-for-the-dole program are largely absent from mainstream headlines. What is the CDP, and why is no one talking about it?

The CDP was introduced in July 2015 by the Australian Government to support jobseekers and reduce welfare dependency in remote Australia. The scheme is designed to meet the requirements set by the Howard Government’s 1997 Mutual Obligation policy, which is

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Politics & Law

Remote jobseekers are being penalised financially at a rate 70 times higher than non-remote dole workers

premised on the idea that making an active contribution to society is a precondition of citizenship. This policy, intended as a method of empowering individual self-reliance, commanded wide consensus amongst leaders of both major political parties as well as prominent Aboriginal advocate for welfare reform, Noel Pearson, who expressed concern over the impact of passive welfare dependency on important community values such as self-reliance and hard work. Such positions reflect the dominant neoliberal agenda, wherein breaking the cycle of welfare dependency is pivotal.

The exploitation of Indigenous Australians through compulsory mutual obligation programs is certainly not a new concept. In fact, there has been a complex history of changes to unemployment schemes in remote Australia. The CDP was designed to address the shortcomings of the policy that preceded it, the Remote Jobs and Communities Program (RJCP), which in turn replaced the 2008 Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP).

The CDP is eligible for jobseekers aged between 18-49 that receive income support, live in a designated remote region and meet other criteria. Those that are expected to undertake work-like activities under the mutual obligation policy as a prerequisite to receiving their income support payments must cooperate with the CDP. Though the CDP is mandatory for anyone that meets the requirements, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people make up 83% of the 35000 participants. The program operates in more than 1000 communities and in 60 regions around Australia. These regions are determined by their weak labour markets, which make it difficult for residents to acquire work skills and experience.

Since its inception, the program has been censured by a range of human rights groups, community organisations, and parliamentary members from the Greens and the Labor Party. Not only has the CDP fallen well short of achieving its policy objectives, it has also had antagonistic impacts on its participants, their families and their communities. Under the program, participants are not classified as workers, receive well below the minimum wage, whilst also being denied

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annual leave, sick leave and carer's leave. They are not covered by the Fair Work Act, workers compensation, or by Federal OHS protections.

At times, participants are engaging in unpaid labour disguised as workplace experience.

There is no evidence proving that the CDP is effectively providing long-term solutions to joblessness or improving employability. The insignificant number of jobseekers that have secured long-term employment and the overwhelming increase in issued penalties are indicative of the program's failure to affect the behavioural changes necessary for productive capitalist economies. Less than 3,500 of the 35,000 CDP jobseekers have continued to secure full-time or part-time work lasting six months or longer. These jobs were also more likely to go to non-Indigenous participants.

The enforced non-compliance measures are leaving many vulnerable people without income support and have created additional financial and social burdens for many individuals. Remote jobseekers are being penalised financially at a rate 70 times higher than non-remote dole workers and the program has seen a 740% increase in the issuing of punitive measures when compared to the RJCP. The dramatic increase in penalties is impoverishing many participants, predominantly Indigenous Australians, and causing additional financial and social stress for them and their families. Flow-on effects include reduced food security in affected communities, which has been reflected in a significant decrease in food sales.

Furthermore, there have been extensive reports of the allocation of relatively meaningless tasks and a serious lack of appropriate training or resources needed to increase the employability of jobseekers.

No funding is reserved in the budget for training, which means that providers are discouraged from providing meaningful training or training at all. Participants have additionally reported to have been assigned

Ultimately, the policy approach must be owned, led and delivered by local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

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the operation of dangerous machinery with no training and limited supervision, resulting in serious injuries.

Critically, the program disproportionately impacts Indigenous Australian communities. The CDP applies to a particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged group and rather than achieving the intended policy outcomes, most participants have experienced feelings of demoralisation and disempowerment. Many have been pushed further below the poverty line. The program also conflicts with Australia's international human rights obligations as stipulated by the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Sustained efforts to overhaul the CDP have been met with resistance and indifference from our political representatives. Despite this, the movement has persisted. Notably, the First Nations Workers Alliance (FNWA), a First Nations-led union established in 2017 by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), have been campaigning to provide CDP workers with a collective voice to fight for fair wages and working conditions. Their mission is to abolish and replace the CDP with an appropriate model as soon as practicable. Alongside the National Social Security Rights Network and 30 other organisations in Australia, the FNWA endorses the Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT's (APONT) community driven alternative, the Remote Development and Employment Scheme (RDES). Their proposal emphasises a focus on increasing economic opportunities in remote communities, incentives to participate and the recognition of cultural and social priorities.

Ultimately, the policy approach must be owned, led and delivered by local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The CDP serves as a reminder of colonised Australia’s failure to acknowledge the relationship between welfare recipients and broader structural and systemic causes of disadvantage. Rather than empowering Aboriginal communities to exercise control over their own affairs, the CDP has only served to forestall Aboriginal selfdetermination and self-sufficiency. The challenge into the future is to sustain the campaign while navigating the increasingly bureaucratic control of Aboriginal affairs and the fortification of neoliberalism.

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ABJECT NATURE

By Sophia Melika

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A brief, generalized seizure

By Matilda Gould Content warning: Suicide, mental illness

Mania it may be When life is administered in hospital And the reasons for doing it Are explained fully Away.

When other treatments have failed And the risk of suicide Ineffective When advice no longer resembles anaesthetic Then a small electric current Becomes something like hope A transient note To the memories unable To remember.

It could be depression A carefully controlled myth But this risk is a vein Lying down in the heart Going off to sleep So that I might breathe.

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Creative Section Writing

IF YOU ARE PREGNANT OR THINK YOU MIGHT BE PREGNANT, DO NOT GIVE THIS MEDICINE TO A CHILD

BLACKOUT POETRY BY

Matilda Gould

Intricacies of Expression DIRECTED & SHOT BY

MODELS

Gianna Hewitt-Brown Josephine Wyburn

Jack Okeby Kimberley O’Brien

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Gianna Hewitt-Brown & Josephine Wyburn

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Gianna Hewitt-Brown & Josephine Wyburn

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(THERE’S A HOLE IN MY BEDROOM WORDS

ART

Aishah Ali

Janey Li

AND EVERYONE HAS AN OPINION ABOUT IT) 64

Creative Writing

It, the hole, appeared out of nowhere it seemed, carved itself in-between my curtain and my bed.

My best guess was that it was once small, and that it festered once more, that it was hidden behind an artwork, and decided to make an appearance right here on MY wall.

took one look and then claimed, “There’s no hole here, quit being dramatic.”

So, my grandfather the carpenter entered my room, he had his tools and pulled up a stool, “Oh,” he said, “It’s a structural issue, look here,” he said, “There’s a crack in the roof.”

Oh lord, but was he right, except this crack came with the house when we bought it way back, it can’t be the crack and that is a fact.

For a while, I left it, because I hole-heartedly didn’t care, until one day my mum started cleaning my bedroom, mouth agape she masked her face, shook with rage, “Oh-goodness dear, how did this hole get here?”

She tried painting over it, in an off-white beige.

We’ll cover it up, we’ll turn a new page.

The paint started to chip, fractured into bits, this hole was a diva, playing its antics.

So my mother called my brother, how fit he was, oh he was much tougher, but inside my bedroom he came,

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My uncle said, “Let’s look in the hole,” but I wasn’t comfortable with that.

I cleaned my room, spick and span, I used a broom I turned on a fan.

My extended family were coming to visit, they would be here so soon.

They rang on the door, pressed the bell twice.

Boy could I tell, they’d be in for delight.

Creative Writing

Everyone crowded, huddled and excited.

“Oh show us the mark, we need evidence!”

They remarked.

But inside they came, and only an artwork stood framed.

“No hole here,” I said, “Go dig yourself one instead.”

But we heard things Aishah, surely this hole was a fantasy then, that you created for attention.

That’s not fair, I wasn’t even the one who advertised it.

“Go home,” my mother exclaimed.

“We’ll get a professional to take care.”

“Mum,” I protested, “It’s not there anymore, see the hole it’s disappeared, boom it vanished out of thin air.”

Oh amazing, my dear.

But I knew, it was clear, she could tell I had hidden it purely out of fear.

And while I knew this hole would become much more severe, it was too much trouble for me to fix, it appeared.

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A couple years later, I was feeling much greater, I pulled up a ladder, and took down the art paper.

Museum me, museum my holes, so I walk around with the louvre inside this body.

I saw the hole quivering in its small nature, I made it the centre, gave it yellow wings and painted it splendour.

What was once a tormentor, a terror, a menace, with varied opinions

I will have whole parts of me missing, a holy sacrifice for the taking.

became a sunflower bringing good weather.

And that, my friends, made me feel a a hole lot better,

People will pay full price to see my holes commodified.

Some will try to buy them too, take my holes home with them, then they’ll have a hole in their bedroom and everyone will have an opinion about it.

and while the world looks over my shoulder I try to maintain my composure.

Holes are difficult to hide when you get that much older.

They give me new artworks to hang on my wall.

Let’s decorate this room, they say, make it ‘easier to look at’.

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WHAT WE ARE(N’T) WORDS

ART

Tooba Anwar

Georgette Stefoulis

We are not our mothers. not homes that men can walk

into

and walk out of a place to unwind after a long day.

Mothers contained by four walls, always ready for the gentle curves of her demeanour to be embraced.

We are not our mothers. bottomless wells of selflessness, wells with resentment bubbling, repressed longings for lives unlived.

We are not our mothers. capable of loving little boys; little boys who hold butterflies by their wings, taunting them to fly. pinning together their delicate, kaleidoscopic sails, watching colours bleed into the sweaty crevices of their forefinger and thumb.

We can never save our mothers, not from the world and not from the men that make its rules. we are not our mothers and may we never have to be.

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Considerable Difficulty That I Remember JACK BARRUETO

It turns out that there is a magic hour, just as there is a magic place.

Those who have the precondition to be lucid in the time after midnight, are equally partaking in a dance of public and private selfhood, one equally performative as it is authentic. The series ‘Considerable Difficulty That I Remember’ focuses on the hours between midnight and morning, a period of time that straddles the line of the alien and the strange. A twoness, two battling ideals in one body with an inherently split personality as perceived through the eyes of an insomniac.

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Jack Barrueto

12:19 AM

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Jack Barrueto

1:31 AM

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Jack Barrueto

1:52 AM

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2:26 AM

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Jack Barrueto

3:42 AM

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I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy.

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Jack Barrueto

6:26 AM

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Jack Barrueto

MAC MILLER, 1992–2018

ART

WORDS

Erin Sutherland

Joshua Kindl The year is 2010, I’m 14 years old. After an early adolescence which featured experimentation with just about every cliche subculture a white boy can be a part of, I began settling into the person I am today.

When I was 7 I watched and re-watched old Mel Brooks comedies with my grandfather, learning lines off by heart trying to be a prepubescent Leslie Nielson. When I was 10, I skateboarded with my friends and listened to way too much alt and punk rock, arguing about the merits of The White Stripes, Misfits and, of course, Eminem. When I was 12, I was playing right-back for the best under-13 club soccer team in Northwest Sydney (when I wasn’t reading the Twilight Saga). By the time I was a teenager, I was a weird, dichotomous, self-confident little boy, who read old Robert Christgau reviews, talked shit, and played Halo.

You can imagine then what kind of reception Blue Slide Park, the smash debut success of previously underground Mac Miller, had in my young head. I hated it. It was ‘frat rap’ or a ‘Slim Shady knockoff’ or, most heinously of all, pop. The little music snob in me hated it and hated Miller even more because all my friends listened to it. Someone at school would be playing ‘Party on Fifth Ave’ and I was the kid who would scoff incredulously—“Haven’t you guys ever heard of Gangstarr?!”

But just as I evolved as a person from those days of young, uneducated, and unearned snobbery, so too did Miller evolve as an artist. His second album, Watching Movies with the Sound Off, came out three years later, when I was 17. It was hardly an It Was Written level follow up, but it was better. I’d discovered Odd Future by then, whose style and ethos was creating a new kind of Hip-Hop star, I was doing pretty well with a new group of friends than those I’d grown up with, and I was significantly less sexually frustrated. I remember lying in my mates' backyards, drinking lukewarm Coronas and listening to songs like ‘The Star Room’ and ‘Watching Movies.’ I remember licking soft-serves in a Maccas car park to the tune of ‘Red Dot Music’. It was true blue teenage music, the soundtrack of your first kiss. To me, those songs are still a defining part of the end of my adolescence. I’d let go of the angst—now I wanted to learn, I wanted to like things. I’d let go of my hatred of Miller and other artists like him. Did I think his sophomore

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effort was game changing? No. Did I hate it? No. Mac was fine; he was “Easy Mac with the Cheesy Wraps.”

Please also note that I said “artist” when talking about Miller and not “rapper”. It’s an important distinction, at least for me anyway. Mac was always a rapper, and a great one at that, but he was also more creative than his battle rap background would have predicted. When Mass Appeal used to do their ‘Rhythm Roulette’ series, wherein a producer would pick three records at random and then make a beat out of them, Miller was the only one who seemed genuinely excited to be there. He chuckles his way through a selection of old LP’s and in his first piece to camera nervously admits “I actually asked to do this,” with a sly grin and a cheeky giggle. He was that kind of musician. He wasn’t too good for so-called ‘gimmicks,’ he revelled in them and managed to make some dope shit while doing it.

Miller became important in my musical life in 2015 with his third album GO:OD AM. I hadn’t really kept up with the mixtapes and the alter-ego’s, there was way too much of that going on back then, but I was excited for a finished product. It turned out to be the best, most revealing and most heartbreaking work of his career. It was as solid and as good as an album could be without being great, which is not an insult. Mac was always the best rapper who was destined never to be talked about in twenty years. The guy old-heads would one day reference when talking about the post-bling, pre-mumble days. On AM, he showcased a talent for sound, pace, and flow that made the whole product endlessly re-listenable. Chief Keef never sounded as good as he did on ‘Cut The Check’ (Shit made me go woo like Rick Florer/ I mean Rick Flair bitch boy I've been player) and hasn’t topped it since.

Tracks like ‘100 Grandkids’ got the blessing of Diddy, for God's sake. It was an artistic triumph for Miller and one that I fell in love with. It’s the album that made me go and buy The Divine Feminine and Swimming on CD the day they came out.

Re-listening to GO:OD AM after I heard Miller had died at 26 was hard. The pain that used to sit underneath his playful exuberance, previously only as subtext within some glib one-liner, now sat front in

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centre. The de-facto opener, ‘Brand Name’, makes perhaps the most self-aware and shattering declaration of Miller’s career (To anyone who sells me drugs/ don’t mix it with that bullshit/ I’m hoping not to join the 27 club). He knew he was fucked up, he knew he had faults. He didn’t pretend to be better than his demons and didn’t try to convince an adoring public he could live without them. It was the small victories where Mac Miller made his living. In The Fader’s documentary on him, he explained that he didn’t want or need to achieve total sobriety to be happy. He was content to “not be fucked up right now.”

When I think about Mac now, after eight years of my life spent listening to his music, I can’t help but be drawn back to my stupid 14-year-old self. The one that hated Mac Miller. Because deep down, I knew that I was him. I was young, confused, emotional, and excited about everything. Mac figured out who he was earlier than he had any right to and was rightly respected industry-wide for it. He lived for himself and his art was an extension of that. In ‘Doors’, the opening track of GO:OD AM, Mac sings sleepily to the listener. He’s at once confident (Ain’t saying that I’m sober/ I’m just in a better place), silly (I’m on my way over/ I’m just running kind of late) and wise beyond his years.

When he half-raps, half-sings ‘one day you’ll go, right now you’re here/ don’t leave just yet, don’t disappear’ he’s at once afraid and content.

He admits to you that this can’t last forever. He tells himself to enjoy it while he can. I just wish the ride was longer.

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IN THE HOUSE OF THE WITCH

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Emma Green ART

Will Thompson

We go to the house of the Witch.

House—more a cave, or a grotto­— Through tangling weeds with heavy eyes, Watching us, making slimy whispers She knows we are coming, every time, Postured at a green-flamed fire Crushing herbs in a mortar Gutting some creature Everyone says, if you question her, If you forget your place, That will be your fate too We tell her our worries and problems Her cold cheeks redden at our secrets She can help, she promises, she can help But— And our sea-salt breath comes short, We know what is coming First, the Witch says, I will need something in return.

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A voice, a tongue, A lock of hair, a vow.

From the jaw of one old man She plucked a tooth.

Deceive her, steal from her, And she may demand a child We listen to her price Is it too much? Or do we feel lucky— No, never, for the Witch Knows everything’s worth, And the stakes are high We consider, we murmur, we confer We agree We will pay And we do, right there, for there is no patience In the house of the Witch We turn, we leave, swimming, throats tight, Hands hiding trembles, eyes fire

There is another Witch near you, Living in another house, with perhaps another temperament But the same practice.

You go to the house of the Witch, Like us, And you, though you think you are above this, And you try to believe you do not need it, You make your demand The Witch listens and tilts her head She may smile She names her price You think, you wonder, you chew the inside of your cheek, And, like us, Though you do not yet know if this will be worth it, You do not yet know what this will mean, In the house of the Witch, You agree.

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IN RESPONSE TO UTS RANTS REVIVED Content warning: Sexual assault, transphobia

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Danni Luo

Dashie P At the most recent ActivateUTS Clubs Day, members of the Queer Collective were petitioning for gender neutral bathrooms on campus.

During their request for signatures, they mentioned the importance of gender neutral bathrooms, including concerns for safety and inclusion.

Despite expressing the importance of gender neutral bathrooms, and doing so in a calm and friendly manner, some students took to the conservative Facebook group UTS Rants Revived to disparage the gender-neutral bathroom campaign.

One anonymous submission reads, “Why they be giving out petitions for gender neutral bathrooms in UTS when they have disabled bathrooms already.” Another anonymous submission claims that gender neutral bathrooms are costly and unnecessary, stating “Gender neutral people are a minority, it doesn’t make sense for UTS to build more toilets.”

These posts come after last year’s Australian Human Rights Commission’s Change the Course report into sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities where it was revealed that LGBTQI+ people were overrepresented. In the report, “…trans and gender diverse students were more likely than [cisgender] women or men to have been sexually assaulted (16.2%) in 2015 and/or 2016.”

Additionally, “…trans and gender diverse students were more likely to have been sexually harassed (72%) and more likely to have been sexually harassed in a university setting (45%) in 2016 than [cisgender] women or men.” (Australian Human Rights Commission 2017) Gender neutral bathrooms offer a retreat from this kind of harassment. A gender-neutral bathroom is a bathroom that is accessible to

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students regardless of their gender, or lack thereof, and expression. It’s kind of like the bathroom you have in your house—the one everyone can use. Gender neutral bathrooms aren’t new.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s report suggests providing care, safety, and spaces for trans and gender diverse people to retreat to is important. A gender-neutral bathroom offers trans and gender diverse people solace from these settings and a safe place to exist outside of gendered bathrooms, where many forms of sexual violence and harassment happen.

Michael, a transgender man and active member of the UTS Queer Collective has said, “Gender neutral bathrooms offer a safe place for me to use the bathrooms as using gendered bathrooms comes with the risk of harassment.” He went on to note, “Even being binary, it is still a scary experience to use a men's bathroom unless it is entirely empty.”

In response to the anonymous submissions on UTS Rants Revived: Yes, disabled bathrooms are gender neutral. However, that doesn’t mean it is fair or morally okay for all people to be using disabled bathrooms.

Disabled bathrooms serve a very important and individual purpose, to be accessible to people who need them, quickly and effectively. If ablebodied people, trans or not, start using disabled toilets, it won’t be fair to people with disabilities when they need it. It’s just like taking up an accessible parking spot—it’s frankly just a dick move.

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DOES QUEER EYE NEED A MAKEOVER OF ITS OWN?

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Joyce Cheng

Tahlia Nelson & James Gardiner Don’t get me wrong, I love Queer Eye as much as the next gay. I’ve binged every season. I’ve started French tucking my shirts. I’m buying sulphate-free shampoo (thanks, Jonathan). And I’m a sucker for queer representation in whatever form it comes. But maybe that’s the problem.

In a media landscape that suffers from an underrepresentation of queer folks, we’ve learned to jump on whatever queer content comes our way.

When Queer Eye for the Straight Guy first came out 15 years ago, seeing five gay men at the centre of a hit TV show was nothing short of revolutionary. Today, rebooting the show while changing almost nothing about the original structure feels out of touch and a little regressive.

Since the term ‘queer’ was reclaimed in the 80s and 90s by activist groups like Queer Nation, it has evolved to become something of an umbrella term to speak about the LGBTQIA+ community. By the current-day meaning of the term, Queer Eye is not all that ‘queer’. The conversation has expanded to include spectrums of difference across gender identity, sexual and romantic divergence, and an understanding of how race, class, ability and gender shape access to social and political capital. With this in mind, is it useful to position five wealthy, cisgender, gay men as the face of queerness in 2018?

Perhaps part of the problem is the lack of queer content on our screens, leaving the shows that do exist with a heavy load of representation to bear. I know that one show can’t be everything. But Queer Eye could be more. And I can’t help but feel bitter about the mainstream attention and critical acclaim Queer Eye has enjoyed, when shows like Janet Mock’s landmark series Pose, which includes the largest ever cast of transgender actors for a narrative television series, received only a fraction of this response. In Queer Eye’s one episode featuring a trans man, in which the Fab 5 makeover Skyler just weeks out from his top surgery, their good intentions are equal to their ignorance. Tan remarks that he has “never met a trans person before”, and Bobby makes fun of Skyler’s personal expression of his queerness (“flags are to be flown, they’re not décor”). E. Oliver Whitney (2018) notices that “There’s an uncomfortable, though unsaid, exchange going on within the episode: essentially that the Fab 5 will makeover

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Skyler’s life in exchange for some basic trans education.”

Another jarring aspect of the series is the unacknowledged classism inherent in the premise of each episode. While Karamo’s advice is internal, focussing on confidence and self respect, the solutions put forward by the rest of the crew are all material. The message goes a bit like this: ‘Buy expensive skin care products, buy better clothes more often, renovate your house, and you’ll be the man your family deserves. You’ve been letting it slip with your lack of spending, but we have money and we’re going to fix you.’

It’s gruelling to watch the Fab 5 enter a home where parents work themselves to the bone to provide for their families, only to criticise their furniture and second hand clothes. I’m sure these families would love to have the budget and spare time to maintain the refined and sophisticated image of the Fab 5 but the reality for them, and for the majority of Americans, is they actually just don’t. There is never a critique of the system that creates and sustains wealth disparity, because both the creators and intended audience for this show do not want the merits of the neoliberal American Dream challenged.

This is pretty typical of a ‘progressive’, libertarian American TV Show. Queer Eye fits politically with America’s libertarian left, which strives to be more ‘tolerant’ and ‘accepting’, but fails to meaningfully challenge the systems of power that underpin oppression. In the trailer, Tan France claims “The original show was fighting for tolerance, our fight is for acceptance.” However, the line between acceptance and assimilation is narrow. Is the show trying to make queerness a celebrated and legitimate part of American society, or are they trying to make the LGBTQIA+ community more palatable to a conservative audience?

The whole show is about listening and meeting at common ground.

This kind of show is useful, as it’s the best way to help racists become

Is it useful to position five wealthy, cisgender, gay men as the face of queerness in 2018?

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slightly less racist, or homophobes to be more polite to queer people, but it’s weak. It’s an excellent resource to show your religious auntie to help her come on board with gay marriage. It’s the show you watch with your sister’s rude, masc boyfriend so that he feels more comfortable washing the dishes and wearing clean clothes. It’s also a space to feel safe, loved and entertained by a bunch of funny and insightful TV personalities that genuinely want people to thrive. I watch it when I’ve had a bad day at work and need cheering up. But it’s not an emblem for our queer utopia.

It’s important to realise that a show like Queer Eye has a specific purpose. It is a show that trains straight audiences in treating everyone with dignity and respect. The truly self-representative stories that celebrate the diversity of queer culture and unwaveringly demand its legitimacy are yet to come.

REFERENCES Oliver Whitney, E. 2018, ‘Netflix’s ‘Queer Eye’ doesn’t do right by the first trans man on the show’, Screen Crush, <http://screencrush.com/queer-eye-trans-man-skylerepisode/>

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In Praise of Playlist— Where Women's Stories Rise

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PYT Fairfield

James Gardiner PYT Fairfield’s PLAYLIST is a poignant and powerful reflection on feminisms in pop culture. Structured as a series of conversations around what it’s like to grow up as women, the performance dives deep into the ways that different systems of oppression can compound the pressures and disadvantages that women experience, as well as the moments that music has shaped their sense of identity and provided rushes of relief, humour, and connection.

The performance shows incredible breadth, undulating between honest and intimate reflection on identity-based struggle, unashamed celebration of personal and cultural triumph, and exceptional comic timing. In a similar vein, the work shifts seamlessly between dialogue, dance, and musical interludes. The tightness with which this is achieved is a fantastic symbol for the cohesion and solidarity that exists between the cast.

Director Karen Therese points out in the Director’s Notes that when collaborating to bring the piece to life, the crew had a few rules: no talking about men, and no putting each other down, men or women.

The crew sat together for up to two hours every morning, creating a decolonised space with shared languages, listening, and exchange. All of the show’s dialogue came from this collaborative process.

It is rare to see so clearly the trust that performers place in each other. This work showcases examples of sharing and learning, proving that the cast is at its most powerful when united and determined to lift each other up.

PLAYLIST is a highly skilled example of art created from the inside out, platforming personal stories that are frequently suppressed

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or guided toward silence. If you missed out on seeing the run of performances in August, be sure to catch it at the Sydney Opera House from May 14–16 in 2019.

Keep your ears to the ground for future work from Ebube Uba, Mara Knezevic, May Tran, Tasha O’Brien & Neda Taha—a gripping cast with important stories to tell.

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Beauty is a symbol of power. It is subjective; held within the eyes of the beholder. However, in Pakistan, or perhaps the entire South Asian subcontinent, a womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s physical beauty is routinely determined by the colour of her skin.

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WHO'S THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL? ART

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Rosemary VasquezBrown

Amara Khan

Content warning: Colourism, racism Colourism, a term coined by feminist author Alice Walker, is a weapon used against those who have a darker complexion. In Pakistan, colourism affects more than half of the nation’s population. Women with a kaala rang (black colour) are offered whitening facials at every beauty salon they step into. They speak of dark skin with severe distaste and spit unkind remarks at women in their neighbourhood or even in their own families. Talk shows rave about ways to remedy skin tone, as if it were a disease.

Colourism in subcontinental India stems from caste discrimination, an ancient Indian form of social stratification based on one's social status, long before the British Raj. Those who were blessed with wealth stayed indoors, while the peasants worked long hours under the Indian sun. It was from this point that Indian society began to associate fairness with the elite (Shaikh 2017). Additionally, European colonisation reinforced the idea that lighter skin was more desirable. Colonialism was a traumatic phenomenon, one that resulted in a cultural upheaval that reaffirmed a social and cultural divide. If it was not enough that the Viceroys of India created a sense of social and racial inferiority—it was exacerbated by the validation of caste discrimination by wealthy Europeans.

The British Raj officially came to an end in August 1947. And yet, we see the fire of white supremacy burning brightly still. Before their departure, the Viceroys of India created a sense of social and racial inferiority that has left a lasting impact. The Partition of India into two states, Pakistan and India, and independence from Britain did little to diminish the idea that fairness was the ultimate goal. We have not let go of many European standards of beauty and are prone to deem those who don’t fit into this category as unacceptable. Though the British settlers may have physically departed from the Pure Land (‘Pak’ - pure; ‘stan’ - land), they failed to take with them the imperialist superiority complex which manifests as unrealistic European standards of beauty for women in Pakistan.

The effect of this? A long-lasting psychological trauma and the envisioning of a White South Asia.

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Every year, Pakistanis raise the flag of the crescent and the star above them, celebrating independence from the British colonisers.

Likewise, Indians pride themselves as being free from the influence of the West. They remember the sacrifices their ancestors made in creating an independent state, where one can freely practice their faith and belong to their own community. Yet, when I visit my homeland I am greeted with the unwavering mindset that a gora rangat (fair complexion) is the only acceptable skin tone. I am greeted by the perception that it is a crime to be born dark skinned.

Advertisements on billboards promise young girls “whiter, brighter skin in just 7 days” to “become who you really are.” She wants to absorb the sun’s warmth but cannot, for fear she will become too dark for anyone to accept her. She hears her relatives suggesting new whitening soaps, creams for her to purchase as she throws on a layer of foundation two shades too light.

It is painful to see dark-skinned Pakistanis work twice as hard in an unwavering society to create a lasting impact. So dominating is this concept, that it leads to sheer mockery, ridicule, and belittlement of any woman who does not fit European standards of beauty. A standard that ought to be non-existent in a land that is inhabited by dark skinned, dark haired, and brown eyed women. This is a reality that most Pakistanis are unwilling to accept. It is proof that, “When an area is colonised, it is not just the people who suffer; it is also the environment, the language, the culture and...the thought that undergoes a lasting revolution.” (Imran 2017, para. 2).

I mourn for all those mothers who did not teach their daughters that beauty will never be just skin deep. I mourn for all the dark-skinned women who have been raised to believe that they are not good enough, and who then transfer toxic expectations onto future generations. The advent of Partition and Independence from the British Raj pierced the fabric of society in a way that created distinct divisions that we have yet to overcome. This can be attested by the lack of social movements aiming to dismantle the attachment to colonial standards of beauty. Historian Ayesha Jalal refers to this as the “convenience of subservience” where

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women continuously undermine women’s empowerment movements to “maintain their own privilege” (Shah 2014, para. 7).

This being said, there has been an increase in campaigns seeking to redress this form of internalised racism. Mirusha and Yanish Yogarajah (students from the University of Texas) instigated the Unfair and Lovely movement (a play on the widely popular skin lightening product ‘Fair and Lovely’ used by women across South Asia) addressing the problems associated with the fairness epidemic to empower dark-skinned women to actively redress the issue. Nandita Das, Indian film actress, launched the ‘Dark is Beautiful’ campaign to eradicate the obsession with whiteness in India and hopes that her message will spread throughout Asia. Fatima Lodhi (a feminist activist) launched 'Dark is Divine', the first anti-colourism campaign in Pakistan which aims to empower women of all colours to celebrate diversity. These campaigns envision an equal society where both dark and light skinned women are placed on a level playing field bereft of discrimination.

Such campaigns shed light on the implementation of decolonial theory and the empowerment of the female figure in South Asia. We must first and foremost realise the power that we possess to decolonise our mindset. We must understand that light stems from darkness. The two complement one another. We are made up of so many colours– we cannot bind our perception to black and white. Let us learn to love the skin we are in. Let us embrace the sun that our bodies yearn for and let us remind one another that we do not have to be fair to be lovely.

REFERENCES Imran, I. 2017, ‘Is Pakistan still a colony ruled by the White man’s supremacy?’, The Express Tribune, 5 March 2017, viewed 31 August 2018, <https://blogs.tribune.com. pk/story/47135/is-pakistan-still-a-colony-ruled-by-the-white-mans-supremacy/>.

Shah, B. 2014, ‘The Fate of Feminism in Pakistan’, The New York Times, 20 August, viewed 31 August 2018, <https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/opinion/bina-shahthe-fate-of-feminism-in-pakistan.html>.

Shaikh, M. 2017, ‘Struggling to Escape Colorism: Skin Color Discrimination Experiences of South Asian Americans’, Thesis presented to the Department of Sociology, University of Michigan.

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38

SECTION

NEED A TUTOR?

g?

tutorin te a v ri p e m so m o fr t fi e n e Can you b

NEED A TUTOR?

ring?

rivate tuto p e m so m o fr t fi e n e b u o Can y

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Violet Growth

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I'm kinda angry?

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Lachlan Barker PRESIDENT

Thank you to our staff and the Returning Officer team for their diligent work over the nomination period! I look forward to seeing how the election goes in October.

Congratulations to those already elected; however, the lack of nominations is a concerning anomaly. I commend those who have put themselves forward for election to the Student Representative Council and National Union of Students Delegate positions; good luck. I an available leading up to and across the election period to provide support and advice for all candidates. The UTS student policies have been condensed and amended from a suite of more than 10 separate documents into three policies and a supporting set of procedures. I thank the Association staff and councillors who advised me in making proposals for these. It’s a positive step that the university is including us actively in its policymaking space. Whilst there are concerns of pushback from the university on the new constitution, with cited concerns including bad governance procedures in collectives and the desire for an ‘external governance review’ set by the university, I should hope that the reform process will continue smoothly and conclude this year. I encourage councillors, the executive, and members who will remain involved into the future to remain diligent and committed to our cause. We provide essential services for students on campus, and are a small organisation with a simple governance structure and a clear set of objectives. We meet all requirements set out for us by the university and legislation in order to remain transparent about our operations. We have much to be

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proud of. The Respect.Now.Always campaign continues with a forward plan for involving more students in the decision-making space. As I prepare for handover to next year’s team, I will be delegating some of this work, as well as work in other committees, to incoming officers and executives. I encourage those continuing into next year to keep pushing for better and broader student representation. As we near the end of the year I want to thank councillors for their attendance and work this year, and their contributions to making the UTSSA a communicative and effective team.

Contact: president@utsstudentsassociation. org

Kirra Jackson

EDUCATION VICE PRESIDENT This month has been very busy as the UTSSA EVP. Through the help of all UTS Students’ Association volunteers, staff, and elected students, we were able to hold the most engaging event in UTSSA History—Meet Your Union Day. Students from all faculties came and spoke to a variety of different unions—many of whom didn’t know what a union was in the first place.

All the feedback that we received was super positive. Thanks to everyone that got involved, it wouldn’t have happened without you.

While that was my last major event for my time as the UTSSA EVP, that doesn’t mean you’ve heard the last from me! I’ve been working on a variety of things both within and outside of the university.

We’re putting together an appeals booklet that will be available both electronically and physically. This will outline your rights as a student—making sure you

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know the process and procedures for if you have to go to an appeal, or you get accused of misconduct. As always, the best option is to reach out to the students’ association first, but hopefully this book can fill in all of the blanks, and anything that you’re unaware of.

Internally I’ve been working with the advertising and marketing team to put together a plan for the upcoming years. We know that the biggest issue we have as a students’ association is the visibility, and that’s something that we are working hard on.

I’ve also been working to put together a report into the validity of introducing a study cart—one of my election promises from last year.

This study cart would be accessible during exams and be mobile, so if you need coffee, milo, tea, or a small snack, keep an eye out, because this cart is for you!

Finally, I’ve been working to introduce an end-of-year handover for the upcoming team. As I’m sure you know, student elections are coming up, and that means that there will be new students in these roles. I want to pass on as much knowledge and information that I have as possible, and one of the ways I want to do that is to sit down with all the new members of the SRC and show them what i’ve learnt this year.

I’ve had a great time this year as EVP and I’m really grateful for my time here. I wish everyone the best, and good luck into next year and the upcoming student elections.

Kiz Contact: education@ utsstudentsassociation.org

Mehmet Musa TREASURER

Dear readers of Vertigo 2018, Hello and welcome to my last Treasurer’s Report for this year’s magazine. I would like to say what a pleasure it has been writing my report for the magazine this year. Throughout my time as Treasurer, I have aimed to be as transparent as possible with what the Executive and SRC of the UTS Students’ Association have decided to spend their money on. I hope I have been able to fulfill the role of Treasurer to a level that maintains the integrity of the Association and meets the expectations of UTS students.

The UTSSA has spent funds on a variety of different initiatives in the months of August and September.

One of those initiatives is the facilitation of accommodation for the current Vertigo team to attend the National Young Writer’s Festival. This event is not merely a networking event but one that allows our writers to promote their content and the content of UTS publications.

Additionally, the current team have been empowered to seek out and purchase written content from other campuses.

The rational for this initiative is to provide future teams with quality written materials by other universities that they could seek inspiration from, consequently enriching the Vertigo publication overall.

Another major undertaking this period is the funding of UTS Pride Week 2018. The UTSSA is proud to facilitate one of the largest Pride Week events in its history and this is a testament to the rapid growth of the Queer Collective this year.

I understand that the UTSSA has spent funds on more initiatives

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within this period, yet I would run out of space before I spoke to all of them. I also acknowledge I have not included figures yet in this report. For a full breakdown of the spending of the UTSSA in excel form, feel free to write to my treasurer’s email below.

I would like to thank you for reading this report and thank you for the honour of letting me be your Treasurer for 2018.

Kind regards, Mehmet.

Contact: treasurer@ utsstudentsassociation.org

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Vertigo is published by the UTS Studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Association (UTSSA) and proudly printed by SOS Printing, Alexandria.

The contents of Vertigo do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, printers, or the UTSSA. Vertigo and its entire contents are protected by copyright. Vertigo will retain the right to republish in any format. Contributors retain all other rights for resale and republication. No material may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the copyright holders.

CONTACT Enquiries editorial@utsvertigo.com.au Submissions submissions@utsvertigo.com.au CONNECT utsvertigo.com.au facebook.com/utsvertigo Twitter @vertigomagazine Instagram @utsvertigo

Support If you have been affected by any of the sensitive topics explored in this volume, you may wish to contact the following organisations for counselling and support: For sexual assault and domestic violence counselling 1800-737-732 (1800 RESPECT) For suicide, self-harm, anxiety and depression 1300 22 4636 (BeyondBlue) 13 11 14 (Lifeline) For UTS-specific counselling services 9514 1177 (UTS Counselling) 1800 531 626 (UTS Sexual Assault Support Line) For LGBTIQ+ support 1800 184 527 or qlife.org.au (Q Life)

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