Socialists Challenge ALP at Tas Uni

BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE

HOBART — ALP member Ted Alexander won the 2001 Tasmania University Union presidential election by a landslide, capturing 59% of the vote. Promising to provide more free beer and improved services Alexander defeated Greens member Donna Powell, who received 29% of the vote, and Socialist Alliance candidate Shua Garfield, who received 11%. Only 13% of the 8000 students at the Hobart campus of the University of Tasmania voted between September 11 and 14.

Alexander's ticket SHAG (Students Having a Go) took several other key positions, including the education, welfare, and environment officers. Also contesting the elections was Better, which included members of the ALP centre-left faction.

Socialist Alliance member Sarah Cleary won 22% of the vote for the women's officer position. Both she and Garfield ran for Student Representative Council and National Union of Students delegate positions, for which Cleary won the highest number of first preference votes. The final results have yet to be confirmed.

The Socialist Alliance used the campaign to encourage students to support the October protests against the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the Commonwealth Business Forum, and also built support for the repeal of abortion laws. Publicity argued that education activists need to support the global justice movement to combat privatisation of education.

A Socialist Alliance-initiated referendum to create an international solidarity officer was passed, despite opposition from nearly all other candidates.

Referenda to create a disability access officer, and a men's officer were also passed. The latter was a surprise, given that all three presidential candidates opposed the position — Socialist Alliance and the outgoing women's officer actively campaigned against it.

The SHAG candidate for women's officer did not take a position on the question. Only some members of the Better ticket, which performed poorly in the elections, openly supported the creation of a men's officer.

Cleary told Green Left Weekly, "This is a serious setback for the feminist movement in Tasmania. Women's officers exist to fight systematic sexist oppression. Creating a men's officer reduces the role of such positions to gender-specific service provision."

"That so many students voted for it indicates a dangerously low level of consciousness around feminist issues, and creates a precedent for the creation of such an officer on other campuses."

From GLW issue 464