BY BEA BREAR
HOBART — Just 13% of University of Tasmania (Hobart campus) students voted in the recent student union elections. Those that did overwhelmingly favoured tickets which promised an end to Student Representative Council involvement in "politics" and an emphasis on service provision.
Keep Left, the ticket of Greens and former Non-Aligned Left members, lost its majority on the SRC, after basing its campaign on its minor achievements while in office. The only office-bearer positions it retained were those of environment officer and women's officer.
Action, a ticket which included members of the left faction of the Labor Party and some former Keep Left members, managed to win publicity and publications officer position and two National Union of Students (NUS) delegate positions.
The most successful ticket was POP (People Over Politics) which was mainly composed of "independents", though it included some Greens. It vowed to make the SRC more relevant to students by focusing on services rather than "hidden political agendas" and "factionalism".
POP candidate Mark Evenhuis was elected president and Liz Clairidge was elected education officer; the ticket won several other positions. Clairidge has been active in the Education Action Collective and pledged to convene a collective to campaign against course cuts in 2001.
United Students, which included members of Labor's right faction, as well as independents, Democrats and Liberals, ran a high profile campaign with a platform almost identical to POP. US candidate Rachel Thompson, who was Tasmanian NUS state president this year, was elected secretary and NUS delegate.
The only candidates who offered an alternative to the view that the student union's only role is to provide services were Resistance members Shua Garfield and Edwina Foster. Running as Activate, Garfield and Foster called for a union willing to initiate radical campaigns on progressive issues. Garfield stood for education officer and NUS delegate and Foster ran for women's officer.
Activate attracted few votes. Garfield told Green Left Weekly "Keep Left's bureaucratic style of administration during 2000 gave weight to POP and US claims that a left union is irrelevant and unresponsive to students".