Issue 83.9

Issue 83.9

I N S I D E: Student Erections — Oops, We Mean Elections www.facebook.com/onditmagazine

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Student Media Review Have your say on the future direction of On Dit and Student Radio

Head to auu.org.au Survey and submissions close 21 September 2015.

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On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

Issue 83.9

CONTENTS

ON CAMPUS

A RTI CL E S

Editorial ............................................................ 2 How to Contribute to On Dit ........................... 3 What’s On ...................................................... 4-5 SRC President ................................................... 6 Election Poetry ................................................. 7 Letters to the Editor ......................................... 8 AUU President .................................................. 9 Adelaide Uni Love Letters ......................... 10-11 Humans of Adelaide University.................. 20-21

How to Talk to About Male Rights Without Being a Douchebag ..................... 12-13 Restaurant Blacklist .................................. 30-31 A Swedish Exchange ................................ 32-33 It’s Not Just Footy ......................................... 35 Who Wants to be a Trillionaire ................. 36-37 Colouring for Mindfulness ....................... 38-40

PO L ITICS Gay Marriage Debate: Love Conquers ............ 14 Gay Marriage Debate: Marriage Just Is ........... 15 Persistence, Passion and Possibility; What Two Years of Student Politics .......... 17 -19 Inter view with SRC Presidents .................. 22-23 How to Lose Friends & Alienate People ... 24-25 Election Flashback (1976) ...............................

26-27 Give Me the Vote ...................................... 28-29 Election Inter vention ..................................... 34

On Dit is a publication of the Adelaide University Union

SUB-EDITORS: Mandy Li, Natalie Carfora and Lur Alghurabi

EDITORS: Daniel Millburn, Daniel McLean and Leighton McDonald-Stuart

CREATIVE TEAM: Viray Thach, Sarah Boese and Anna Bailes

CRE ATI VE Doomed Crossing ............................................ 7 Artist Spotlight: Sophia Georgiadis ............42-43 Bicycle Poetry ................................................ 41

R E VI E WS Film Review: Only Lovers Left Alive ................. 44 Music Review .................................................. 45 Festival Review: Edinbur gh Fringe .................... 46

DI VE R SI ONS Confessions of a Law Student ...................... 47 Crossword ....................................................... 48

COVER ART: Magnolia Bell INSIDE BACK COVER: Delia Chin Published 31/08/2015

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Editorial The birds sing, the blossoms bloom, the sun shines on your first week of September. Along the usual campus thoroughfares you stroll, with eyes turned to the ground, your mind dwelling mostly on existential questions and the hottie in your next class and certainly not on the flurry of ar ms and legs suddenly charging towards you. You sidestep and divert your gaze towards the blissful birds and wholeness of the world, but the student politician inevitably spots you, hands you a flyer, and now there’s no escape.

There’s absolutely no escape. Like someone who has somewhere – anywhere – to be, you stand there and shift your weight from foot to foot and look at your watch forlornly while the recitation begins. ‘We will ser ve you tirelessly, indefatigably, unceasingly, inexorably’. Record of rhetoric, light of eloquence! You can always trust a politician for a chorus.

This On Dit copy might come in especial use, since you could roll it up to ward off the election-week hounds. Or you could open a random page, stick in

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Editorial On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

your nose and then wander around campus perfectly protected from ambushes. (We recommend you see page 24 for additional advice on staying safe this election week).

But perhaps you’re less of an obnoxious ass than we are, and perhaps you’re more accepting, and you do in fact give a damn about how your uni’s run and how its students are treated. If you fall into this concerned minority, then take a look at this year’s student presidential candidates (pg. 22) and about what drives student politicians to want to do big things (pg. 17).

Otherwise, fish out something different from our mass of material including words on space mines, adult colouring books and Adam Goodes.

Hubristically ser ving our constituents, The On Dit Team P.S. The relevant content has been approved by the Returning Officer.

H OW TO C O N T R IBU T E Want to contribute to On Dit? It really is an easy process…

I f yo u w a nt t o w r i t e a n a r t i c l e , h e r e’ s s o m e a dv i c e b e f o r e yo u g e t s t a r t e d : •

Have a chat to us. Your chances of being published are much higher if we’re all on the same page.

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On Dit is primarily read by students who are easily exhausted by longwinded pieces of writing, so please keep it concise.

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Make sure what you’re writing can appeal to a wide audience. If it’s a technical topic, try to explain it simply. Don’t presume people know all the specifics of niche topics.

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No one likes a pretentious wordsmith. Try not to use jargon.

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Want to write but don’t know what to write about? We have a long list of things we’d love people to write about.

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Don’t be shy. Come in for a chat.

We’re down the dodg y-looking stairs near the Barr Smith Lawns.

Submission De adlines for Artwork

ISSUE

83.10

THEME

Pop Culture

CONTRIBUTION DEADLINE

6th September

83.11

28th September

83.12

12th October

C O N TA C T U S !

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@OnDitMagazine

@OnDitMag

ondit@adelaide.edu.au

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O N D I T O F F I C E LO C A T I O N Down the narrow stairwell. Watch out for student politicians. www.facebook.com/onditmagazine

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WHAT’S ON + NEWS: Australian Geographic ANZANG

Nature Photographer of the Year August 1st - September 30th Where: SA Museum

Cost:

FREE

The finalists of the Australian Geographic ANZANG Nature Photography Competition display their photography at the SA Museum.

The categories include Animal Portrait, Animal Behaviour, Animal Habitat, Landscape, Monochrome, Interpretative Photography, Botanical, Threatened Species, Our Impact and Junior, as well as a Portfolio category for the best collection of six or more images.

Check it out while it’s on!

Royal Adelaide Show September 4th - September 13th Where: Adelaide Showgrounds An action-packed event that includes carnival rides and attractions, as well as handicraft, produce, livestock, animal shows, and much more! The show’s celebrations go off with a bang thanks to a nightly fireworks display.

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On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

Student Elections August 31st - September 4th Where: Maths Lawn and Hub Wester n Courtyard Vote for your student representative on campus.

All SRC, On Dit editors, and Student Radio director spots as well as 5 Union Board director positions are to be deter mined. Nominations closed on Friday 14th August at 4pm.

AUG 31st TO SEPT 13th Getting Started On Your Writing Journey with Sarah Tooth September 12th Where: SA Writers Centre Inc

Cost: $60 members, $90 non-members

Keen to leap into your writing journey but not sure where to start? This handy workshop for new writers will give you practical tips and honest advice on how to start, how to establish a good writing practice, an over view of all the support and resources available to early career writers, and lots

Time: 10am - 1pm

of infor mation about navigating the publishing industry. w w w. a d e l a i d e c i t yc o u n c i l . c o m / wh a t s - o n / e v e n t / g e t t i n g started-on-your-writing-jour ney-with-sarah-tooth

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S RC C O L U M N Renjie DU, President of the SRC

Democracy is a wonderful institution and those who take part in it are among the most fortunate citizens on earth. We are all proud that we live in a country where everyone has a voice when it comes to choosing their leaders.

Australian students have the opportunity to practice their own for m of democracy by casting their vote during the student election week. If students want their opinions on university decisions to matter, that’s exactly what they should do next week.

To lots of students, voting for their student government leaders might not seem like a big deal.

They might think that no matter what the student government does, it will have little to no effect on them. To be honest, it is absolutely nor mal if you have never had any interests in voting. I didn’t either.

I have to admit that I was one of you guys for at least the first two years of my study at uni. Not just me, I am pretty confident to say, people like your On Dit editor Daniel Millburn, which is a very good friend of mine, did not vote during his first year at uni either.

However, I still strongly recommend you to vote.

Partly because it is my job to say so, partly because the more understanding I have about how the student governance works, the more important I think your voice is. Taking the financial aspect as an example: for the hundreds of dollars you pay for SSAF each year, about a third of it goes to the AUU; which adds up to millions. Your decision influences the decisions on how it would be spent, for instance, whether you would like to spend it more on student ser vices or student advocacy.

For the second part of my column, there is only one particular thing I would like to point out: it’s that YOU, yes you, should run as a candidate,

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On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

especially if you have thought of getting more practice in leadership. Not just for AUU, SRC and NUS, you should also participate in other areas that are available such as in the law school and business school. It is not that easy to win, but it’s an invaluable experience that is worth trying.

Compared with student candidates and tickets in the UK and the US, I found that student politics in Australia has a particular link with political parties and factions and less independent candidates.

Being controlled in such a way, it seems to me almost all group of eight university student politicians prioritise on national party political issues instead of on campus issues. This therefore has made the student election campaigns even less relevant to everyday on-campus students, and therefore the image of student politics even less pleasant. We have seen a significant lack of interest for students getting involved with student elections or in running for candidacy. For example, in both 2011 and 2012, the SRC president position was elected unopposed.

It is not just your vote that is important, if you have the time and energ y, if you care about the student issues, you should be a part of it too. I also encourage you to be part of other student organisations like the social clubs and sports clubs on campus. It will not only help you build up your communication skills, it would also help the university become a more vibrant place and make the student experience more relevant to you.

That is why I encourage you to run and vote for student elections, because it is you that really matters.

Doomed Crossing Author: Mandy Li

It’s that time of the year That everyone fears: Student Elections.

I pray that I’ll be lent the strength To cross unscathed the campus length.

Surrounding the Hub are campaign smiles: ‘Hi, do you mind if we chat for a while?’

‘I can’t!’ I lie as I swiftly pass.

‘No time to talk – I’m late for class!’

Dodging other lures and snares I seek salvation down the stairs.

Then dreadful realisation dawns: I’ve reached the perilous Barr Smith Lawns.

Here the real trial begins; Avoid the eyes, the winning grins, The vines of flyer-clutching hands, The conversational quicksands – But it’s no good, I can’t break free; The haunting chants rise dog gedly: ‘Vote for me! VOTE FOR ME!’ Alright! I’ll vote! Just let me be!

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Hi there, Just thought I would write an email regarding your article ‘Seeing Australia’ by Teagan Short. I was very excited to see that Kiama, NSW had been written about in the On Dit magazine.

I was excited because that is where I grew up, I moved to Adelaide 3.5 years ago but go back to Kiama as often as I can because my family and friends are based there.

So I thought I would write on the blowhole just to clarify the review. The blowhole doesn’t blow all that often, it is spectacular when it does but the sea has to been very large for it to get any real breath taking action. Many tourists come to Kiama for this attraction but will leave disappointed. But Kiama does have a little blowhole which you can get personnel with where you actually do get drenched.

There are many other great attractions in Kiama, the beaches are amazing, the cafes are all vibrant, there is Minnamurra rainforest (with an amazing waterfall). There is a produce market every Saturday and on the first Sunday of each month there is a market. There is far more than just the blowhole on offer in Kiama.

Thanks, Jess

CROSSWORD ANSWERS 83.9 (These are for this edition. No peeking!)

Across

2. TOPHAM 3. CUBA 7. ZAHA/HADID 8. WYATT 10. DEALER 13. AGNELLIS 17. AUGUSTUS 18. ALPHABET 19. ONION 20. RONIN

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On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

Down

1. BAUMBACH 4. BLEDISLOE 5. HAMLET 6. KYRGIOS 9. THREE 11. MANUS 12. WINGS 14. NAVAJO 15. HAYNE 16. PERIOD

AU U P R E S I D E N T Amelia Briggs, AUU President

If you’re reading this as it comes out, it’s highly possible that you’ve already been approached more than a few times by people in different t-shirts, asking if you’ve voted in the student elections.

Yep, it’s that fateful time of year yet again, and boy does it roll around fast for all of us.

I’ve been involved in my share of student elections, and I know how high-stress the environment is both for candidates in the elections and students who are getting bothered alike. I know that lots of students don’t really care that much during the week and would prefer to just be left alone, and I understand, but if you’re reading my column right now I’m gonna hazard a guess that you care at least a little about what we do (or perhaps you’re just bored and you’ve already read the rest of the magazine). So before you tell your accosters that you’ve already voted, or worse, that you go to UniSA, I just want to remind you (or tell you if you didn’t know in the first place) why they’re all out there, and what voting in the student elections really means.

The Union is a student organisation, and so is the SRC, and this means that the people running what we do are students. We’re very proud of this fact, as one of the key values central to the Union is that students should have control of their affairs, not the University. This is especially important when they’re interested in making money from our fees as a primary funding source, which is the situation we’re increasingly in – and a situation that has been affecting international and postgraduate students for years.

This control over student affairs means that every year, when students of all disciplines, levels, and backgrounds vote in the elections, they’re deciding who has the keys to a fairly expensive car. And it’s a car that you all paid for, or at least you paid for

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a little piece of it. Different people have different priorities, so it’s important to pay attention.

Of course, I know that I’ve been heavily involved with the Union for a while now, so it seems like the most important thing in the world to me, and it might seem very far away to you. But some of the things that student representatives have been involved with in the last few years include the designing of the Hub, sitting on the committees with all of management as they decide what’s happening with our courses, jumping on national campaigns about all sorts of issues and being the ones who represent students in the news.

We also run so many events and ser vices that it’s impossible that you haven’t been involved with at least a few – if you’ve ever been to O’Week, bought something at the General, or got a job out of one of our listings, you’ve seen some of the stuff that we do. And if you haven’t had to go use any of our ser vices, count yourself lucky – but remember that you’ll still want the ability to visit them if you’re really in trouble.

With that in mind, I’d encourage you to make the time where you can to stop and listen to some of these people in the coloured shirts handing out flyers. Because as much as we can complain about them, we can’t pretend they aren’t passionate about something – and that’s important to the ongoing wellbeing of all students on this campus. As you have discussions (or maybe arguments) with the people who are looking to be your representatives next year, make sure to ask them a few sticky questions, and work out what they really know and care about. Work out how much they know about what the Union’s up to – and see what their ideas are to expand that.

And don’t forget to cast your vote this week!

auu.org.au

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facebook.com/adelaideuniversityunion

twitter.com/UnionAUU www.facebook.com/onditmagazine

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adel aide uni

letter s Author: Adelaide University Students

seek LOVE? Do you spend your lectures lusting after the hottie in the third row?

Are you rotating between every tutorial-group in your course to find your potential soulmate? Are you way too shy to talk to them in person, but totally fine with shouting an anonymous kinda-cute/ kinda-creepy declaration of love from the electronic rooftops?

Adelaide Uni Love Letters is a student-run page allowing you find love (or at least stalk their Facebook profile pictures) on campus. All submissions are 100 per cent genuine – there might even be one for you.

Check it out at facebook.com/adelaideuniloveletters

Love Letter #17 7 To My Favourite Caucasian, Aaron oh Aaron, in your absence my womb is barren, With such manly girth, my ovaries just burst.

Your sweet sensual scent, has such intense romance, But alas you’re not single, I would really love to mingle.

Long-ing after you, Your Long time Asian Lover

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Love Letter #45 To the woman in charge of rampant cuts to the humanities. We might love these cuts if you buy us a round at unibar with the savings.

Sincerely, Thirsty

Love Letter #99 To the hottie brown-haired boy in the 9am psycholog y tute this morning. Your irritating penclicking was just as rapid as my heartbeat while watching you discuss the underlying construct of forgiveness. Let’s get coffee.

Love Letter #147 To the girl with reddish hair at the Barr Smith reading room I see you nearly every day here and once we made eye contact you smiled at me and I was shocked I didn’t know how to react. Please ask me for coffee as I’m too shy to ask you...

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How to advocate men’s rights without being a douchebag Author: Peter Thomson

Content warning – suicide, domestic viol ence It’s a familiar picture. It could be the boy’s first dentist appointment or haircut. Or perhaps he’s fallen from his bike and scraped his knee.

In an effort to console the child, who’s now wailing at the top of his lungs, an adult asks him to ‘be a big boy’, or even to ‘be a man’.

There’s no ill will in the suggestion, just the opposite. We paint a portrait of an indefatigable superhero, and implore him to aspire to it, to save himself pain. But what happens when the child grows up and fails to meet the standards of masculinity set for him? What if he doesn’t feel like masculine nor ms particularly suit him? And how are men, and the people around them, affected when an individual’s sense of masculinity is impugned?

While we might not have all the answers, one thing is clear: men are suffering. The rate of male suicide in Australia is shocking. In 2013, men were 3.3 times more likely than women to take their own lives. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, while these deaths happen for many reasons, preventable deaths relate to individuals less connected to support networks and less inclined to seek help.

Do conceptions of what’s ‘masculine’ keep men from seeking help in dark times? Does the same façade of strength that we were taught as children end up constricting us? If so, it might be time for a mass conversation about those things that make us valuable, not as men, but as people; and also those parts of our identities that are har mful, or dead weight. Amongst men it can be difficult to broach political views or personal feelings because of masculine confor mity and disdain for the new or unusual. This taboo of male introspection might explain how in the midst of an unprecedented global economic, technological, and social revolution, a popular discussion on masculinity is conspicuously absent. While feminism continues to advocate for the prosperity of women, no popular 12 On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

institution addresses the problems of manhood in the 21st century. If we want our problems as men to be taken seriously, we need, more than ever, to respect and uplift the testimony of feminists.

A growing and worrying tendency is to see advancement of specific gender issues as a zero sum game. In reality, a society where women can fearlessly walk the streets at night, and be respected in their relationships and careers, doesn’t take anything away from men. Our lives and communities would be richer if we welcomed an equal contribution from women, from Parliament to the sports field. The key to unlocking the potential of developing countries in the future will be the reproductive and economic liberation of women. At home, a social climate where men are willing to engage with feminist voices and support change is the same atmosphere that will allow men to have an open conversation about our own gender. At each stage of feminism’s development, change has been railed against, then seen as vital in retrospect. Women’s suffrage was once considered absurd; now the absurdity is that women were ever denied a vote. If we respect history we have to accept that we might be wrong in our strongly held beliefs about society. If men want insight into how gender nor ms affect people, we only have to listen to the lived experience of the women in our lives.

Some obser vers have noted the proliferation of MRA (men’s rights activist) groups online in opposition to feminism. Their goals are often stated as restoring what they see as balance in areas such as family law, parenting, domestic violence, and government ser vice. Violence of any kind should be seen as totally unacceptable, no matter the gender of the victim. What this concern desperately calls out for is a conversation about how our identities infor m violent behavior and how we react to violence. Like it or not, if

you laugh at your male friend for getting chewed out by his partner, you’re part of the problem. In fact, problems arise in any scenario where we rely antiquated stereotypes to judge a person. As much as feminists might be a convenient scapegoat for some, they are no more responsible than any of us in the propagation of har mful myths. The myth, for example, that women have an innate nurturing connection with their child, impacts not only the decisions of juries but also the wellbeing of women with children.

Despite the protestations of MRA groups, the fact remains that in our streets, workplaces, and homes, women are under attack. At the time of writing, Destroy the Joint has the number of Australian women killed violently in 2015 at 58, which is on track to exceed the 84 women killed by violence in 2014. If these women had lost their lives to Ebola or terrorism, we would be spending billions of dollars to address the issue, and the Minister for Women would be under pressure to resign. Violent deaths of any kind should be repulsive to all of us.

What we can’t abide is a tit-for-tat discourse where the suffering of the opposite gender is belittled.

about men’s rights, women’s rights, or just human rights, the same principle applies: a climate of fear and abuse will not advance your message.

The internet provides a truly unprecedented opportunity to discuss controversial issues, spread awareness of good causes, and adopt new ideas.

At the same time, the medium is still in its infancy and in many ways we are absolutely not ready for it. Unlike with any media revolution before, we are all authors now; and just as our best contributions become part of our shared reality, our worst moments become part of the woodwork. More than ever our words have the ability to affect people across the globe. For men, the internet provides the best chance yet for us to reflect on our identities and tell our own stories. At the same time we can pave the way to our own liberation by lifting up the voices of our feminist allies. The idea of a globally connected community calls out for the best in us, and brings into fresh relevance the words, ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’

If MRA groups are serious about improving jurors’ perceptions of men, their first step should be to end the abuse of women by members of their communities. Lax reaction by law enforcement to entirely new digital for ms of harassment means that it’s not an undaunting thing to write about gender online. Aside from the long ter m damage that online harassment and violent threats have on people who speak out, there is another terrifying outcome – that these attacks will have a chilling effect on discussions of all types, from politics and gender, to the plight of the LGBTQIA community and Australia’s first people. Whether you care

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S a m e - S e x M a r r i a g e D e b at e

L o v e Conquers Author: Caitlin Langford As a young person, I was taught that rainbows represented God’s covenant with His people. He would never f lood the world and destroy the human race again. Love won. Over a month ago the US Supreme Court made a landmark decision, forcing all states to recognise marriage equality and Facebook has been f looded with rainbows since. Love won.

Funnily enough, marriage equality was already legal in majority of the states. This historical decision followed on from Ireland’s referendum where over 62 per cent of voters said yes to marriage equality.

The public celebration and outcry of joy was overwhelming. If two historically hyper-religious nations can make this move towards acceptance and love, why are we still stuck in the 20th Century.

The irony is that South Australia used to be a front runner for human rights, being the second government in the world to give women the vote.

However, here we are over 100 years later and we are strug gling to let people marry and realistically, this shouldn’t even be a problem. Marriage equality has become this breakthrough cause, where straight people can jump on board to show their support for the queer community.

It’s no secret that queer people suffer disproportionately from mental illness, with homosexual and bisexual people twice as likely to suffer from anxiety and three times more likely to suffer from depression and even higher rates for trans* individuals. The higher rates

Artist: Carly Harvy of mental illness are frequently attributed to the bullying queer people experience from a young age. Additionally, a per vasive negative community attitude is often internalised, forcing queer people to feel like second class citizens. Giving queer people the opportunity to feel like valued citizens with the same rights as their straight counter-parts could do a lot to improve their mental health.

While marriage may traditionally be a religious institution, in modern ter ms, it is also a civil one. Straight couples can get married with no interference from, or allegiance to the church, however this luxury is not attributed to queer couples. Civil marriages between queer people would certainly be a big win, but many queer couples believe in the same God as their Christian peers but are potentially denied the right to marry before the church. Several Christian scholars have sug gested that the passages of the Bible commonly quoted condemning homosexuality could possibly have been taken out of context. Some have even sug gested that the passages found in Leviticus refer to gang rape style relations that sometimes occurred after conflicts. Others believe that mistranslation or misinterpretation can be blamed for our current understanding of scriptures and have no objection to marriage equality.

Many queer people have no desire to marry, as they do not want to moulded into a heteronor mative culture and this is a perfectly valid reason to not marry, but this should not deny others the right to access the freedoms and luxuries involved in marriage. Further more, many straight Christian people now support the marriage equality debate. Given marriage equality has very little to do with people who don’t identify as queer, I don’t really understand why so many have so much to say about it. All we’re trying to do is love and that’s all Jesus wanted isn’t it? For love to win?

Caitlin Langford was recently appointed as Queer Officer of the Adelaide Uni SRC.

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Marriage Just Is Author: Cory Bernardi The homosexual marriage ‘equality’ campaign is a masterpiece of sloganeering; it’s catchy, inspiring and denotes a particular group’s quest for rights.

Ultimately, however, it’s completely false.

Homosexual couples already enjoy the exact same rights as married couples because Federal Parliament removed legal discrimination against homosexual unions in 2008. Equality already exists. This campaign is not about ‘equality’; it’s about the personal desire and self-interest of a vocal minority who believe it is their ‘right’ to be married.

Marriage is not a right; it is an institution that has emerged across times, cultures, and very different religious beliefs – and every time it has been defined as a bond between a man and woman. Society has grown and flourished on this foundation for millennia.

Homosexual marriage supporters claim that the majority of Australians support redefining marriage, but two thirds of Australians also believe that children should be raised by both a mother and father and that it is more important a child should have a mum and a dad than two men should have the right to marry.

Countless studies have shown that children have the best chance of success if raised by both their mother and father, as they provide unique and complementary qualities to a child’s upbringing.

The push for homosexual marriage is asking our parliament to deliberately legislate to deny a child the right to a mother and father. It says that the presence of either parent is optional to a child’s upbringing.

This is a dangerous precedent to set.

Some will argue that some heterosexual marriages don’t produce children, which is true. But the institution of marriage exists for the general case, not the exceptions.

Ultimately, children have rights and adults have responsibilities.

Legalisation of homosexual marriage also brings significant threat to personal liberty. In America, charities and individuals who don’t support

Artist: Carly Harvy homosexual marriage have been sacked, forced to close, or change their practices. Businesses have been taken to court or forced to pay thousands of dollars in fines, while churches have been compelled to officiate ceremonies contrary to their conscience.

It also raises other questions: will religious schools be compelled to reject their own church’s teachings on marriage? Will speaking in favour of traditional marriage be deemed offensive and subject to sanction? Will migrants and other minorities who hold traditional views on family be targeted?

Such infringement on personal liberty has already begun here. The convener of the homosexual marriage campaign recently encouraged people to lodge discrimination complaints against the Catholic Church because it supported the Catholic view of marriage. The local Lobethal Bakery was the target of vicious personal attacks because an owner put forward her support for traditional marriage.

Additionally, if marriage is redefined for one group of people – on the basis of love and respect – there will be calls from other groups to redefine it. It is impossible to logically support homosexual marriage on the basis of love and respect yet reject the same argument for multi-member marriages.

There is no need to redefine marriage on the basis of equality, as equality already exists for homosexual couples. If marriage was redefined it would create a battle ground of competing rights between individuals and businesses where those who disagreed with homosexual marriage would be forced to act against their conscience or face legal action.

More importantly, redefining marriage would under mine the rights of our children to have a mother and a father. As a member of parliament, I can never support this.

Cor y Ber nardi is a South Australian Senator.

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S T U D E N T E L E C T I O N S

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PERSISTENCE,

PASSION, AND

POSSIBILITY: What Two Years of Student Politics Did For Me. Author: Rachel Phillips Current Board Director and Vice President of the AUU

When I tell people that I ran in student elections, they usually say, “Oh you’re one of those people harassing us on the Barr Smith Lawns”. For sake of better words, yes, I am one of the people who campaign on the Barr Smith lawns on that dreaded week in September. So I am going to take a moment to set the record straight and hopefully clear up some misconceptions of why people get involved in student politics and why it’s important. Let’s, however, start with this: nobody dreads election week more than the candidates. Yes, I will concede that election week is confronting and annoying for students, but the receiving end is not all that much better.

Firstly, let’s talk about the who’s who of student politics (stupol). The students at the University of Adelaide are blessed with choice, with a breadth and variety of tickets, policies and personalities to vote for. Starting with the leftist of the left, we have ‘Left Action’, or perhaps better known as Socialist Alternative, the authors of the ‘Red Flag’. Moving closer to centre, there is Activate, and Indygo, who usually run as a joint coalition focusing on broad left progressive politics. Closer to the centre is ‘Fresh’, which is predominantly for med out of the Unity faction of the Labor Right. There is then ‘Progress’, who graced student elections with their ‘Democracy Panda’, and is largely made up of international students. Last, but certainly not

least, is ‘ForU’, which runs many members of the Adelaide University Liberal Club, and all the right wing glory that comes with. Now, all tickets will give a different view of how left or right a particular ticket is, so we’ll use my description in this article for the sake of convenience.

The nitty gritty aspects of the interworking’s of election week extend much further than what meets the eye. Planning for election week can begin almost a year in advance, which tickets recruiting candidates and negotiating positions and preferences. Political dealings are prevalent throughout stupol with many tickets preferencing members of opposition tickets for certain office bearer positions. Banner painting and policy discussion are a good way for a ticket to bond before election week as well.

An interesting aspect of stupol that many do not know about is tag ging. This is something first year campaigners are often and rightly shielded from. Tag ging is essentially when one member of a ticket follows around a member of an opposing ticket in an effort to put off voters or potentially ‘steal’ their votes. Being tag ged can be extremely frustrating, because your opposition will interpret every moment of contact with students. Whilst tag ging someone else can also be a good way to keep your opponents in check and ensure the election rules are being followed. www.facebook.com/onditmagazine 17

Time wasting is another strateg y used throughout election week, and it is a horrible realisation when a first time campaigner gets time wasted. Time wasting, true to its meaning is when tickets sends someone to chat to an opponent in the aims to waste their time; this might to be to stop them from talking to potential voters, or to find out infor mation about other tickets or sometimes just to attack the confidence of their opponents. This is especially used on first timers who are unaware of what their opponents look like or cannot cage that their being tricked in talking about their policies to someone who is acting attentive but is not interested at all.

Say what you want about them, but many politicians and notable members of society ser ved a stint in student politics. Here is a quick list of my personal favourites: Julia Gillard, Christopher Pyne, Annabel Crabb, and Natasha Stott Despoja.

Julia Gillard was once the president of the AUU, and Pyne, the vice-president of what is now the SRC. Despite their policy differences and paths since leaving university, both illustrate an example of the good political grounding that can be given by stupol, but also the potential of the students who run in elections.

The next issue is how one would get involved.

Unfortunately, the nature of the ticket system lends to needing to know the people already involved. Student politics has given me a wealth of opportunity and experiences I will be forever grateful for, but perhaps my only regret is never experiencing an election week from the other side.

I was recruited for student politics towards the end of my first semester at university. Like most students, I did not understand the complicated structure and inner workings of the AUU, the SRC and student elections. Fortunately for me, I had a friend who previously ser ved as the SRC president who thought I could make a positive contribution to campus life. Whether or not I have made a positive contribution could be up for debate, but student politics opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed. Aside from my one friend, I did not know anyone involved. I remember sitting in my car for close to an hour, too scared to walk into my first stupol meeting. Eventually, I rang a friend who told me to pull it together and go inside.

I ran for a general councillor position on the SRC in my first year, which I would classify as a

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I have learnt an enor mous amount about politics, people and the University itself. I have made many new friends who have challenged my views, my principles and my ability to wake up and face another day.

position of free labour. I did not anticipate ever getting elected, and I think at the time I was not sure if I even wanted to be elected. Unfortunately for me however, I made the mistake of joining a political club on campus during O’Week, which I naively did not realise clashed with the political views of my ticket. Come election week of 2013, bright eyed and bushy tailed, I put on my campaign T-shirt and embarked on what was a shocking and emotionally traumatising experience.

Trying to stop people on their way to class to chat about elections is an unparalleled way to shatter one’s self-confidence. I remember being told that it’s a good hour if no one swears at you. On Tuesday of my first week a meme personally attacking me made its way through social media and election week. I remember crying to another girl on my ticket, who I had met that day, wondering how people could be so mean. Although I found it to be a confronting experience, the meme and election week taught me resilience, strength and diplomacy.

I learnt very quickly that anyone refusing eye contact, listening to music or texting clearly did not want to stop and chat about elections. To the poor souls who I cornered outside Barr Smith: I thank you for your time and hope the exercise of your democratic right to vote has ser ved you in a somewhat positive way.

Fast-forward two years, and I am now coming up to my third and hopefully final election week. In the last two years as I have ser ved on the SRC and the AUU board, I have learnt an enor mous amount about politics, people and the University itself. I have made many new friends who have challenged my views, my principles and my ability to wake up and face another day. Now that I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of

my student politics career I am faced with the question, why did I do it? Honestly, at first I am not sure why I got involved, but perhaps it comes back to the self ser ving aspect of wanting to gain experience and learn about the University, however, as time progressed I discovered that the reasons I continued my stupol careers were about representation and advocacy.

It wasn’t about me, or my friends or even the other student politicians, it was about the students who have fought with all they have to be where they are. The students from disadvantaged backgrounds, from low socioeconomic schools, and the large population of students living below the poverty line. I strongly believe that education is a fundamental right that should be afforded to everyone equally, and that education is a paramount building block to progressing society. Whilst Australia has a relatively good grip on access to primary and secondary education, I think there is a large scope for improvement for territory education. Wealth, circumstances and upbringing should not be a bar to going to university.

I came to the light bulb epiphany early into my ter m on the SRC and have always thought back to it when making decisions in my capacity as a member of the SRC, the AUU, and as a student politician in general. Ensuring equal access to education and maintaining support outlets for students at this university is my goal as a student representative. Another important aspect of the ser vices within the AUU umbrella is student care.

Funded by the SSAF, student care offers free legal, tax help, and counselling ser vices to all students. It is a fantastic support system available to students, which some sides of politics do not recognise the merits of. However, I believe is an integral aspect of ensuring equality within the education system.

Obviously all student politicians are different, and without opening a can of wor ms, I dare say there are some ‘interesting’ motivations behind running in elections. However, I strongly believe that each and every person has something to bring to the table. While I may not agree or like that person or their ideas, I welcome debate and democracy.

Election week will be upon the Barr Smith lawns again soon, so as a student politician I have a few pieces of advice for both the students and the campaigners.

To the 2015 Campaigners: Stop running after students, they clearly do not want to vote for you, and you will not be able sustain this for a whole week. Friendliness, respect and explanation will go a long way in election week; be kind to your ticket, compassionate to your opponents and honest to your students. Never spit at students, that’s an aspect of human decency, just keep all bodily fluids to yourself. Also, when people say that they are not interested, they really mean it. Leave them alone, nobody wins when exhausted campaigners and frustrated, apathetic and uninterested students collide. If you’re fortunate enough to be elected, put aside your political and personal differences with your fellow representatives and remember it’s about the students and what they need.

To the Students: Be nice. I know it’s a confronting week, but I dare say no student politician is outright malicious. It is not an easy task. A quick, “sorry, not interested” or “I need to get to class” will suffice. They and you both may know it’s a lie, but no one gets offended, and everyone feels slightly war m and fuzzy inside, with a restored faith in humanity.

I strongly believe that each and every person has something to bring to the table. While I may not agree or like that person or their ideas, I welcome debate and democracy.

To my ticket, my opponents, the students, AUU staff and members, and most of all the people who stopped to talk to me in the last two years: THANK YOU! I never imagined how stupol would open my eyes and change my life in the way it did. Student politics taught me grace and bravery in good, bad and ugly times, and that people who are guided by principles and ethics are rare, but are loyal. Thank you for the opportunity to ser ve, the wisdom gained and the experiences I will cherish forever. It’s been a real pleasure, but now its time to hang up my banner and retire, and watch a new generation of student politicians contribute to campus life.

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HUMANS OF

ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY

1) Al: Zambrero. As: KFC. 2) Al: I don’t give a f*ck. As: Rate it.

3) Al: Pop the headphones in. As: I pretend to be French.

4) Al: There’s not much awareness about it, I didn’t know it was happening.

5) As: The Party Party. Al: End Marijuana Prohibition Party.

6) As: The language of logic. Al: That kangaroos balls are further away from their torso to keep them cool.

Alex and Asha (Left to Right) Psychology

7) As: Well, I met my current boyfriend in a music elective tute.

Hamish, Caleb, Gen & Jack (Left to Right) Law, Education/Science, Health Sciences, Law/International Studies 1) J: Lucky Lupitas. H: Zapata’s. C: Adelaide Uni Bar G: La Tratorria 2) Unanimous: No. G: Vom. 3) H: Man buns. C: Talk about politics.

4) C: Student elections are really, very important and I feel the student cohort is not properly utilising them. G: Go Activate!

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5) C: Chris Pyne not online.

6) C: Questions from mature aged students.

7) C: I caught the love bug before uni. G: Not at uni, but on Jay Weatherill. Nothing happened.

1) Favourite restaurant?

2) Thoughts on man-buns 3) Best way to avoid talking to p e ople?

4) What’s your take on student ele ctions? Are you going to vote?

5) If you were to start your own p olitical party, what would it b e?

6) Most irrelevant thing you’ve learnt at uni 7) Have you ever had a crush on s ome one at uni – what happ ene d?

1) Bliss Organic. It has good options for people with different dietary requirements.

2) I don’t mind them. Some people pull them off.

3) Pretend to have a prior commitment.

4) I don’t feel any need to get involved or vote.

5) Animal & Environmental Justice Party 6) The factual matrix. Apparently too complicated to be in the exam, but the lecturer spent twenty minutes talking about it because he “couldn’t help himself ”.

Hilary Law/Media

Avi, Rohan, Nicole (Left to Right) Engineering, Science, Speech Pathology 1) A: Monsoon R: T-Chow 2) R: Horrible, cut them off. Although, they look good on some. David Beckham pulls it off. N: Not a fan.

3) N: Don’t look at them. Pretend to listen to music, or say hi to someone else. R: Pretend to take a phone call. A: Act like you’re in a hurry.

4) N: The More Student Jobs Party R: Faster Internet Party A: Improve Lecturer’s English Party 5) N: Referencing! R: Everything I ever learnt at uni has been extremely valuable. (I have a feeling my lecturers will read this). A: I don’t even go to my lectures.

6) N: Never. R: I admired them from a distance.

7) Yes. We met at the opening party for law and now he’s my boyfriend.

Esther and Julian (Left to Right) Law/Arts, Teaching/Arts 1) J: The dumpling place in Renaissance Arcade E: Austin & Austin 2) J: Not as bad as top knots. E: Only a few select guys can pull it off.

3) J: Being an anti-social asshole. I’ve got my beanie, sunglasses and headphones ready in my bag. E: Earphones.

4) E: If I know someone in it I’ll vote. J: It’s a good life experience for those students interested in politics.

5) J: Stop the Speedo’s.

6) J: Dating advice. More specifically the ins and outs of photographic filters to impress your significant other.

7) J: I’ve far too higher standards to have a crush on anyone at uni. I’m looking for someone with money. I just really want a jet ski.

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INTERVIEWS WITH SRC PRESIDENTS QUESTIONS 1. Why do you think you deserve the job?

2. Can you name one issue that’s crucial to students right now?

3. What would you do on the SRC if you are successful?

4. What, if any, are your political persuasions?

5. What would your three-word slogan be?

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Tom Gilchrist 1. As SRC Social Justice Officer and South Australian Education Officer I spent the last few years working with students in defeating fee deregulation, standing up for refugee rights and rallying for marriage equality. I have the experience and politics to lead wins for students.

2. 1 in 5 students skip meals to make ends meet. Student poverty is appalling: Abbott's attacks on welfare and rising youth unemployment (19.8% in South Australia!) only make that worse.

3. I'd add my voice to all concer ned by course cuts, from the axing of Classical Voice studies and CASM to the uncertain mergers facing Politics. I'd take up the campaign for Adelaide to offer a scholarship for refugees. And I'd fight bigotr y, ensuring Halal options at SRC BBQs, and helping students to actively challenge racism, sexism and homophobia.

4. I’m an active socialist.

5. Action against Abbott!

Jeffrey Yang 1. I am hardworking, efficient and to the point.

Where student voices need representing, I’d be a committed representative for your interests. I want to promote a healthy, happy, and cohesive Adelaide University.

2. Student experience. Campus experience would be a lot better by having more sports facilities and more social events available to students.

3. There’s a lot to be done. This is the first year that the SRC was not controlled by the same old group. We have started lots of new initiatives and let us build a legacy. We will continue the highly successful volunteering program to enhance the relevance of the SRC for all students.

4. Not at all. All career politicians are bad.

The SRC should never be used as a party political propaganda mouthpiece. Almost all students are sick of being interrupted when walking on campus and being pressured to participate in partisan rallies that are not slightly relevant to students.

5. Healthy, happy, relevant

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HOW TO

FRIENDS AND ALIENATE LOSE

PEOPLE:

A Quick Guide to Uni Elections #campaininthebutt

Author: Grace Denne y Politics. Some study it. Some live the dream of money, choppers, bitches. Some quake at the mere suggestion of the word, and the impending conversation bound to follow once it’s eased its way out into the open like a silent but deadly.

If there’s one thing you learn decidedly quickly, it’s that politics for ms a huge part of campus life and during ‘hunting season’ (election time) you are no longer a number, but a prime target (a sitting duck!) for the mass distribution of pamphlets and propaganda. Don’t be fooled, the political equivalent of a zombie apocalypse is here, and if you’re going to sur vive it, you’ll need more than a spare brain, a lawn mower, and a high vantage point.

SCENARIO 1: LONE RANGER You are completely alone. Your friends have left you for their respective tutes, lectures and UniBar froffs. You approach the Hub. It’s eerily quiet. Too quiet. BUT WAIT. A PERSON WITH A VERY THINLY VEILED AGENDA AND MORE PAPER SLIPPING THROUGH THEIR FINGERS THAN HENRY VIII’S ASS WIPER IS HEADING YOUR WAY. You may be polite, and stand there and take it and nod a couple of times and then walk swiftly away, only to be stopped by an onslaught of other eager campaigners. Perhaps you will whip out your phone in the hope that these fist pumping proletariats will be considerate of your blatantly opportunistic (and frankly, damn obvious) tactics. You are fooling nobody. The real trick? Nothing says ‘preoccupied’ like an obnoxiously loud conversation with me, myself, and I. Guaranteed to part crowds like Moses to water.

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SCENARIO 2: SAFETY IN NUMBERS Congratulations! You have friends! (Or at least unsuspecting fellow students being roped in to the line of fire as collateral.) Use this opportunity wisely. Sheer force does not deter the ambitious.

You may approach this a few ways.

1.

Take to interpretive group dancing your way through the Hub à la West Side Stor y Jets/ Sharks. If a campaigner approaches, skip away whilst clicking fingers and whistling mysteriously.

2.

Find a large rubbish skip or several cardboard boxes (bonus points for creativity in styling) and climb inside. You are now a Trojan horse, UofA style, with the goal of getting in/ moving out as inconspicuously as possible. Just make sure overexcited freshers don’t start dousing you with their half empty coffees in an attempt to adhere to environmental sustainability.

3.

Find a very large tandem bike, golf caddy, segue, or pram and mow your way through.

Bonus points for a custom car horn that plays ‘La Cucaracha’ when pressed

SCENARIO 3: DESPERATE MEASURES

SCENARIO 4: ABSTINENCE

Nowhere is safe. You might think you’ve avoided the Hub’s vultures but oh how wrong you are.

Lecture theatres. The bench outside where you’re stuffing your face with a boiled chicken sandwhich from Taste Baguette. Bathrooms. Tutorials. All are breeding grounds for clipboards and pick up lines like ‘Vote for me or hand over your firstborn’. Not today, Rumpelstiltskin, not today. Desperate times call for actions to match. Warning: not for the fainthearted.

The final scenario is for the ‘gatherers’ of our primal university community. The ‘flight’ and not ‘fight’. Tiptoe through the tulips whilst the martyrs mutate into mobile fire hazards with a second skin made entirely of paper slips. Take a mini holiday.

Get a mani-pedi. Wrap yourself up burrito style in your doona and watch anything except lectures.

Ignore the thousands of spam posts about how shit elections are on Overheard. And laugh because you’re at home. And the only person knocking on your door to hound you is the crazy lady next door who irons her trousers down the middle and wears a Bluetooth headset for suspected alien contact.

Oh wait. That’s just me.

1.

In high school I knew a boy who built a lifesize Dalek from scratch. He even fitted it out with wheels, voice scrambler, and squirty water thing y from the toilet plunging bit on the front. (Dr W ho fangirl level = negative, soz bout that.) It was vaguely entertaining at school fairs, but undeniably had no practical benefit. Until now. What better way to dissuade your potential representatives from targeting you than by rolling in, sweet, sweet Dalek style, lining up your assailant with the plunger and saying ‘exter minate’? If they laugh, squirt them with a decent amount of water and roll away.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL. If worse comes to worst, I’ll meet you at Bunnings with a pitchfork and my apocalypse helmet.

2.

If you’re in a class, pretend to be asleep.

Seriously asleep. Practise the art of realistic snoring in your spare time, and add in some apnoea pauses and the occasional whole body twitch. Ignore the clipboard jabs; they too shall pass.

3.

In ter ms of social inappropriateness/ weirdness, my grandpa scales somewhere between Mark Holden Clown Dance – Nick Kyrgios Douche Rant. When introduced to strangers, he will deliberately speak a language of his own devising in an effort to appear quick-witted. Whilst this usually results in my own personal embarrassment, I would almost encourage the adoption of this tactic purely for the reaction it produces.

A real language could be effective for the less creatively tongued; however, you run the risk of the campaigner speaking it and still being able to rope you in, but now in a way reminiscent of a relentless hag gler on a scummy back street of Rome. We want linguistic, not linguine. Bonus points for adding some Xhosa-esque tongue clicks in to your new dialect.

4.

Starfish away.

5.

Give the campaigner a pamphlet of your own devising. Defecation not recommended.

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ELECTION

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FLASHBACK

Taken from On Dit 44.14 (1976).

Image c ourtesy of the University of Adelaide Archives. www.facebook.com/onditmagazine 27

EXCUSE ME SIR, YOUR DEMOCRACY EXCLUDES MY MINORITY.

GIVE ME THE VOTE! THE FIGHT FOR VOTES FOR WOMEN AND ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS Author: Brydie Kosmina

Given that democratic gover nment is built “of the people, by the people, for the people,” it’s only recently that large portions of the population were allowed to participate.

Historically, most democracies have been ruled by an enfranchised elite class of rich, property-owning, aristocratic men. The 19th and 20th centuries saw global movements to widen the franchise.

New Zealand, ever the slightly cooler and more progressive little brother to Australia, gave women the right to vote in 1893, becoming the first nation in the world to do so. Over in Australia, Victoria had accidentally let women vote in 1863 when they gave all ratepayers the vote, without realising that women are people who pay taxes too. They realised they dun goof ’d when some smart women turned up at the ballot box for the next state election and rescinded it in 1985 – A+ work all round. That year, though, SA stepped up and gave women the right to vote and the right to stand for election.

Indigenous women in SA were included in the legislation, but, like Aboriginal men before them, weren’t exactly encouraged to participate.

1901 rolled around and Australia became Australia.

Somewhat problematic, however, was the uneven scattering of female enfranchisement across the country. SA (heaps good m8) and WA (fairly good) had given women the vote, but what about 28 On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

everyone else? The tide was slowly but surely turning towards universal female enfranchisement, but not quite yet. 1902 saw the Commonwealth Franchise Act, and (white) women across Australia could now vote in federally. NSW, Tassie, QLD and Victoria eventually followed suit. Victoria was the last state to allow women to stand for office, in 1924. WA’s Edith Cowan became the first woman elected into parliament in Australia, as MP for West Perth in 1921. She now graces our $50 notes – one of the many reasons I love having them in my wallet. Federally, 1943 was the year for women, with Dame Enid Lyons and Senator Dorothy Tangney both elected, becoming the first women in federal office.

Despite all this, it wasn’t until 2009 that Australia saw the first woman elected to lead a state or territory (Anna Bligh in QLD). And, as I’m sure we’re all aware, Julia Gillard was our first female PM (by the way, Julia – we went to the same high school, are both rangas, and are on the left – call me, we can knit together). And, thanks to all of these pioneering women, as Ms. Gillard famously said, “it will be easier for the next woman and the woman after that. And I’m proud of that.”

You may have noticed that the universal female vote, however, is really the universal white female vote. That’s because, as I’m sure you know by now, or damn well should know by now, the treatment

of the Indigenous Australians by our government hasn’t been too flash. Before white people arrived to colonise our wonderful sunburnt land, Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islanders weren’t governed by a parliament, but by ancestral traditions. I am not indigenous and I cannot speak for the Aboriginal experience, but I think it’s fairly well-documented how appallingly badly white settlement went for Indigenous Australians.

In the 1850s, many colonies simply declared that all men above the age of 21 could vote, technically giving Indigenous men the vote. In practice, it was another matter, as many Aboriginal men either weren’t infor med of their rights, or were actively discouraged from enrolling. QLD and WA passed laws that explicitly banned Indigenous peoples from voting in 1885 and 1893 respectively. SA’s 1895 widening of the franchise to all adults, however, gave both Indigenous men and women the vote, and it wasn’t universally discouraged. At Point McLeay here in SA, there’s ample evidence of Indigenous men and women voting in state and federal elections. SA still held jurisdiction over the NT at this point, so Aboriginal voting was legal right down the middle of the country.

Federation rolled around, and again, enfranchisement discrepancies cropped up and threatened the whole system. Section 41 of the Constitution allows anyone who votes in state elections to vote federally; if Aboriginal peoples could vote in some states and not others, how would this work federally? The government decided that only the (very few) Aboriginal people already enrolled in state voting at the time of Federation could vote federally, and everyone else misses out.

And having effectively stripped most Indigenous peoples of their democratic rights, they went ahead and did a lot of other terrible things that could, and have, filled hundreds of pages.

In 1949, they reversed this terrible decision, and declared that everyone who could vote in state elections could vote federally as well, which meant that just WA and QLD, where laws were still excluding Aboriginal peoples from the state vote, were lag ging behind. In the Northern Territory, all Indigenous people were deemed ‘wards of the state’, and hence banned from voting as well.

In 1962, following pressure from civil rights movements both here and abroad, Sir Robert Menzies amended the Commonwealth Amendment Act and gave all Indigenous people the right to vote federally. NT and WA extended the franchise in 1962, QLD finally got their shit together in 1965, and Indigenous Australians could vote in state and

federal elections across Australia by the mid-60s.

Women’s rights movements seem to be a breeding ground for total badasses, and the Aussie suffragettes were no exception. Vida Goldstein (whose birthday is one day after mine, just saying) was a passionate, amazing suffragette who stood for parliament five times and valiantly lost every time, pouring her energ y into women’s education and political organisation, and the pacifist movement during the Wars. Edith Cowan, mentioned earlier, was a total HBIC. Indigenous badasses are just as prominent; Neville Bonner was the first Aboriginal person elected to office in Australia in 1971, and in QLD, of all places – 7 years earlier he wouldn’t have been able to cast a vote himself, let alone stand. Nova Peris is arguably the most recognisable Indigenous MP currently in office, infamously pre-selected by Gillard a few years ago. We still haven’t seen an Indigenous premier or PM – one day, hopefully very soon.

But what about the 1967 referendum, I hear you cry?

Contrary to popular belief, the 1967 Constitutional Referendum didn’t give Indigenous people the vote – it counted them in the Census, and let the government make special laws for their benefit.

The Census may seem like a slightly irritating for m you fill in every 5 years, but it’s more important than that (and yes, it’s hilarious when you put Jedi as your religion, no one’s ever done that before and you’re very original). Electoral seats are decided by the Census; funding allocation to the states is decided by the Census; many of my history essays have been decided by how much I can glean from Census data. Including Indigenous Australians in the Census meant that we actually saw them as people for the first time since Federation. It was a crucial step forward, both for Aboriginal peoples’ rights, and for Australia as a country.

While there’s still a long way to go for gender equality and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights, our removal of impediments to political equality and participation were important and long-awaited steps in the right direction.

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THE BLACKLIST Author: Matthew Tamlin Artis t: Emil y Hart

The Blacklist Brunelli’s Cafeé – Rundle Street

Fo u r y ears ag o befo my r e c re I m e n t ly - e x et no con par tner cept of , f in e d in I h a d been to in g. I ’d m a ny r I ’d n e v e e r t a ke s t a u r a n t s , b u t n the a p p r e c ia t im e t te qua o li t y f o s e r v ic e . od an I ’d li k e d had a po t o t h in k s it I ’m b e in iv e e f f e c t o n m m y e x e , b u t if g hones t h e ju m e in t o st tur ne a restau d rant sno on the b. B a s e d sta in A d e la t e o f s o m e r e sta id t h in k in g e , y o u ’d b e e x c u r a n t s u q s c a n ’t b e u a li t y f o o d a n d e d f o r p r o v id e d s e r v ic e p r ic e . T at an af oo ofte f o r d a b le n b u t if y o u lo o k t h is s e e m s t r u e , hard en a r e p le ough th nty of ere restaura g o in g t o n t s wo r . What th f o ll o w s my f avo is a li s t u r it e a f f o f o r d a b le r in A d e la estauran id e , a s t s w restaura n t s t o a v e ll a s a li s t o f o id .

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I can say with absolute certainty that Brunelli’s Café is my least favourite restaurant in existence. The tables at Brunelli’s are arranged seemingly with the intention of cramming as many people into the space as possible; the only way they could fit more people would be by forcing diners to stand. It’s virtually impossible to avoid knocking over a glass of wine as you try to squeeze past the tables to get to your seat. You can enjoy doing this multiple times, as the restaurant doesn’t offer table ser vice, instead requiring you to order at a counter. The staff, while unfriendly, are happy to accept ridiculous amounts of money for their overpriced meals. When your meal finally arrives at your table, don’t be surprised if it looks (and tastes) like a McDonald’s Happy Meal. The staff seem to be oblivious to the concept of presentation, as demonstrated by their tendency to ser ve sauce in small plastic bags (those that you tear open). If, for some reason, you’re still interested in Brunelli’s Café, I wish you the best of luck and may God have mercy on your soul.

Chefs of Tandoori Express – Renaissance Arcade When I bought butter chicken from this restaurant earlier in 2015, what could have been an enjoyable experience was ruined by a surprise allergic reaction. Despite the assurance of the staff that their butter chicken was free of cashew nuts, I ended up being violently ill in a bathroom for the next two hours. When I was finally well enough to return to the store, they refused my request for a refund and insisted that I was told about the cashew nuts. Why anyone would order food they know they’re allergic to escapes me. What followed was an argument about professional responsibility, negligence, and bad communication skills (with a considerable amount of swearing). Though I never received a refund, the store owner did eventually offer me a free meal. I’ve not cashed it in yet because I’m saving it for a special occasion; perhaps I’ll take my friends out to celebrate Hell freezing over.

The Whitelist British India – Morphett Street There are no words to properly describe how enjoyable the dining experience is at British India. The atmosphere creates a sense of sophistication and professionalism without coming off as pretentious; the same can be said for the staff. The majority of the main plates can be purchased for less than $20, and the entrees for less than $15. The food itself is to die for, in presentation, taste, and quantity. Though it has amazing food, British India’s true strength is in its quality ser vice. I am often ser ved by a woman who is able to take orders for tables of over 10 people entirely by memory. In addition to this, she is always able to tell me exactly which items contain particular allergens without needing to consult with the chef. Meals are always ser ved on time, and ser vice doesn’t end when your food is delivered.

The staff regularly attend to your needs to ensure your dining experience won’t be bested by any other restaurant. I’ve not been to a restaurant that couldn’t learn something from British India.

Amalfi’s Pizzeria Ristorante – Frome Street Forget everything you think you know about pizza; unless you’ve been to Italy you’ve probably never had the kind of pizza they ser ve at Amalfi’s. It takes only five minutes to walk to Amalfi’s from the university, which makes it the ideal place to go with friends after class or for lunch. A $30 large pizza is enough for approximately two to three people, so whilst it seems expensive at first, the cost divided amongst friends is quite affordable. While Amalfi’s nor mally has good ser vice, I’d advise caution; last time I ate there I was charged nearly $10 for a bottle of sparkling water when I asked for table water. All in all, Amalfi’s is still heads above the competition.

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A SWEDISH Author: Sophie Kitchen

Photography: Sophie Kitchen As a child I used to visit my grandad's house in a tiny Swedish village surrounded by forests and for years I had dreamed of going back. The picture stuck with me, and last semester I finally revisited the land of meatballs through my university exchange to Gothenburg. It was an unforgettable experience, filled with new friends, snow, and hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of Swedish Semla buns.

Now, when someone mentions Sweden I don't only think of its beautiful landscape and its iconic love for meatballs. I remember my excitement for three course lunches costing less than $15, mornings spent racing to the bakery for a Semla bun, dreaded Swedish lessons that actually helped me a lot more than I care to admit, and, most of all, my Swedish flatmates who took me in as a friend instantaneously and taught me everything there is to know about Swedish life. I had a different experience to those who lived in the student dor ms.

By living with Swedish people I gained a better sense of the country and its culture than I might have done living with the other international students. Gothenburg is an old port city and during the winter it could appear quite bleak. However, its vicinity to Copenhagen and Oslo meant that travelling was a regular opportunity. During the spring however, Gothenburg transfor med. Its surrounding forests became lush and the city itself seemed completely different when bathed in the spring sunlight.

The most amazing experience whilst on exchange was a university-organised trip to Lapland and Abisko in the north of Sweden. Amidst the torturous 24-hour bus rides, we saw the breathtakingly beautiful Northern Lights and visited a hotel made entirely of ice. But neither of those could top the dog-sled ride in Kiruna. There was something so magical about rug ging up in fur jackets and racing our way over the snow covered hills led by eight or so huskies who seemed to be having as much fun as we were. It was something I couldn't have experienced anywhere else and I wouldn't change it for anything.

Choosing to go on exchange as part of my university degree has made a huge difference to my degree and life experiences.

Travelling while studying is an amazing way to see a new part of the world and you're not losing any time at university whilst doing it. I gained a whole new sense of independence that can only be found when you immerse yourself in a new culture. I can't think of a better way to enhance your time at university.

Take my advice and go for it!

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EXCHANGE

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Ele ction Int ervention Author: Taylor Rundell Hi, student politicians.

How are you? It seems like we don’t talk as much as we used to. You mean a lot to us and pop up in a lot of important places. You’re our friends, our classmates… our pals. I remember when we were just in first year. We went to the Uni-Bar, and we sank a jug (or five). The couches weren’t very nice, but your company was. We could have a conversation that wasn’t about politics. Those were the days. It’s memories like this that keep you close to my heart.

But we need to talk.

Every year, it’s the same tired old lines. The weather starts improving, and we all dare to venture out of the library onto the sunny Barr Smith Lawn…and you’re already in our faces.

You promise us that you’ll double our printing quotas, end the Israel-Palestine conflict, and hire a hit on Christopher Pyne using our SSAF money. You tell us you need our help this one time. You e-mail us, text us, Facebook us, harass us in person. When we can’t bear to take it any more, we give you your hit. We take your “how to vote” card, we weep for the trees being killed, and we line up to put some numbers in boxes for you. You tell us it means the world.

Then you end up elected, and you give us nothing.

Sure, you run a barbecue or a concert every now and then. You tempt us with your “stress-less days” with adorable far m animals and “free tea” (invariably the most disgusting variety available in the super market). But you sure waste a lot of our time.

For all the noise you make, have you done anything for student welfare in the five years I’ve been at uni voting for you? The answer could only be ‘no’. At a time when the government is proposing to let our Vice Chancellor charge us literally as much as he likes for our degrees; when masses of students with no employability skills

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I suppose you make decisions about the real issues – like allocating money for biscuits, or praising people for winning Young Sociopath of the Year. and our esteemed university’s international rankings are in free-fall… you give us nothing.

You just run around “condemning” funding cuts and school closures in your meetings, like that makes a difference. It’ll be cold comfort when I’m paying off a $100,000 degree that, buried somewhere in the minutes, is a motion saying the SRC thought Christopher Pyne was being a naughty boy. I suppose you make decisions about the real issues – like allocating money for biscuits, or praising people for winning Young Sociopath of the Year.

What is it all for? I’ve thought about it to myself many times. It can’t be for student welfare, because I’ve never noticed something change for the better with your help. Leadership experience? Hell, if any self-respecting businessperson saw what was going on in your meetings, they’d only conclude that this is a line they don’t want to see on your resume.

The only conclusion left is that it’s a soapbox for you – the young partisans. Liberals, socialists, or modern-day Whitlamites – it doesn’t matter.

Decisions are made on ideological grounds, real negotiation across sides is rare, and there’s no evidence of any real productive outcomes despite the huge expense that the SRC and AUU incur to students.

Face it – you’re addicted to the student politics game. It’s destructive for everyone, including yourself. It’s time for an inter vention.

IT’S JUST NOT FOOTY Author: Patrick Swanson

I’ve been a football tragic for most of my life.

I’ve attended the vast majority of Crows home games for the last thirteen seasons. In that time, I’ve seen crows legends come and go, with the old guard of Mark Ricciuto, Andrew McLeod and Tyson Edwards making way for the new superstars like Tex Walker, Patrick Dangerfield and Ror y Sloane. In that time, I’ve also had pleasure of watching champions of the game from other clubs in the f lesh.

Players like Scott West, Gar y Ablett Jr, Chris Judd and Simon Black were so impressive to watch that a lot of the time it didn’t even matter that they were contributing to the continual disappointment that has come with being a Crows fan in the last fifteen years (four preliminar y finals and they’ve managed to lose them all).

Goodes an ape as he ran past her seat at the MCG, during the first match of Indigenous round.

But out of all the non-crows players that I loved to watch, I had one clear favourite. An athletic big-man from Sydney with top-notch skills and an uncanny ability to always be in the right place to find the footy, Adam Goodes was a dream to see on the footy field. But unfortunately, one of the modern champions of the game, dual Brownlow medallist Goodes has been treated disgustingly by crowds around the country and by the general public around Australia because he dares to speak out against racism. But it’s definitely not about race! It’s about poorly constructed arguments about him playing dirty, asking for free kicks, being bad at footy, pretending to be a politician, or whatever excuses people come up with not to listen to the country’s most prominent Aboriginal man talk about Aboriginal issues.

Another common argument about the justification of booing Goodes, is that he “plays for free kicks”.

So let’s have a look at some stats. In 2013 and 2014 Adam Goodes received 13 and 20 free kicks respectively, while Geelong captain Joel Selwood received 73 and 68 free kicks in the same seasons.

If Adam Goodes plays for free kicks, he must be the worst diver ever! He doesn’t even average one free kick a game, yet apparently it’s a reason to relentlessly abuse him.

In Indigenous Round 2013, the AFL was recognising the 20-year anniversary of Nicky Winmar famously lifting his guernsey to proudly display his skin to a hostile Collingwood crowd, who had relentlessly taunted him for his race.

Unfortunately, the commemoration of one of the most historic events in modern football played a back-seat to a nationwide racism debate when a 13 year old Collingwood supporter called Adam

Goodes’ press conference the next day gave fodder to one of the many arguments that people have trundled out to defend the non-stop abuse that Goodes has received from the public this year.

“Last night, racism had a face, and it was the face of a thirteen year old girl,” Goodes said, as the media and boofheads like Sam Newman (who has called several non-white people “monkey” on live television) and Andrew Bolt love to remind us time and time again. But somehow, these people conveniently switch off a thirteen-minute inter view after half a second. The second, seldomheard half of the full quote is “…But it’s not her fault, and she needs our support and we need to help educate her.”

The argument that the vitriol directed at Goodes has nothing to do with race simply does not hold water. Nobody else in the history of the game has ever been booed so thoroughly, and for seemingly no reason, yet people will tell you time and time again that it is just part of the game. “What about Stephen Milne?!” people will ask, he got booed by crowds every time he touched the ball, and he’s white, so there’s no way it could be racist. But that just presents an even sadder question. Does our society equate an accused rapist with an indigenous man doing an indigenous dance in an indigenous round? I certainly hope people will come to their senses sooner rather than later, and Adam Goodes will be remembered along with Michael Long and Nicky Winmar as champions of the game who stood up for their community. www.facebook.com/onditmagazine 35

Who Wants to be a

Trillionaire?

Author: Tom Cernev I was a kid when I found out that Andy Thomas was from Adelaide and ever since I’ve wanted to become an astronaut. I mean, who doesn’t? Not only do you get to travel in rockets and eat food in zero gravity, but you get to explore space! All floating m&ms aside, if we ever want to become a truly spacefaring species then we’re going to need to do a lot more space travel, which means we’re going to need a lot more resources. Whilst it’s not sustainable, there are still a lot of resources here on Earth, but I know we’re better than that – and one day we’ll have to be. Sadly, there are always people who say space travel is just too expensive, it’s not worth the money when we have everything we need right here on Earth and shouldn’t we be solving problems here first anyway? What if I told you that space could make you trillions of dollars?

Artis t: Matilda Bris tow So why would we ever want to do something as crazy as mine an asteroid? Well, all of our technolog y has one thing in common, a reliance on rare earth and platinum group metals. Their uses in everyday technolog y range from colour screens to the magnets in wind turbines to hard drives in computers. It’s amazing to think that I wrote this article and it was edited all thanks to rare earth metals – what would we do without them!

No one is quite sure when or if these elements will run out, but there is talk that some of them could disappear in the decades to come. But one thing is for certain, it’s becoming increasingly uneconomical to mine them on Earth as they can only be found in small quantities. Imagine if you were looking for gold, would you much rather find flakes or a huge nug get?

If you’re like me and economics just isn’t your thing, don’t worry. The effect of mining on the environment here on Earth is gut wrenching enough to make anyone want an alternative method for obtaining these elements. And no, we wouldn’t just be moving the mess to asteroids and into space – the level of engineering required means that we can’t afford to make a mess up there.

When talking about space exploration there’s one very good reason that’s often overlooked – resources. Infinite may not be the right word, but space is really BIG and that means there’s almost endless resources out there – more than we can even imagine, more than is worth fighting over.

Sure we won’t be going to Pandora to search for unobtanium and joining the local natives anytime soon, but there’s always near Earth asteroids that we could mine. I know it sounds crazy, but in fact there’s already companies pushing the frontier, even NASA is helping! Just imagine another gold rush, but this time in space.

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So we know why we would go about doing this, and surely by now you must want to become an asteroid miner? It’s everywhere in science fiction but what about in real life? I mean, it’s all well and good to talk about mining asteroids, but is anyone actually walking the walk? Well, there are two companies, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries.

It wasn’t until Planetary Resources was founded in 2009 that heads started to turn. People started to think that maybe, just maybe it might be possible.

And it’s not surprising when you look at who’s supporting them. Started by entrepreneurs Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis, their advisors include amongst others a for mer NASA astronaut, an MIT Professor, a retired Air Force General, I

think you get it –very successful people who know how to make a project succeed.

But motivated people are only half the equation.

When NASA pays Russia tens of millions of dollars for one astronaut to go to the International Space Station you’re going to need some serious money to get to an asteroid, let alone mine it! This is where investors are important, and Planetary Resources can boast some big names, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt from Google and Sir Richard Branson are just a few! Its a similar story for Deep Space Industries, they just haven’t revealed as much as Planetary Resources yet.

Motivated team: check. Investors with lots of money: check. What’s the next step? Finding an asteroid! Like any good miner we need to go prospecting. But we won’t need a map or a compass – a telescope in Earth’s orbit should do. Using the telescope, light from the asteroid can be analysed to deter mine if there are any materials of interest.

Planetary Resources identify three main types of asteroid: C-type, X-type, and S-type. C-type, these are the most common and have water, X-type are extremely dense and are composed of metals.

Finally, S-type are generally just rock and metal and are usually near-earth objects.

2015 Planetary Resources successfully launched a spacecraft from the International Space Station.

It’s on a 90 day mission to verify that all systems work before future spacecraft venture into the solar system to hunt for asteroids. Deep Space Industries are yet to unveil their plans for the future, and NASA? They’re set to launch a spacecraft on September 3 2016 that will travel to an asteroid to collect and analyse a 60g sample before returning. This mission alone is expected to cost around US$1 billion. That’s right, over US$1 billion for 60g of an asteroid – we have a long way to go!

So what’s the next step? As you can probably tell this is an evolving industry and we’re not expecting to actually start any mining in the immediate future. But don’t let that put you off, with the teams at Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries we’ll get there one day! Keep an ear out for Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries; they’re going to need a lot of good scientists and engineers to make this happen. And whilst it doesn’t look like I’ll become an astronaut just yet, I think I’d settle for being a trillionaire!

In ter ms of mining, the asteroids of big interest are the X-Type ones. A single 500m platinum rich asteroid contains more platinum group metals than have been mined in the history of humanity. That’s a lot of platinum group metals. Earlier this year, one of these asteroids flew past earth, I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but this one was worth over AU$6 trillion in precious metals. But don’t be too worried that we missed it; there are thousands more!

Asteroid mining is taking shape. These companies mean business and are deter mined to succeed.

Paving the way for future missions, on July 16

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Colouring for Mindfulness Author and Artist: Chris ty Anne Jones

I am not alone, I’m sure, in the association of colouring with childhood. Perhaps it’s because I wore away many a whimsical hour in my youth with my tiny fingers clasped around my favourite triangular Faber-Castell pencils. So many hours I spent, pigment poised upon the patterned page, whittling down the white until its previously bleached surface was perfectly full of colour. I’m an adult now. And since my childhood, I have grown up and grown away from coloured pencils.

As a (sometimes) serious, adulty person who works in a very serious, very mature, very adulty office supply store, I have recently noticed something truly baffling: business people are buying coloured pencils!

Over the last several months, I have seen a surge, no, a tidal wave, no … a tsunami the size of the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean multiplied 4.26 million times in adult colouring books. No social media outlet is without this flood. Type #colouring into Instagram and you’ll find (as of right this very millisecond) 258,891 posts, most of which show photographs of meticulously coloured pages, pictures of people colouring together, people colouring alone, people colouring on the go, people precariously placing mugs of vanilla soy salted caramel lattes next their colouring. And, as I have been told by more than one person, there are clubs! For mulated, official colouring clubs with club names and actual members and tea and biscuits and everything.

To the first lady I noticed, who was the perfect caricature of your average serious, tax paying, nononsense business person (coffee in hand, doused in perfume/cologne, shiny shoes, tired eyes), I asked the menial, ‘So are you just doing a bit of colouring in?’. I had (wrongly) assumed that she was buying the pencils for someone else. Perhaps as a gift. I had also (wrongly) assumed that she would laugh, say no, and assure me that they were for someone else. I was, however, interested. And bored. And wanted to make small talk as I scanned her items. (Yes, I’m that person. I’m sorry.)

She said ‘yes,’ much to my surprise, and smiled.

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was standing in front of me and she was buying something as unproductive and childlike and fun as coloured pencils!? ‘It’s called colouring for mindfulness,’ she continued, with deliberation as if confir ming the practicality of her venture. ‘It’s used to reduce stress.’

That was six months ago. Since then, there has been a veritable flood of popularity in adult colouring books, most of which propose to increase mindfulness and dispel everyday stress.

So why the rise?

Well, the idea of mindfulness (which the OED defines as: ‘A mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings…’) has been around for thousands of years, and draws mostly from Buddhist traditions.

The colouring aspect of this mediative practice, however, rose with the popularity of Johanna Basford’s bestselling book. Published in 2013, Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book has sold more than one million copies.

When Secret Garden was published, the market for alleviating stress though the act of colouring was considerably small; the book itself promised only enjoyment and fun (as opposed to stress release) within its pages. However, high income countries such as France, Korea, the UK, the US, and Australia have taken very quickly to the new fad; France alone sold 3.5 million copies of colouring books that fell into the ‘art therapy’ category in 2014.

The instant popularity of this colouring phenomenon has instigated a worldwide trend, with hundreds upon hundreds of illustrators, writers, and book publishers quickly capitalising.

Suddenly, into the market poured a sea of creative, self-help colouring books, each of them promising to dispel the famed health epidemic of the 21st century … no, not obesity. Stress.

But when was it that colouring stopped being about fun and started being about releasing stress? When was it that the activity became the antidote to a negative as opposed to a positive in and of itself ?

And why is it called ‘colouring for mindfulness’ and not, simply, ‘colouring’?

the practicality of it all, but their eyes lit up nonetheless. Their expressions were fog g y, concerned with other things while they stood waiting in the line, but when they reached the counter, they seemed to smile a little too hopefully when I handed them their excuse to be child-like.

I, myself, have always hated colouring with pencils.

As an artist and illustrator, my enjoyment has always been creating a thing from nothing – the colour was just a tedious, time-consuming finishing touch.

That I hated. With a passion. And still do. As soon as my impatient fingers grew out of Faber-Castell, they found acrylic paint, watercolour, pastels, digital painting, and all manner of other things that add both personality and pigment to my drawings without taking three and a half hours of clasping a pencil so tight I would spend the whole time mentally d e b a t i n g which would snap first: the coloured pencil or one of my fingers.

But that’s just me.

If I want to sit down in the evening, turn off all my devices and spend time doing something creative, I draw.

And I wonder, why is it that we as a culture now need a reason to colour?

However, the majority of people who have purchased these books are not like me – not predisposed to spending most of their spare time in art stores. There are, of course, always anomalies, but the flood of people buying these books are business people.

Stressed students who don’t have to time to create their own drawings from scratch. Mothers and fathers of young children. People who wouldn’t else have the time or the energ y to partake in creative ventures. Or, in some cases I’ve seen, people who seem too adulty and too serious to consider something as unproductive as colouring without intention or gain.

Just today, I ser ved over six people who talked about using their colouring pencils to draw for relaxation or reduction in stress. They emphasised

When we were kids, we just did. Just picked up the pencils, scribbled outside the lines and, for good measure, scribbled all over the table.

Gig gled as we chose our favourite colour, wondered why on earth they make white pigmented pencils, and enjoyed ourselves simply as we were. We were occupied.

And happy.

Stress was a ter m unknown and undefined.

The recent rise in popularity of ‘adult colouring books’ or ‘colouring for mindfulness’ has illustrated, to me at least, the innate desire of most people to do things for fun. To be silly and colour. For no reason.

To let bright hues and slowed breathing wash away the monotonous greys of the work day. I have, I might add, also noticed a recent correlation between customers purchasing coloured pencils and customers who beam with self-satisfaction when they make it to the counter.

Notice, of those 258,891 posts labelled #colouring, all of the faces that appear, appear happy.

Accidently rolling out of the covers in the middle of an Adelaidean winter’s night, we draw the war mth back into ourselves without waking. I wonder if this recent spike in popularity of colouring ‘for mindfulness’ is a way to draw back the war m nostalgia and sunny happiness of childhood while keeping the façade of adulthood.

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Colouring for Mindfulness Artis t: Chris ty Anne Jones

Think you were simply going to read about colouring in then walk away like an adult? Think again. Take out the pencils you’ve been hiding for the last decade and get colouring!

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BICYCLE Author: Max Wurm

Each morning on my throne I wonder what the world would be without the clinky clunk of gears, amazing.

Funny how the two wheels spin, with rapid squeezing, oh and squealing— not particularly appealing.

Monkey bars and pressured pipes and several coloured flashing lights are running all along the river.

In my throne I gently quiver as the Ford turns truly sharply (might I say, quite impolitely).

Gripping monkey bars so tightly, waiting for that wretched squealing— overcoming mind and spirit.

Even if for just a minute, I get a horrid sinking feeling— and wish I’d worn my fluoro jacket.

Tomorrow, I’ll get up and go to wipe my throne, it’s slightly yellow.

Crap, I didn’t even know— but while I’d tried to quickly flee I’d let out just a little wee.

Many many things to say so sharply to that crappy driver of the Ford who curtly scathed my little finger.

Kind of.

A shame about his bumper and all.

The window too, I would suppose.

I almost felt a shed of guilt as my bottom quickly rose upon the throne to quickly bolt— if nothing I can clearly quote: at least it was his bloody fault.

Funny how the two wheels spin.

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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

SOPHIA GEORGIADIS 2) She Holds the Galaxy on Her Back The expression “you’re in your own world” is generally associated with negative connations, but the fact remains, the majority do live in a world of their own. There is an infinite galaxy of thoughts and memories, adventures and feelings we hold within us. It’s what we do with our world that matters. Do we create chaos in cities that require peace? Or do we create a space of solace for others?

3) The Nature of Intimacy I guess we all have our own perception and views on love and intimacy and what that really is. For me the connection with another should be natural, beautiful in its own way and to some degree wild and untamed, like nature. But like all things, nature evolves and as does our idea of love, romance and intimacy. It just makes me wonder how much society and the media has had a hand in such evolutions?

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1) Fall of Vanity They say writing your name over and over again is a sign of a perfectionist and a narcissist. Traits of an artist I guess. But you can only build yourself up so much before you go crashing down. In the words of Ice Cube “you better check yo’ self, before you wreck yo’ self ”.

4) Children of Gaza – Where’s the Helping Hand?

The loss of innocence is a morbid theme, quickly thrown into a spotlight to shock the world when a national tragedy arises. However, it can be just as quickly swept under the carpet of the media. This is a drawing of an image that surfaced the Internet during the Gaza bombings, and stands as a symbol that should not be forgotten, no matter the time, place or tragedy. Children can lose their lives, but they can lose the purity of innocence. How much more do they have to suffer before the helping hand comes?

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Only Lovers Left Alive (2013, Recorded Picture Company) Author: Lachlan Hunt

Cool is always a dangerous adjective – the moment you call something cool, it isn’t anymore. As an Indie film director deeply familiar with this selfdefeating principal, Jim Jar musch’s latest film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) is an ingeniously conceptual film with a rather cool approach to the position the modern artist, breaking down the hipster dominated mentality we all associate them with.

Jar musch’s narratives have traditionally been black humoured character explorations. This time he’s focused on breathing new life into Bram Stoker’s theory of the blood dependant recluse through his own vampiric original lovers – Adam and Eve (Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton). Adam’s a devoted musician, fiercely protective of his work that has gradually turned from classical to a new wave grunge sound. Eve, on the other hand, has taken much better care of herself during their parting; her insatiable passion for literature has given her a sur vivor’s courage and optimism.

Swinton is a perfect casting choice to be Adam’s rock, providing the war m kindness that for ms the beauty of the pair’s coupling. While Adam faces the dark truths of his life, Eve insists he looks outward from himself to the wider beauty of the world.

So much of Only Lovers is in the soundtrack, which is a deep emotional reflection of Adam’s grunge obsession. Being the Indie rockstar he is, Jar musch wrote the soundtrack through a collaboration with legendary Dutch lute player Jozef van Wissem and his own band SQÜRL. With Detroit dominating most of the film’s setting, the slow, slinky groans of guitar feedback define the emotional shadows which Adam and Eve drift through. It’s a perfect merging of visual imagery and personally written musical expression that echoes right through the film.

Most people would probably describe Adam and Eve as, essentially, hipsters; they reject the present and crave the long forgotten possibilities of past geniuses. Adam’s disappointment at man’s pollution of the Earth and the dominance of 44 On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

capitalist consumerism is obviously not a symptom reser ved only for vampires. It’s the same rationale both classic and contemporary artists wrestle with in the creation of their craft – how can my art change anything? Is it even original? Adam and Eve have no say in their society; hence they turn their gaze to the wonders of the past, or in Adam’s case, inward to a growing hopelessness. With these fundamental questions in place, Jar musch uses Only Lovers to hold a mirror to the artistic endeavours in the 21st century, and much of his music reflects his own self-deprecating dissatisfaction in his creative construction. Having said this, Jar musch is incredibly well versed in culture, as his dialogue skims across so many small flecks of infor mation from the past that it feels like an arty Easter eg g hunt. He continues his emphasis on cross-cultural appreciation in his cinematic style here too; the lovers’ blood drinking ritual is a blurred, slowmotion head-tracking shot that tips the hat to cinematography of the acid tripping’60s.

Jar musch’s Only Lovers Left Alive smashes the stigma of hipster values. It fully expands society’s dependence on progress and sheds a tear for the ignored alternatives of the past. Jar musch continues his sly, cross-cultural exploration of in this slow-ride through 2000 years of human history. This is a film all art students should treat themselves to – an education from one of the daddies of independent cinema.

-thespectrumperspective

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Departure Songs - We Lost The Sea Author: Andrew Lang

MUSIC REVIEW

Departure Songs is the newest record from the Sydney post-rock sixpiece We Lost The Sea. Each of the album’s 5 songs take their inspiration from stories of selfsacrifice and human courage, as well as the death of their lead singer Chris Torpy. Having seen the band play support for This Will Destroy You earlier this year, I was already a little familiar with the songs, but hearing them in studio for m is an entirely different experience. Clocking in at a little under 80 minutes, the album is a gargantuan and lengthy effort, but well worth your time.

The album begins brilliantly with A Gallant Gentleman, a song inspired by the death of Lawrence Oates, a member of Robert Scott’s 1912 expedition to the South Pole. Recognising the hindrance he was upon his team due to his sickness, Oates walked out of his tent and into a blizzard to let the team continue. During its six minute stay the song builds slowly in intensity, before resolving in a crash of oppressive guitars and harsh drums. An unusual but welcome addition to the song is the girls’ choir, which gives the album an early highlight. The following two songs, Bogatyri (telling the story of three men who drained the exploded Chernobyl reactor) and The Last Dive Of David Shaw (a diver who perished retrieving the drowned body of another), are beautiful songs in their own right as well.

The final half hour of the album is dedicated to a single story, told in two parts - the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. It’s perhaps the closest

the band comes to emulating their inspirations; Godspeed You! Black Emperor in particular comes to mind. The song’s first part opens with a speech by William S. Burroughs on dreams, space travel, and the limits of the human body. It’s an unusual way to open, but is effective in setting up the song’s mood.

From there the track holds at a low intensity for a long time, eventually exploding into something far darker than you would first believe. Underpinning the end of the first part is audio from the disaster itself, providing an eerie reminder of a moment in history that many would rather forget.

The second half of the song provides a beautiful reminder of the journey this band has taken us on in the last hour, perfectly unifying everything that makes this album so great. The song is further backed by spoken word, this time in the for m of Reagan’s speech to the nation on the disaster, providing a perfect counterbalance to Burroughs’ speech in part one. The closing phrase of the pioneers having ‘touched the face of God’ provides a brilliant close to a magnificent album.

While some might view Departure Songs as being grim or grief-stricken, I see the songs in a different light. Each of the songs are testaments to human endeavour, and to putting others far above themselves. This is not an album of sorrow; it’s a celebration of humans in all of their strange and glorious for ms. This is a fantastic album out of the all-too-modest Australian post-rock scene, from a band who are doing great things with the genre.

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An Eyewitness Account of the Opening Week of the

Edinburgh Fringe 2015 Author: Toby Barnfield

The Edinburgh Fringe is where Christ, were he real, would send the philistines of the world to be punished for their sins. Whereas the largest arts festival in the southern hemisphere is largely concentrated between North Terrace and Grenfell Street, for the largest arts festival in both hemispheres, every medieval cobblestone of the city of Edinburgh is dedicated to the supernumerary musicians, thespians, comedians, dancers, and food-stall workers.

A surrealist painter might depict the spectacle of the opening as a pastiche of the following: a castle, a crowded cafe, a troubadour breathing fire next to people drinking coffee, the colour yellow (northern summer), a jazz trio busking, earplugs (symbol of bag pipes playing in the distance), a perpetually drunk person, a circus on a green meadow, a nice twenty-year-old woman from London carrying a sign for a play called Eg gs—and all of these lovely things enclosed finally within a glass dome like a snow globe except the small white floating things are not pretty snowflakes but rather swar ms of small A5-size flyers advertising the thousands of shows on offer.

A careful reader will have noticed in that carefullyconstructed and refreshingly poetical passage a certain veiled reference to a play called Eg gs; and an insightful reader would have interpreted this reference as an elegant metaphor for the excellent standard of the original, amateur, and student theatre productions partaking in the festival.

An amateur company, Monkfish Theatre, are putting on the slightly experimental Roughs (For Radio), a back-to-back perfor mance of two of Samuel Beckett’s radio plays for which the audience is blindfolded in a dim anteroom by expressionless

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stagehands with their mouths taped over before being led into the theatre to hear the show. The plays are weird and absurdist and unner ving but very funny, and the actors’ resonant, elocutionary voices, heavy breathing, and exag gerated footsteps are as thrilling as they are chilling to hear as they pass close by you unseen in the small room.

Runs until the 31st Fear No Colours, an extremely talented company of students from the University of Glasgow, are staging Phaedra’s Love by British playwright Sarah Kane, which could be described as a darkly-comic retelling of Seneca’s Phaedra in which a queen falls in love with her step-son, a prince. The actors play the physically-demanding and quite intense roles excellently, and provide for a compelling, amusing and unsettling fifty minutes.

Runs, also, until the 31st Eg gs, to use a culinary metaphor, is the golden yolk amid the white of the Fringe. An original play by Florence Keith-Roach of London, England, it is a char ming, bittersweet and very funny play about the fraught friendship between two young women working through the problems of womanhood, (in)fertility, and the various and general difficulties posed by life. Acted naturally and with apparent ease, written with wit and intelligence, and with extended scenes of retro disco dance moves, the production is whatever is the exact opposite of endometriosis. 5 Sir Walter Scott novels out of 5.

Runs also until the 31st

Confessions of a Law Student Author: Anonymous

It is a uni ver sity rite of pas sag e, the pea k of eac h fac ult y’s soc ial cal end ar, and for som e, the cau se of mu ch nee ded sto ma ch pum pin g – tha t thi s, the on e and on ly, uni ver sity pub cra wl. Th at’s rig ht, the ver y eve nt tha t bri ngs the old Da rwi nia n Sur viva l of the Fit test int o pla y, wit h tho se mo st vul ner abl e bei ng los t to $2 vod ka ras pb err y, and the ill fat e of the Lo ndo n Tav ern . Wh at’s an eve nin g out wit ho ut a vis it to the PJ O’B rie n ces spo ol any wa y? Yes , the se eve nts dis pla y som e of the bes t dec oru m the stu den t bo dy has to off er. In ligh t of wh at has bee n des cri bed as a ste llar per for ma nce thi s yea r, I’d like to con fes s. Yo u see , you don ’t rea lly kno w you r ow n cap aci ty unt il you ’re 15 dri nks in on a coc kta il of Co op ers and Co int rea u, and ma ke you r bes t att em pt at “se x eye s”. Wi th my fak e eye las h hal f wa y dow n my che ek, and eye s blo ods ho t wit h the res em bla nce of a firs t yea r ph ilo sop hy stu den t’s, wh at cou ld po ssi bly go wro ng?

No thi ng, unt il tha t gar lic bur rito fro m an ho ur ago dec ide s to ma ke a gra nd ent ran ce at the pre cis e mo me nt you att em pt to exe cut e a win k.

Ah , the tria ls and trib ula tio ns of twe nty -so me thi ng sex ual ity. Ala s, I ma nag ed to sur viv e wit h a few slu t dro ps, and a ful l run thr oug h of Fan cy – wh oev er sai d int oxi cat ion wa s a bar to enu nci atio n wa s wro ng. I’m sur e Mi ss Az ale a her sel f wo uld hav e pra ise d my eff ort s.

Bu t my bes t per for ma nce did n’t occ ur unt il the wa y ho me : aft er dir ect ing my cab dri ver to dri ve ove r Vic tor ia Squ are , and ush eri ng oth ers int o the ir ho use eve n tho ugh the y con trib ute d no thi ng to the far e (f* cke rs) , I ma nag ed to stu mb le ho me to bed . Th e nex t mo rni ng, I aw oke on a gar den ben ch, slig htl y mo ist fro m the rai n fal lin g on me , ho ldi ng a bo ttle of spr ay and wip e. No ne of thi s ma de sen se, esp eci ally con sid eri ng the re wa s som eon e she et cla dde d in my bed . It wa s the n wh en I rea lly dis cov ere d the pow er of out sou rce d cot ton shi rts and Ab sin the cha ser s. Bu t hey, it wa sn’ t all bad .

Bam , and the bae was gon e.

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CROSSWORD

By Masya Zabidi

AC R O S S

D OW N

2. Recently revamped Mall thanks to Renew Adelaide efforts (1 wd) 3. Caribbean country that recently reopened ties with the US (1 wd) 7. World-renowned architect had her 2020 Tokyo

Olympic designed stadium controversially scrapped (2 wds) 8. Australia’s youngest MP, _ _ _ _ _ Roy (1 wd) 10. Tony Abbott’s new initiative to combat ice and crystal meth, “Dob in a _ _ _ _ _ _” (1 wd) 13. Wealthy Italian family who recently purchased respected magazine, The Economist (1 wd) 17. First name of University of Adelaide’s first Vice- Chancellor (1 wd) 18. Newly for med conglomerate that includes Google (1 wd) 19. Tony Abbott prefers eating this vegetable raw (1 wd) 20. Big gest box office bomb ever, 47 _ _ _ _ _ (1 wd)

1. Frequent Greta Gerwig collaborator, Noah _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (1 wd) 4. Rugby cup contested between Australia and New Zealand (1 wd) 5. Benedict Cumberbatch’s latest onstage endeavour (1 wd) 6. Australian tennis sledger, Nick _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (1 wd) 9. Number of Krispy Kreme outlets in South Australia (1 wd) 11. “Australia’s Guantanamo”, _ _ _ _ _ Island (1 wd) 12. Delta Goodrem’s first number #1 single in eight years (1 wd) 14. Code used in WWII by Americans to defeat Japanese (1 wd) 15. For mer Parramatta NRL star who now plays for the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL, Jarryd _ _ _ _ _ (1 wd) 16. Donald Trump accused Meg yn Kelly of being on her _ _ _ _ _ _ during the Republican debate (1 wd)

48 On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

49 On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9

Harry Potter Quiz Night 50

Study for your O.W.L.S the right way On Dit Magazine Issue 83.9 9 September in the Great Hall (Bonython Hall) Tickets essential - auu.org.au/harrypotterquiz