Sydney Uni left organises for elections

By Wendy Robertson

SYDNEY — The left's campaign for the Sydney University SRC reflects the diverse issues that have impacted on the student population. This year the left is planning to run with more explicit left-wing politics; it also plans to broaden the presidential campaign to take up social issues apart from education.

The left's presidential ticket, Students' Education Action (SEA), has four main themes:

lagainst the Liberals, in particular the cuts to higher education and racist policies such as the cuts to immigration and Abstudy;

lfor democracy at the university, an issue highlighted by the cuts to departments, the partial privatisation of the university and the implementation of fees for local undergraduates, which have taken place despite widespread student and staff opposition;

lagainst racism, to promote a broad campaign against racism on campus and for students to support community anti-racist campaigns;

lfor an ongoing student and staff alliance.

As well as running for president, SEA is also contesting a number of general representative tickets to highlight racism, the education cuts, women's rights and environmental issues.

At first glance, it seems that the left is facing a more unified Labor opposition than for some time. The Labor left is running on a ticket called Real Students.

Resistance believes that the left needs to pay more attention to trying to draw out the political positions of the opposing teams and explain how the left candidates will support the development of campaigns over the next year.

The conservative ticket, Students First, has a platform of "make the SRC for students, not politics". This group, supported by the Liberal students, appears to be well organised, with candidates in all faculties. On the strength of last year's victorious conservative ticket, called Everybody, on the University of NSW, this group will be running hard to win.

Resistance member Keara Courtney, who is running on the Students' Education Action ticket, commented, "A conservative SRC at Sydney Uni would mean fewer resources and access to facilities for students, like what's being done at UNSW this year. We have to ensure a strong left presence in the SRC for 1998.

"The strong education campaign this year has meant a larger activist base for the left tickets. Through Resistance's participation in the election campaign, we hope to politicise more students, showing why socialist solutions for issues such as racism and education cuts are the only possible solutions."