BY LEIGH HUGHES
CANBERRA — A common lament heard on university campuses around Australia in the last month has been: "Damn, it's the third term." It reflects the level of enthusiasm for the student government election period. Years of back-stabbing, vicious and apolitical election campaigns coupled with weak and self-serving administrations have left a mark on the minds of students.
Division among left-wing activists has also contributed to this negative attitude. It was hoped that, with the cooperation within the left promoted by the S11 and M1 protests and the formation of the Socialist Alliance, this would improve. However, attempts to form a broad left election ticket at the Australian National University for Student Association and National Union of Student positions indicate otherwise.
A meeting of the three main left-wing groups on ANU was held at the end of the mid-year holidays to discuss the political basis of a united ticket. Left Labor said that it wanted — above all — to oust the incumbent right-wing "Indies" from office. Resistance argued that the elections should be used primarily to radicalise and politicise students. The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) vacillated between these positions, but stated early its support for unified ticket at almost any cost.
Despite having no clear political agreement on the aims and goals of the ticket, the three groups decided to press ahead, hoping that the abstract debates could be resolved as discussion continued on more immediate issues.
After little progress in what one person called "talks to have talks to have talks", the discussion slowly moved onto policy, which dominated meetings of the groups for nearly a month.
The debate around what should be the goal of the ticket reemerged over the question of whether the political positions put forward should be limited to what would get the ticket's candidates elected, argued by Left Labor, or whether the policy should be aimed at challenging students' ideas and encouraging activism on campus, as was argued by Resistance.
Left Labor, which ran a completely apolitical ticket in last year's elections, argued for a conservative policy document that not only was restricted to education-related issues but also did not call for "too radical" policies within that, such as free education.
Opposing the 20-page document's conservatism, Resistance activists argued, "By tail-ending what students are thinking, we can never hope to convince them of anything, let alone to support the campaigns necessary to win most of these policies."
Resistance argued for a broadening of the ticket's focus from education to all issues that a left-wing ticket should support and campaign on, particularly in relation to the growing anti-corporate movement. To exclude these issues would not only be undemocratic, argued Resistance, but would also miss opportunities to build activist and progressive politics on ANU. Resistance stated that hiding the ticket's left politics in the hope of winning office was "inherently dishonest".
Left Labor claimed that once the ticket was elected, it could then carry out left policies. Resistance disagreed, stating that the policies of a left student association would have to be campaigned for by students themselves if they were to have any hope of success.
In the end, due to the divided votes of the ISO students, a motion that said the "the primary goal of the ticket is to win" was successful.
Debate has raged around Left Labor's assertion that important progressive changes can be made without student action, by using footholds in the university's bureaucracy.
Resistance activist Jo Hunt, who was heavily involved in the debates, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that "the experiences of S11, M1, the anti-voluntary student unionism campaign and the log of claims campaigns show us that it is action by students and not the student officialdom that really matters".
The decisive blow came on August 8, when Left Labor stacked the final meeting before nominations closed. Outnumbering both Resistance and ISO combined, Left Labor chaired the meeting and controlled the agenda. Dissent was shouted by Left Labour members. A Labor-dominated "steering committee" was imposed to control the ticket during the course of the election. Labor candidates were selected for the executive, NUS and general representative positions.
The ISO joined with Resistance in outrage at Left Labor's antics — particularly after Labor rejected all attempts at compromise afterwards.
With the degeneration of the broad left into nothing more than a Laborite ticket, Resistance has left the group to run independently. However, the ISO is still wavering on its next course of action.
Hunt, who is running for the position of education officer, summed up the experience: "Branch stacking, conservative politics and a completely opportunist outlook are all you can expect from the Labor Party. If this experience teaches us anything, it's that there must be a political basis to unity."