Honi Soit - O-week 2012

FR

Your money.

Your University?

The mother of free speech: Christine Assange

What Spence wants: the Vice-Chancellor speaks out

Kanye’s filibuster: Honi goes to the Big Day Out

PROFILE

OPINION

CULTURE VULTURE

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Contents

This Week

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Spam

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A blast from Honi’s past, Terry Vaughan writes from the tea room of hate and legal action.

Campus News The campus smoking-ban, academics on the chopping board, and the return of Honileaks.

News Review Felix Donavan reports on the unending drama in Egypt.

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The Third Drawer

Joseph Istipharn presents a who’s who of campus characters and personalities.

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Taboo

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Profile

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Christopher Hitchens files his first report from heaven.

James O’Doherty talks to the mother of free speech, Christine Assange.

Money Changes Everything

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Op-Shop

Culture Vulture

Lana Del Rey, Big Day Out, Leonard Cohen, and the Altiverse. Ca-caw!

Tech & Online

Action-Reaction

The Back Page

Editor in Chief: James O’Doherty

Reporters: Gareth Austin, Adam Chalmers, Max Chalmers, Cindy Chong, Matthew Clarke, Michael Coutts, Felix Donovan, Kate Farrell, Joseph Istiphan, Victoria Lui, Sorcha McGee, Felicity Nelson, Nick Rowbotham, Hannah Ryan, Dan Zwi, Joseph Wang, Rob North, Tim Matthews Crossword: Ghoti

Cover: Word of Mouse - DeSales Feature Photography: Kade Denton Disclaimer:

Felicity Nelson is dazzled by 3D design and Michael Coutts recaps the summer’s sport.

Honi Soit is published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney, Level 1 Wentworth Building, City Road, University of Sydney, NSW, 2006. The SRC’s operation costs, space and administrative support are financed by the University of Sydney. The editors of Honi Soit and the SRC acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. Honi Soit is written, printed, and distributed on Aboriginal land. Honi Soit is printed under the auspices of the SRC’s directors of student publications: Rafi Alam, Peta Borella, Michael de Waal, Raihana Haidary, Jeremy Leith, Leo Nelson, Astha Rajvanshi and Max Schinter. All expressions are published on the basis that they are not to be regarded as the opinions of the SRC unless specifically stated. The Council accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any of the opinions or information contained within this newspaper, nor does it endorse any of the advertisements and insertions.

Honi’s Guide to what’s on FRI

THU

WED

Lecture Notes

Illustrations: Erin Rooney

Tech news, games and why theres some much interest in Pinterest

QRReader App is free for iPhone

Planner

SRC Pages

Comics and Cartoons: Bryant Apolonio

Do you like video games?

Let us know @honi_soit

Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence on the relationship between the University and the USU.

The Sandstone Report

Editors: James Alexander, Hannah Bruce, Bebe D’Souza, Paul Ellis, Jack Gow, Michael Koziol, Rosie Marks-Smith, Kira Spucys-Tahar, Richard Withers, Connie Ye

Adam Chalmers on the SSAF and the ongoing power struggle at Sydney University

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18 19 22 23

Campus Culture Dunk Tank 11am-3pm, Campus Cannon

Send In The Clowns - Campus Comedy 7pm, MacLaurin Hall, The Quad

The Band Finale 7pm, Manning Bar

FREE

ACCESS $15*+bf/Gen $20+bf

ACCESS $20*+bf/Gen $25+bf

The USU’s student board directors are getting wet. James Flynn is rumoured to drop at 1:30pm.

Feat. AXIS OF AWESOME / Tom Ballard / Michael Hing / Project 52 / Hosted by The Chaser’s Craig Reucassel A night of laughter with USYD’s finest comedic talent.

Uncaged Costume Party 7pm Manning ACCESS FREE/General $5

Let’s go party animals! Feat. DJ Tom Loud and Beat the System DJ’s, with free face painting and entry for ACCESS members.

O P i cukr

Art Month Sydney 1st – 25th March, various arty locations

Feat. THE GRATES / Swimwear / Cameras / Gold Fields The O-Week Band Finale! See what they did there? Get along for your Friday boogey.

Playground Weekender 2nd-4th March, Wisemans Ferry $119-$239+bf, incl. camping

300 artists, 200 events, 100 galleries. There’s a precinct party in Paddington, discussion about the intersection of art and design, and an edible storytelling tour!

The ‘boutique’ three-day music festival is featuring Boy and Bear, Seekae and Lanie Lane this year. The Village Green, a new focal point of the festival will satisfy all your culinary, wholistic, alcoholic and yogi needs. Om Shackalacka anyone?

SAT

SU N

N MO S TUE

Mardi Gras Parade

Art of the Brick 10am-6pm Town Hall

Sydney Law Distinguished Speakers: Professor Paul Marcus Mon, 6pm, New Law F10, FREE

7pm-10pm Oxford and Flinders Streets, Taylor Square, FREE Mardigrasland Party, Horden Pavillion, $136.60

It’s Kylie! The Queen of Pop is back to commemorate her 25th anniversary as a music icon, performing at the official afterparty at Mardigrasland. Her honorary float, K25, will feature over 200 skimpily-clad dancers. Find those bedazzled hot pants!

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honi soit

Conc $15/’Play & Build’ additional $10

One of CNN’s top 10 must-see global exhibitions in the world.

New York artist, Nathan Sawaya’s giant LEGO sculptures have reignited the love for the tiny plastic blocks worldwide.

Clean Up Australia Day 9am-12pm, FREE

Lend a hand to keep yo’ hood lookin’ good.

@honi_soit

Professor Paul Marcus will explore why the U.S. criminal justice system has some unusual features in comparison with other countries such as Australia. Get the low down on the N EGI so-called Miranda doctrine, the entrapment B S ! defence, and sentencing of convicted UREbe late kids T C ’t defendants. Registration essential. LE Don

*Get both tickets from the ACCESS tent for only $30!

Spam

Letters

Procedural pain in the arse Sorcha McGee, MECO III

Enrolment. Much like hair removal it’s a necessary, painful, painfully repetitive task. There are queues, administrative errors, ridiculous university policies and that bitchy administration assistant that rolls her eyes and potters about arrogantly with her name tag and collared shirt. I am that administration assistant.

not being cryptic - it’s passed. But you tell me that this one is not convenient for you - it’s passed. You explain why it is not convenient - it’s passed. But you tell me that you absolutely do not want this one - I don’t give a shit. The chances of me changing your timetable by nagging are equivalent to being served a hash brown when McDonald’s has changed to the lunch menu.

So I propose a joint initiative: you do everything I say and I will attempt to not disdainfully stare at the back of your head as you walk away. Here are my top five recommendations.

This is an attempt at some community awareness. We only make up a minority of the workforce but I’m sure some statistics somewhere prove that we account for a disproportionate amount of drink coaster shredders and alphabetical pantry sorters. These behaviours are not due to a naturally occurring gene; rather they have been brought about by both severe and ongoing exposure to stupidity.

1. Choose the subjects you actually wish to do.

For God’s sake, you’ve made it to uni, do you really need me to confirm with you that “Yes, if you’ve done everything on that page you can click next” and “In fact the number called student identification number is the one they mean when they write ‘student number’”. When I tell students that in fact the deadline for changing timetables has passed I’m honestly

To be fair I realise that everybody hates enrolment, but I hate everybody.

2. Don’t choose the subjects you don’t actually wish to do.

3. Actually read instructions.

4. Don’t imply that assistants are actually lying when they tell you we can’t do something.

5. Never use the word actually, it’s condescending.

Go We t ext ra wa n t t b a nt e h o n Wr i te o h e a r r? isoi i t 2 0 to u s t.

12 com @gma il . t we et @ o r hon i _s o it

Editorial W

elcome to the new University year – and it’s already been a big one. Julia Gillard has out-polled, out-counted, and out-lasted Kevin Rudd and remains the Prime Minister of Australia. Radiohead is coming to Australia. We still haven’t had a proper Summer.

Before we say goodbye to Rudd’s leadership ambitions for the second time, we want to say hello to you. If this is your first year at Sydney University, Honi Soit can be one of your most invaluable guides to your time here.

Honi is the weekly publication of the Sydney University Students Representative Council. With no editorial limits or commercial restrictions, it can be as biting, divisive, controversial and outrageous as you wish. This is your paper – content created by students, for students. We want you to get involved, so read on.

This week, we’re covering everything you need to know about vital changes at Sydney University. Administration has been axing hundreds of academic staff, and the Union is at threat from controversial SSAF funding models. We have an opinion piece from the Vice Chancellor stating his case. We’ve also set our focus further afield, to Canberra, where a political storm brewed, festered, and finally dissipated.

In our weekly interview section, Christine Assange opens up about the defense of her son and the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of information. In our Arts section, Honi goes to the Big Day Out. We’re also bringing you the latest campus news, rumours, and gossip. In our Third Drawer of general miscellany, we give you a guide to the different species around campus, and in Taboo we shed light into the practice of hitchhiking.

With the University facing such a formative time, it is more important than ever that you engage with your campus. We hope that to bring you an Honi Soit that keeps you abreast of the latest controversies, stirs debate, and highlights the depth and diversity of this great University.

This is a newspaper free of convention, free of corporate ownership, and free of charge. Our only political agenda is that of our writers: you.

To that end, we are looking for new contributors - particularly first-year students. See below for details.

To all those beginning, welcome to University; to all those continuing, welcome to Honi Soit for 2012.

James O’Doherty

FROM THE VAULT...

Issue 1, Feb 19, 1992 Nuts and hoodlums, criminals and saints.

Everyone must live exactly like private school prefects or else they are mentally nuts or criminals. No individual differences or beliefs will be tolerated or else punished by law.

Now I will outline exactly how you should have thought, acted and spoken all your life. Remember the law will deal with everyone that doesn’t follow exactly this credo.

At age 14 years, all aspirations to academic pursuits should be shelved. Everyone should be as uneducated and moronic as possible. That way they are intelligent. Once at age 14, the opposite sex should be pursued at all times but no sex before marriage.

Soon after you fail high school after being a strict prefect, you should get married and get a public service job as soon as possible. Everyone should be married or attached as if by handcuffs to a member of the boring opposite sex. Everyone over 21 years must have a lover but only of the opposite sex.

It’s compulsory. Never admit to not having an opposite sex lover.

Childbearing and rearing are the main aims of life. The job only gives you the MONEY to fulfil that aim. Always bore others about the kids and your child minding stories.

One must always aim to go on as many bus and boat tours as possible.

However only go to that fountain of all goodness, the United States or Britain, or some other respectable country. Never attempt to go to Thailand, Philippines, Red China (CHINA), Cuba or some bad place.

Photographer & #HoniPics contributor call out The best pics from twitter with Honi wants talented photographers, first year reporters & contributors. JOIN US!

#honipics. Chosen weekly.

Honi Soit is looking for talented student contributors for print and online.

We’re after artists, photographers, writers, comedians, cartoonists, and graphic designers.

Photographs will be considered for the cover or added to our online gallery and made available for download.

We’re also on the hunt for two firstyear reporters. Please send in 500 words on something that rocks your socks and your contact details. No HSC writing, please. Contact us at honisoit2012@gmail.com or tweet us @honi_soit #honipics

Remember it is only at the tea room or the pub that a person’s worth to the workplace is judged. Efforts at the real workplace are totally ignored.

@shortino29 OWeek on approach @ Main Quadrangle http://instagr.am/p/ HdfQzoER4I/ #honipics

Graphite

In politics always support the Liberals and the mighty god-like USA. Men can always wear suits but females can wear anything especially if their tits are big.

Be as narrow minded in your views and outlook at all times. Be suspicious of everyone at all times.

Remember you can always write into this newspaper and threaten legal action, with punishments and hate abounding from your self-centred small world. Hate is what life is all about.

If you don’t heed my words you’re a criminal or mentally insane. Legal action would be needed. Legal action and hate are essential to interpersonal relationships and life.

Yours in the tea room of hate and legal action, Terry Vaughan

facebook.com/honisoitsydney

honi soit

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News Review POLITICS

EDUCATION

Gillard survives but the doomsday clock ticks away

The review is in but the political will is Gonski

It was the spill that wasn’t. As this edition goes to print, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard has crushed her predecessor Kevin Rudd in a leadership ballot, 71 votes to 31.

Two years ago, the federal government commissioned a broad review of Australian education outcomes and funding to be written by University of New South Wales Chancellor and businessman David Gonski.

There is a sense that the Prime Minister is living on borrowed time, writes Michael Koziol

Gillard has now prevailed twice over the rejected Rudd, and by a bragging margin. The former leader has said he will not challenge again, opting instead to play the lamenting violinist on the Titanic.

Some believe Gillard will need to be tapped on the shoulder, probably late in the year, before Rudd is drafted, reluctantly, by a desperate caucus.

But nobody thinks the leadership talk will subside. The polls are too bad, the damage too structural, the tension too palpable for the status quo to remain.

Eventually the spectre of electoral annihilation will come too close and pride will have to be shelved.

There was a glimmer of hope for Labor in the Newspoll which accompanied Monday’s spill. The ALP increased its primary vote to 35 per cent, and its two-party preferred share to 47 per cent. That may have had something to do with Rudd being back in the picture.

The devastating news for Gillard came in the form of her personal approving rating, down six points to just

26 per cent. That is criminally low. She is saddled with the burdens of her knifewielding coup, her inextinguishable carbon tax lie, and now her unwillingness to step aside in favour of her popular predecessor.

She will survive for now, but not for long. It is fair, it seems, to let Gillard preside over the implementation of her carbon price, the policy which has more than any other turned her in to a martyr.

But perhaps the most obvious consequence of the past week has been to reveal the depth of animosity toward Rudd among his colleagues. He was dysfunctional, difficult, demeaning, a prima donna, and a tyrant, or so the story goes.

There goes a hated man. And it is unlikely, as they say, we will see the likes of him again.

Australia’s biggest review of education spending was overlooked by events in Canberra, writes Kate Farrell

Released last Tuesday, Gonski’s 286page Review of School Funding is set in the context of global competitiveness, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard identifying the improvement of Australian schools as critical for keeping pace with the rest of Asia’s educational standards.

The review’s findings, released last Tuesday, focus on the link between financial disadvantage and lower educational attainment in specific social groups. Chief among its ‘radical’ recommendations is a $5 billion investment in to state and independent schools, with increased funding for poor, disabled, ESL, Indigenous and rural students.

Compared to the 75 percent of high socio-economic background students who finished Year 12 in 2009, only 56 percent of ‘developmentally vulnerable’ students reached the same stage.

The review panel proposed a new system based on a ‘schools resources standard’ (SRS) under which the government would allocate a base rate of funding to each child, then direct

additional funds towards more vulnerable groups. Government schools would receive all of the SRS for each child whereas independent schools would receive a minimum 20-25 per cent of the base rate or more, subject to the parents’ capacity to pay.

Although the review was submitted to the Minister for Education late last year, the government has so far only produced a four page initial response that falls short of committing to the recommendations. Part of the reason is that implementing the new system would require an increase beyond the current 30 percent federal funding supplied to the states’ education budgets, in keeping with the recommendation that the Commonwealth assume greater responsibility for education.

Competing fiscal priorities, especially the commitment to a surplus, suggest most elements of Gonski’s report will not likely be instituted until 2014 at the earliest.

Your news stories, gossip, tip-offs, and opinion pieces are welcome at: honisoit2012@gmail.com Tweet us: @honi_soit

INTERNATIONAL SPOTLIGHT

Egypt’s Revolution, One Year On Felix Donovan experiences Mubarak’s legacy firsthand Driving south from Cairo’s deceptively modern airport, the chaos and poverty of Africa’s largest city is striking. The roads all have five cars per three unmarked lanes, all beeping at one another, all the time; children sit in the dirt and sand and litter that comprises the road’s edge, selling packets of tissues for 20 piastre (about 3c); derelict, smog-blackened buildings fill the skyline. The mythical Tahrir Square is, in fact, a large roundabout with some tents in the middle - home to the last vestiges of the revolution and some of Cairo’s homeless. When Mubarak was in power, my taxi driver told me, there may have been poverty but there wasn’t this degree of lawlessness. ‘I hate the revolution’, he said angrily.

The heady moments of February 11, 2011, the date of Mubarak’s ousting, when it seemed as though the whole of Cairo celebrated in Tahrir Square, are certainly over. The united front of the revolution has fractured. The liberals, who were certainly the most visible revolutionaries, have become disillusioned after dismal parliamentary elections results and a burgeoning mutual resentment with the Scaf, Egypt’s supposedly temporary military government.

There is a sense among this group that the revolution is unfinished. I spoke to a man whose brother had been murdered walking out of his house by a

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sniper, and he himself had been shot in the shoulder protesting in a street just off from Tahrir Square. He said that the subversive tactics, brutality, and the violent intolerance of dissent that characterised Mubarak’s iron hand were continuing under the Scaf. The ongoing imprisonments and police crackdowns on protestors, as well as plain-clothed policemen acting as provocateurs in otherwise peaceful protests, were proof, he argued, that ‘Mubarak is not out yet’.

Conversely, there are also those who, in midst of the post-revolutionary chaos and a crippled economy, feel emboldened to express their dislike for the revolution from the start. An Egyptian lawyer, in one of the most surprising admissions I heard, pulled from his wallet a mug shot of Mubarak and confessed to me that he ‘loved’ the old dictator.

For most, however, hope and happiness still reign. With good reason: although the process has not been as fast as many desired, the dismantling of Mubarak’s power structure that was built on crony capitalism and arbitrary brutality is occurring. In Luxor, the men who sail felucca boats for a living no longer have to pay the local policemen baksheesh money for protection. And even though they’ve seen profits falling precipitously as the tourism industry withers, the absence of fear and indig-

nity has won their support for the protestors of Tahrir Square. There is also trust in the incoming government of the Muslim Brotherhood, even among Egypt’s small elite, a group not always inclined to cast their ballot for an openly, strongly religious party. A lecturer at Cairo University who I happened to sit next to on one of Cairo’s microbuses insisted that the Brotherhood was not intent on imposing Shari’ah on society, but rather would govern as Turkey’s AKP Party does, focussing on economic growth and a reduced role for the military in political affairs. It would be a ‘responsible’ government, he assured me.

I’d like to agree with him, but one only has to look at the troubled history of newly minted democracies for reason to worry. While mature democracies are indeed more prone to peace and economic instability, the demands of populism and weak institutions have often led nascent democratic states towards war, financial instability and even collapse. Think of the former Yugoslavia under Milosevic, or Algeria in the early 1990s. With Egypt’s economy in free-fall, and no sign that foreign investors are going to stop running away from it, the Brotherhood government may be inclined to create distractions

@honi_soit @honisoit

Egyptians celebrated victory at Tahrir Square, but their future is still very much unknown

for a disaffected population. That will be when a woman without a headscarf may become an issue for parliament to debate, or relations with Israel take on a more decidedly adversarial tone.

In the end, what continues to unite Egyptians is nationalism. Be quite sure: that was what brought Cairo’s citizens to Tahrir Square and gave them the courage to confront Mubarak’s sadistic state. It’s also what motivated people to talk to me, urging me to believe that a better Egypt would emerge in the coming years. Nationalism, if it endures, may prove to be a bulwark against disaster in Egypt, as the excitement and promise of the revolution gives way to the reality of life in a still-corrupt and increasingly poor country that sits in the most unpredictable region in the world.

Op-Ed We must work together to improve student services A joint venture between the university and the union is required, writes Michael Spence

I

’m aware that towards the end of last year and in social media over the break, there has been a lot of discussion about the University’s negotiations with the University of Sydney Union (USU) about funding and the provision of retail and catering services on campus.

I want to correct some misunderstandings, to explain a little of the background, and to assure you that I consider student control of student organisations to be vitally important.

After the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism by the Federal Government in 2006, the student organisations could no longer charge all students compulsory membership fees. At many universities, this proved disastrous for students’ experience of campus life.

Fortunately, the University of Sydney was able to help out – in 2011, we provided about $9 million to fund all of our student organisations. But this, of course, was money that could otherwise have been used for teaching.

Back in 2006, the University looked for ways to provide the USU with revenue-generating opportunities so the organisation could, in time, become self-funding. In 2007, we entered into agreements which gave the USU financial support to maintain their food and beverage services, retail and childcare, in the hope that such funding would eventually be unnecessary. (Other food

and beverage locations such as Taste and Ralph’s are not covered by this agreement but managed either by the University or by the SUSF.) A year later the University also gave the USU the right to hire out approximately 250 venues on campus.

Though well-intentioned, this approach hasn’t really worked. We have been paying the USU’s electricity, telephone and IT bills, while being charged to hire our own venues. In successive surveys, you have told us that the food in Newtown and Glebe is cheaper and better, and that recreational spaces on campus aren’t as good as you’d expect.

It’s the University’s reputation that is impacted by these problems, rather than the USU’s. People assume we are responsible for the quality of something we don’t control.

This might give you a better understanding of why, when the current agreement was about to expire, the University proposed that a joint venture should be created to manage retail and catering. The University would control 51 per cent of the joint venture, and the USU 49 per cent. Under this proposal the University would give the USU funding for student activities, whether from the new Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) or some other source.

The USU board did not accept this proposal because they did not wish to lose control of the retail and catering

operations, believing this income stream to be important in ensuring the autonomy of the USU from the University. The existing agreement has now expired, and the University has ended negotiations. The door is open to re-commence negotiations if the USU wishes to change its position.

be spent. Out of that consultation, your top five most important services were:

I hope they do. Their concerns about autonomy are misplaced. Consider the examples of the SRC and SUPRA. While both are dependent on University subsidies to provide services, neither could in anyway be viewed as lacking independence or kowtowing to University administration, as I know only too well!

• Facilities.

Suggestions have also been circulating that, unless they reconsider their position, the USU will not receive funding from the SSAF monies. This is not true. But we are currently involved in a process to determine how that money should be spent.

It is important to understand that, both under the legislation and as a matter of ethical management, the University must consult with you about how you want your SSAF money spent, and we must be accountable for reporting on that spending. We take this role very seriously.

As soon as the government passed the SSAF legislation last year, the University asked students and the student organisations to prioritise how the fees should

• Orientation • Advocacy and information • Health, welfare, career support • Clubs and societies and other student-led activities; and In all, the University will receive about $10 million from SSAF. The main student organisations, including the SRC, have already received some of the SSAF funds to help them pay their bills, but the USU has told us they don’t need SSAF funds at present. All the student organisations, including the USU, have been invited to submit proposals for the use of SSAF money and a process is in place to manage that allocation.

Our main concern is that this funding is used to improve campus life through better services, amenities and spaces, and we hope to continue to offer the best possible student experience in partnership with all of the student organisations. Throughout all these complicated negotiations, it has been most encouraging that the University, the USU and the other student organisations have a strongly shared commitment to supporting your time at the University. I hope you enjoy 2012.

Michael Spence is the University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor.

Budget mismanagement does not justify money-grab Only a student-controlled organisation can make the right choices for student money, writes Tim Matthews

A

t best, the attempt by the University to seize control of the USU’s commercial operations can be viewed as a blatant money-grab in the context of near-negligent budgetary mismanagement. At worst, it can be seen as a continuation of a deliberate and unforgivable undervaluing of the student experience in financial decision-making.

Government lecture – but that isn’t the point.

The University of Sydney Union is by no means a soil on the University of Sydneys image, or a burden on its finances.

The USU hands money to clubs for bar tabs not because anybody believes it to be the most strictly prudent expenditure of those funds, but because it creates a better and more inclusive social environment on campus. At their core, these are student services, not commercial services.

Perhaps most frustrating in these negotiations is the lack of a clear case for change. The Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Derrick Armstrong, posit two arguments in their defence: that the USU suffers from poor financial management of its commercial operations, and that the quality of those services is sub-par.

To contend that the USU is negligent in its financial management of commercial outlets is to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of these services.

The question here has never been ‘who can make the most money?’.

I have no doubt that Dr Spence’s Sandstone Degree Factory Inc. could increase the profit margin of USU outlets.

If the price of jugs at Manning went up from $10 to $15, it sure wouldn’t stop me from being there rather than in my

The USU has always prioritised the experience of its members over its own commercial interests. It is not for want of checking its ledgers that the USU outlets at Mallett St (Nursing campus), the Conservatorium, Bosch, and Footbridge Station run at a loss.

Moreover, at no point has Dr Spence actually made a case as to how his financial management of these services will be better. It isn’t overly cynical to suppose that what he means by ‘poor financial management’ is ‘I would like to charge you more for a Manning Burger.’

Consider this – the budgetary problems currently facing our University are so dire that Dr Spence made the public and unpopular decision to cut up to 340 staff this year. It’s hardly a leap to suggest that in this context the University won’t be able to resist holding you by the ankles and shaking you at the Fisher Coffee Cart until you plug their budget black hole.

Without defending the dodgy USU sushi that we’ve all succumbed to from time to time, there are equally few reasons to believe Dr Spence’s claims about the quality of service at Union outlets.

The USU has made a concerted effort to fill all commercial vacancies in recent years through competitive tender – this has led to better food outlets and cafes such as Subway, Easyway and Parma.

This process will continue to improve the quality of such outlets. There is no reason to believe University-run food would appreciably increase in quality. An understanding of the student lifestyle is crucial to the delivery of relevant and successful commercial services. A student-controlled organisation is simply in a better position to reflect the interests of students in these judgements.

The USU is justified in fearing for its independence. It is only through financial autonomy that the Union’s members may continue to exercise ultimate discretion over its services and activities.

The situation of the SRC and SUPRA, who renegotiate a funding agreement with the University annually is hardly optimal. For instance, this year the SRC will enter O-Week not knowing the size of its budget allocation for 2012. The University of Sydney Union is, financially speaking, nearly ten times the

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size of the SRC and SUPRA combined.

Financial dependence upon the University of such kind would force the Union to annually negotiate over the continued existence of every club, of every event, of every service.

Finally, for a Vice-Chancellor so concerned with the reputational impact of the USU, Dr Spence shows a troubling lack of understanding about the way that students value these services on campus. Every time the University brags about its excellent orientation program, celebrates an outstanding cultural event, or claims a debating success for marketing purposes, they are enumerating the value of the University of Sydney Union to our university community. A $385 million research centre for fat kids excites next to nobody.

Almost every major international ranking system tells us that students coming to this University hoping for quality teaching and learning are set to be disappointed. The University of Sydney Union provides a campus community of which we should all be proud – and we shouldn’t let Dr Spence put his price on it.

Tim Matthews is the General Secretary of the Students Representative Council.

He is not an employee of the USU and does not represent its board, management, or staff.

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Op-Ed We must work together to improve student services A joint venture between the university and the union is required, writes Michael Spence

I

’m aware that towards the end of last year and in social media over the break, there has been a lot of discussion about the University’s negotiations with the University of Sydney Union (USU) about funding and the provision of retail and catering services on campus.

I want to correct some misunderstandings, to explain a little of the background, and to assure you that I consider student control of student organisations to be vitally important.

After the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism by the Federal Government in 2006, the student organisations could no longer charge all students compulsory membership fees. At many universities, this proved disastrous for students’ experience of campus life.

Fortunately, the University of Sydney was able to help out – in 2011, we provided about $9 million to fund all of our student organisations. But this, of course, was money that could otherwise have been used for teaching.

Back in 2006, the University looked for ways to provide the USU with revenue-generating opportunities so the organisation could, in time, become self-funding. In 2007, we entered into agreements which gave the USU financial support to maintain their food and beverage services, retail and childcare, in the hope that such funding would eventually be unnecessary. (Other food

and beverage locations such as Taste and Ralph’s are not covered by this agreement but managed either by the University or by the SUSF.) A year later the University also gave the USU the right to hire out approximately 250 venues on campus.

Though well-intentioned, this approach hasn’t really worked. We have been paying the USU’s electricity, telephone and IT bills, while being charged to hire our own venues. In successive surveys, you have told us that the food in Newtown and Glebe is cheaper and better, and that recreational spaces on campus aren’t as good as you’d expect.

It’s the University’s reputation that is impacted by these problems, rather than the USU’s. People assume we are responsible for the quality of something we don’t control.

This might give you a better understanding of why, when the current agreement was about to expire, the University proposed that a joint venture should be created to manage retail and catering. The University would control 51 per cent of the joint venture, and the USU 49 per cent. Under this proposal the University would give the USU funding for student activities, whether from the new Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) or some other source.

The USU board did not accept this proposal because they did not wish to lose control of the retail and catering

operations, believing this income stream to be important in ensuring the autonomy of the USU from the University. The existing agreement has now expired, and the University has ended negotiations. The door is open to re-commence negotiations if the USU wishes to change its position.

be spent. Out of that consultation, your top five most important services were:

I hope they do. Their concerns about autonomy are misplaced. Consider the examples of the SRC and SUPRA. While both are dependent on University subsidies to provide services, neither could in anyway be viewed as lacking independence or kowtowing to University administration, as I know only too well!

• Facilities.

Suggestions have also been circulating that, unless they reconsider their position, the USU will not receive funding from the SSAF monies. This is not true. But we are currently involved in a process to determine how that money should be spent.

It is important to understand that, both under the legislation and as a matter of ethical management, the University must consult with you about how you want your SSAF money spent, and we must be accountable for reporting on that spending. We take this role very seriously.

As soon as the government passed the SSAF legislation last year, the University asked students and the student organisations to prioritise how the fees should

• Orientation • Advocacy and information • Health, welfare, career support • Clubs and societies and other student-led activities; and In all, the University will receive about $10 million from SSAF. The main student organisations, including the SRC, have already received some of the SSAF funds to help them pay their bills, but the USU has told us they don’t need SSAF funds at present. All the student organisations, including the USU, have been invited to submit proposals for the use of SSAF money and a process is in place to manage that allocation.

Our main concern is that this funding is used to improve campus life through better services, amenities and spaces, and we hope to continue to offer the best possible student experience in partnership with all of the student organisations. Throughout all these complicated negotiations, it has been most encouraging that the University, the USU and the other student organisations have a strongly shared commitment to supporting your time at the University. I hope you enjoy 2012.

Michael Spence is the University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor.

Budget mismanagement does not justify money-grab Only a student-controlled organisation can make the right choices for student money, writes Tim Matthews

A

t best, the attempt by the University to seize control of the USU’s commercial operations can be viewed as a blatant money-grab in the context of near-negligent budgetary mismanagement. At worst, it can be seen as a continuation of a deliberate and unforgivable undervaluing of the student experience in financial decision-making.

Government lecture – but that isn’t the point.

The University of Sydney Union is by no means a soil on the University of Sydneys image, or a burden on its finances.

The USU hands money to clubs for bar tabs not because anybody believes it to be the most strictly prudent expenditure of those funds, but because it creates a better and more inclusive social environment on campus. At their core, these are student services, not commercial services.

Perhaps most frustrating in these negotiations is the lack of a clear case for change. The Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Derrick Armstrong, posit two arguments in their defence: that the USU suffers from poor financial management of its commercial operations, and that the quality of those services is sub-par.

To contend that the USU is negligent in its financial management of commercial outlets is to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of these services.

The question here has never been ‘who can make the most money?’.

I have no doubt that Dr Spence’s Sandstone Degree Factory Inc. could increase the profit margin of USU outlets.

If the price of jugs at Manning went up from $10 to $15, it sure wouldn’t stop me from being there rather than in my

The USU has always prioritised the experience of its members over its own commercial interests. It is not for want of checking its ledgers that the USU outlets at Mallett St (Nursing campus), the Conservatorium, Bosch, and Footbridge Station run at a loss.

Moreover, at no point has Dr Spence actually made a case as to how his financial management of these services will be better. It isn’t overly cynical to suppose that what he means by ‘poor financial management’ is ‘I would like to charge you more for a Manning Burger.’

Consider this – the budgetary problems currently facing our University are so dire that Dr Spence made the public and unpopular decision to cut up to 340 staff this year. It’s hardly a leap to suggest that in this context the University won’t be able to resist holding you by the ankles and shaking you at the Fisher Coffee Cart until you plug their budget black hole.

Without defending the dodgy USU sushi that we’ve all succumbed to from time to time, there are equally few reasons to believe Dr Spence’s claims about the quality of service at Union outlets.

The USU has made a concerted effort to fill all commercial vacancies in recent years through competitive tender – this has led to better food outlets and cafes such as Subway, Easyway and Parma.

This process will continue to improve the quality of such outlets. There is no reason to believe University-run food would appreciably increase in quality. An understanding of the student lifestyle is crucial to the delivery of relevant and successful commercial services. A student-controlled organisation is simply in a better position to reflect the interests of students in these judgements.

The USU is justified in fearing for its independence. It is only through financial autonomy that the Union’s members may continue to exercise ultimate discretion over its services and activities.

The situation of the SRC and SUPRA, who renegotiate a funding agreement with the University annually is hardly optimal. For instance, this year the SRC will enter O-Week not knowing the size of its budget allocation for 2012. The University of Sydney Union is, financially speaking, nearly ten times the

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size of the SRC and SUPRA combined.

Financial dependence upon the University of such kind would force the Union to annually negotiate over the continued existence of every club, of every event, of every service.

Finally, for a Vice-Chancellor so concerned with the reputational impact of the USU, Dr Spence shows a troubling lack of understanding about the way that students value these services on campus. Every time the University brags about its excellent orientation program, celebrates an outstanding cultural event, or claims a debating success for marketing purposes, they are enumerating the value of the University of Sydney Union to our university community. A $385 million research centre for fat kids excites next to nobody.

Almost every major international ranking system tells us that students coming to this University hoping for quality teaching and learning are set to be disappointed. The University of Sydney Union provides a campus community of which we should all be proud – and we shouldn’t let Dr Spence put his price on it.

Tim Matthews is the General Secretary of the Students Representative Council.

He is not an employee of the USU and does not represent its board, management, or staff.

honi soit

7

The Third Drawer Text by Joseph Istiphan Illustrations by Bryant Apolonio

Arts

Student

Science

The members of this species are all unique, individual, and completely indistinguishable from each other. They devote the majority of their time to subverting the dominant paradigm, a dangerous task that requires a high level of protective clothing; namely: skinny jeans, ironic t-shirts, Chuck Converse sneakers, and Buddy Holly glasses. They can often be spotted all over the sandstone half of the campus noting down their many profound thoughts in their moleskin diaries and growing ironic facial hair.

They also tend to be very slow moving as they are normally weighed down by elaborate photography equipment, Apple products, and Euro-pop haircuts. However, their turgid pace provides them with ample opportunity to see the world differently, find themselves, and opine on the human condition.

They generally nest in the cafes lining Glebe Point Road or King Street and many second hand shops and community markets in the inner west have reported nasty Arts Student infestations. Friend one on Facebook and you are likely to be subjected to a deluge of invites to poetry readings, one-man/ woman shows, and sonic immersion art installations.

Notable sub-variant: the Arts Student couple costumed in the style of a particular historical period such as the 50s or Stalinist Russia.

Law

Lanky and awkward, Science Students can be identified by their emaciated frames and long, greasy hair. Their days and nights are spent doing three things • gaming • reading/watching/debat-

ing science fiction • playing God

Not much is known about them but they are feared for their great knowledge and strange screams can often be heard emanating from the depths of their department.

During last year’s Verge Festival, a glitter-saturated art installation caused some damage to a piece of equipment in the Physics department. Shortly afterwards, the job prospects for Art students mysteriously evaporated*.

Ever since, the entire university has been at great pains to avoid incurring their wrath and regularly offer them huge grants in the hopes that they might one day lift the spell that has made it forever winter but never Christmas. *a kind of science magic

Engineering

Student The most distinctive aspect of the Law Student’s appearance is the Country Road tote bag that can commonly be found slung over its shoulder. Cutting this bag open will reveal a small tower of textbooks full of nonsense words like “mens rea”, “pari delicto”, and “defamation”.

honi soit

Student

In fact, it was only when Country Road expanded its product range to include pants and shirts a few years ago that Law Students stopped wandering around campus completely nude. But no Law Student outfit would be complete without boat shoes, a style of footwear adopted as a mark of pride in their nautical heritage.

Ye shall know the Engineering Student by its beard. The beard’s colour, size, and texture is associated with sexual maturity, climate, and testosterone production; generally, the darker and fuller the beard, the healthier the Engineering Student. It makes the Engineer appear wiser and more fearsome, aiding it in confrontations with its primary foe: bar management. This beard is normally accessorized with a plaid shirt, hard hat, and stein of beer.

In between debating competitions and organising speaker events hosted by Michael Kirby, the Law Student can often be seen sunning itself on the Law Lawns with a sandwich from Taste Baguette. The rest of its time is divided between writing clerkship applications and flicking through heavy books full of gibberish in the Lawbry.

The Engineering Student is based at the far end of the Darlington campus, marking its territory with kegs of beer in order to attract potential mates and ward off predators. The female of the species, however, can only be found in highly controlled environments where they are bred in captivity to ward off the threat of extinction.

USYD POKEDEX

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Student

@honi_soit

Taboo LIFEHACKER

HITCHENS IN HEAVEN

Hitchhiking

Each week in Life-Hacker, HONI SOIT takes a look at ways of living or “getting by” that don’t always get the best wrap in the mainstream media. Paul Ellis explores the art of thumbing it.

In his new blog from beyond the grave, Christopher Hitchens welcomes fallen diva Whitney Houston to heaven.

Well, this is embarrassing.

It doesn’t do to dwell on one’s own inaccuracies, so forgive me if I gloss over, a little, my decades of staunch anti-theism.

Let me simply say that I am humbled to be writing to you today from the fair shores of Heaven.

It is, despite the rigorously enforced bedtimes and chronic shortage of strong liquor, a rather fascinating place, populated by the bright stars of history, both worthy and questionable.

Ran in to Princess Di today. She’s still got some great legs on her, though all those cannoli seem to have plumped up the mid-section a tad. I told her it’s nothing a few enthusiastic rounds in the sack couldn’t burn off.

She’s a persistent little terror, I’ll award her that. Every week she asks God to smite Camilla Parker-Bowles. She reckons he’s warming to the idea, though that might be a figment borne of her uncontainable ego. God says he punished Camilla enough already with that face.

Diana gets around, for sure. Saw her getting cuddly with Richard Burton at the Cloud Nine bar last week. Don’t think they consummated the deal, however, because Liz Taylor walked in and tried to smash a vodka bottle over her head. I told Di I’d be a better shag anyway and, at the risk of sounding conceited, I think she agreed.

Most of the women who make it up here are worthy of a root or two, but I’m in no rush to put one in that Whitney Houston woman. She still looks a frightful mess: the hair is coarse and matted, the tits sway in the breeze and there’s a bit of an eczema situation happening around the face and neck.

Worst of all, she still tries to sing. I usually avoid Thursday night karaoke but thought the heavenly altitude may have improved her pipes somewhat. She sang ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ and, true though that sentiment may have been, none among the audience reciprocated.

I asked her if she still thought of her former husband, Bobby Brown; all she said was something incomprehensible, then broke out into ‘I Will Always Love You’. I inquired as to her opinion of Dolly Parton, the song’s author – she replied that they had never met, but that cloning was a wonderful scientific advancement.

Yet we did bond over our mutual detestation of Diane Sawyer. As we imbibed, we plotted the childish things we would do to her upon her ascension to this place. Could we feasibly replace her talcum powder with crack cocaine?

Or perhaps sedate her and pick apart her surgically-constructed face with a chopstick?

First things first, a little myth busting.

Hitchhiking is by and large acceptable in the eyes of the law. You can’t do it on motorways, where pedestrians are forbidden and vehicles are not allowed to stop. You’re also officially not allowed to hitch in Victoria or Queensland. However, common interpretation of the law is that it is okay in these places as long as you’re not in danger of getting hit by traffic. This is very different to the perceived blanket ban on the activity (or as enthusiasts call it, the art) of hitchhiking.

However, more important than whether it’s legal or not is whether it works.

In our experience, it does. In January this year we set ourselves the challenge of hitching from Horsham in rural Victoria to Adelaide. We had a group of three; two girls, one guy. We waited approximately two hours before a local Horsham man took us forty kilometers towards our destination, dropping us outside the small town of Dimboola.

After an hour’s wait, a family headed for Adelaide pulled up. They only had space for two. After some contemplation, we sent one with the family, not wanting to leave anyone on the road alone. In hindsight, this probably was an unneces-

sary precaution. The two of us left on the road then waited another hour or so before getting a lift with a young car enthusiast from Melbourne, headed to Adelaide to see his girlfriend. All in all the trip took about ten hours, just three hours longer than if we had jumped straight on a bus.

At no point during our trip did we feel particularly threatened. Sure, we only came across a handful of drivers, but those we did meet were all extremely nice, if a little confused by us. Compared to the state-subsidized bus service from Melbourne to Adelaide we didn’t save much money, but given that we had missed that bus, needed to get to Adelaide quickly, and were on an extremely tight budget, hitchhiking proved a great life-hack.

Note: Unless you’re travelling alone, truckies are not the useful service you might expect them to be. It is illegal to carry more than one passenger in the cab of a truck. Due to a general crack-down on truckie law-abidance, they’ve become real sticklers for the rules and are unlikely to budge.

Such are the unbecoming indulgences of the mind when it is left bored and unchallenged by earthly pursuits.

Somewhere between scotches twelve and thirteen she opened up to me about that final night at the Beverly Hilton, when she had placed herself in a bath tub intent on dreaming. She wishes she had really married Kevin Costner, though she is thankful her career did not tank as badly as his.

And so we parted ways after a toast to the greatest love of all, Johnnie Walker Black, and she sauntered off, her buttocks a trifle more voluptuous than I remember, her eyes a little less weary.

CH.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

No, fuck off.

THIRD WORLD PROBLEMS @AfricanPrInCeSs14: I’ve got AIDS. #thirdworldproblems

HORNI SOIT

It was a sunny O-Week morning and Robert was orientating himself in the week. “I have a feeling that it Wednesday,” he murmured aloud. “But maybe it’s Thursday?” However, this debate was of little consequence to the story. Robert suddenly caught sight of a dwarf riding a unicycle along a tightrope. “Circus Society!” he muttered. The whole talkingto-himself thing was getting weird, but it couldn’t be helped, as like most first years, he didn’t have any friends and was desperately lonely.

The CircusSoc stall was fronted by an

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honi soit

alluring female, clothed in little but a hula-hoop. “Come hither,” she beckoned.

“Would you like to join our society?

We meet at the Sunken Lawns.” Robert thought briefly, but pleasurably, about sinking into her loins. “I’ve got a lunch break on Wednesdays,” he said, probably a little too loud. It would have been more erotic if he’d gone back to the murmuring of previous paragraphs. What’s more, as an ignorant first-year n00b he didn’t know that CircusSoc trains on Mondays. “We’re not very flexible,” she replied, scratching her earlobe with her

big toe. The balls she was juggling made him think of a set of balls more familiar to him (his testicles), and as he imagined her tossing them through the air he winced in erotic pain, or painful eroticism. “That’s OK,” he said. “I can come any time you like.”

His crude double entendre was like a nuclear disaster that, unlike a nuclear disaster, only affected her (tiny) clothing. As it melted down off her body, he found that his new leather-bound USU diary wasn’t the only thing that was hard. His penis was too, because he had

@honi_soit

45 minutes ago

an erection. “I want you,” he ejaculated, a word which means both to exclaim and to jizz. In this context, it probably means the former but it should make you think (erotically) about the latter. He’d only wanted to fit in at university, but now he wanted to fit in her. As she was fit. Well fit.

Her kiss was passionate and hot, mainly because she was breathing fire.

Blind to the looks of disgust and horror from passers-by, they made wild, acrobatic love. He finished exultantly, and so did this week’s edition of Horni Soit.

Profile

“I’m just a normal mother” James O’Doherty speaks to the woman whose son changed the world.

folder of internetsubmissions in which people could leave classified documents exposing governmental misdeeds. Simple in execution, and startling in its impact. “If people know what’s going on, they can act to change it,” she says. “What Wikileaks has done for the world has given the world the facts. What they do with it is up to them.”

Christine Assange I

n the mind of Christine Assange, freedom activist and mother of Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, the revolution has already begun. Disillusioned activists are re-activating, citizens are becoming engaged, and real change is on its way.

The days of global political corruption, collusion and exploitation may be over sooner than we think. “It’s already happened,” she says, dryly.

Like many trends before it, Ms Assange’s revolution started in America.

People were frustrated with what their government was doing behind closed doors. “The US has turned into a rogue state in terms of freedom of speech,” Ms Assange says. Once the Land of the Free, the global superpower is involved in global corruption on a worryingly insidious scale, Ms Assange asserts. She points to cables that claim the American fraud runs deep: “They’re involved in many, many countries; in supporting dictatorships, rorting the country’s minerals, oil deposits, diamonds, and all the rest of it,” she says. “They’re also involved with starting wars with no good basis, and taking gain from that, and then the reconstructing rorting that comes with that. They’re propping up a number of countries, and engaging in collusion often in an illegal way.”

But it’s not just abroad; the political discontent has travelled to Australian shores. Ms Assange believes the problem, again, stems from America.

“The US has installed a puppet in Julia Gillard,” she says. “Millions and millions of people are now very angry that weren’t angry before.” People are angry

with our leaders, and they’re prepared to make a change.

Beneath all the talk of how to oust global political corruption, collusion and exploitation, though, Ms Assange is just worried for a son in trouble.

“Obviously I’m just a normal mother,” she says. A normal mother who spends her free time campaigning for freedom of speech and the release of her son from foreign custody for allegations which, in her words, are a “set-up.”

The overwhelming presence she exudes is one of stressful urgency – an urgency, perhaps, for people to listen to what she has to say. Or perhaps an urgency for those people to act once they have listened. It’s clear her son’s work has galvanised her activism; it appears to be all-consuming.

The work itself was ambitious, and deceptively simple. Wikileaks was founded six years ago, in 2006, it set out to enable information to pass freely from the third world to the first.

Once dictatorships are broken down, journalists and citizens can get real information out of their country. This was Julian Assange’s vision. “Julian wanted to do something good in the world,” Ms Assange explains. What followed was a poignant moment in the relationship between the mother and son. “We were sitting around the table one night,” Ms Assange remembers. “I said, Julian, what do you think will change it? He said, ‘I think only two things will change it – one, a huge catastrophe… to make people wake up, or something technological. And as it happened, that technological thing happened to be the Wikileaks Dropbox.”

Julian’s answer was an anonymous

For all Wikileaks’ facts of the Julian’s legal case, read Jennifer Robinson’s legal brief to Canberra: www.wlcentral.org/node/1418

When US embassy cables were submitted, exposing the extent of US corruption, the profile of the organisation exploded, and he found himself in deeper than anticipated. “I don’t think in his wildest dreams he ever expected to find something from America,” Christine Assange says.

These cables can be proven to have existed, Ms Assange says. Whether or not the subject matter are lies, though, is indiscernible. She points to an analogy of an unfaithful marriage.

“If you believe your spouse is having a relationship, and you can only feel

Photo: AFP/LEON NEAL going to get.”

“In their own self interests [the US and Australia], they need to take a step back. This is not going to stop.” We could see change as quickly as the next election cycle, Ms Assange says – if not from governments, from citizens.

For Ms Assange, the days of confidential caucus agreements and the individual pursuit of political power are over. Just this morning, Gillard has shown she has the political fortitude to survive confidential backroom dealings with the ‘faceless men’ of Australian politics. But according to Ms Assange, we can’t have true democracy until we are are informed of backroom machinations. “It’s our money, they are there to represent us, we need to know what they’re doing,” she says. When things happen, that’s when corruption breeds.

Wikileaks fosters a system where every phone call, every conversation, and every note passed over the back of the party room is subject to scrutiny.

“If people know what’s going on, they can act to change it,” she says. “What Wikileaks has done for the world has given the world the facts. What they do with it is up to them.”

it, then you find the love letters, you may be able to confront them and act upon it. In a similar way, people have the indication that things are not running according to how democracy is… but once Wikileaks gave people the documentation to prove it, things could actually change.”

This evidence, she says, indicates Gillard has been slowly shifting to the right, taking on “pro-Israeli and pro-US policies.” It’s this influence of Americanism in the highest ranks that points to a problem within the structure of our government. As Ms Assange explains, this isn’t a real democracy: “I’ve heard… that it’s very much a topdown operation within the ALP. Right down to the bottom people don’t really have a choice [with pre-selection of candidates]”.

Therein lies the basis of the Wikileaks truth revolution. The reason is simple enough – give people the facts they need, and they can defend their democracies for themselves.

What Ms Assange doesn’t leave room for, however, is the ideal of a Government working towards a sense of a greater good through means which, by virtue of their nature, must remain confidential. When faced with a prospect of backroom dealings and political promises resulting in a cohesive governance system, she rejected the premise: “I don’t think they are working towards the greater good,” she said.

These failings could mobilise citizens to create change, as soon as they wake up to the situation around them. Our government is just a pack of frightened ostriches, Ms Assange says: “They can stick their heads in the sand for as long as they like, but you know what happens when you stick your head in the sand… your bum’s in the air. Citizens are going to give them a swift kick in the behind.”

James O’Doherty is on Twitter: @jmodoh

It’s a revolution from the bottom; one that will bring change quicker than you might think. “The more they repress people, the angrier they are going to get,” Ms Assange says. “The more repression, the more revolutionary it’s

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11

Feature

O

n the face of it, John Howard won the battle. In 2006 his government successfully legislated to stop automatic membership of student unions, and to end the compulsory payment of those union fees. Despite opposing the change, a careful Australian Labor Party agreed not to reverse it.

Instead, having come to power in 2007, Kevin Rudd proposed a Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF), which would make students pay a mandatory (but deferrable) fee to fund non-academic services. Having passed the senate in October, this year universities will charge up to $263 per annum, indexed annually.

Does it mark a compromise solution, or a blast from the past?

The seventies and eighties were the golden age of student unionism. Most universities had their own union, which students were required to join through payment of membership fees. These unions would take care of student needs – running bars and cafes, lobbying for higher-quality education, providing legal aid or childcare services to students, and much, much more.

But Liberal governments, angry at the way student unions used membership fees to finance political campaigns against them, decided it was

unfair that all students were forced to pay expensive fees and join their union. For a brief time, Victorian and Western Australian State governments ran universities under voluntary student unionism (VSU), but both states repealed the legislation shortly afterwards.

tion in members – and membership fees – meant the unions had to run on a tiny fraction of their previous income. Most unions couldn’t handle the financial stress. One by one they shut down, were absorbed by their universities, or drastically reduced their services.

In 2005, the Howard government introduced national legislation for VSU. This stopped universities forcing students to join their student union and pay membership fees.

On the one hand, this gave students greater financial freedom. However it crippled student unions and campus culture. The sudden reduc-

A 2008 Department of Education report found that “VSU had resulted in a lessening of the vibrancy, diversity and, to some extent, the attractiveness of university life.” The then National Union of Students (NUS) president, Michael Nguyen, said VSU “led to a deterioration in quality and complaint review processes

Are you getting the most out of the new student services amenities fee? Adam Chalmers reports.

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www.honisoit.com

Feature for students”. Many were upset by Howard’s intrusion into student life, but his Labor opponents – traditionally, the biggest supporters of student unionism – promised not to repeal the legislation if they came to power.

But not everybody was happy with the compromise solution, the SSAF. The coalition and Australian Liberal Students Foundation (ALSF) cried foul, calling it a “return to the dark of days of compulsory unionism.” But while both compulsory unionism and SSAF involve a mandatory fee for student services, there are significant differences between the two.

• Clubs, societies and other studentlead activities Details of the university’s other SSAF expenditure have yet to be announced. SRC President Phoebe Drake has submitted a list of funding proposals to the university, including better orientation services for international students, a free breakfast bar, a student survival centre (which would give away free pens, calculators, notebooks, etc), and relocating the women’s room to make it wheelchair-accessible. She has also called for more student leadership positions to be paid. Positions like Queer Officer are currently unpaid and difficult to balance with other

intend to spend the SSAF money. UTS wants to expand their second-hand bookstore, childcare facilities and student legal centre. They are also starting the Bluebird Brekkie Bar, where the UTS Students’ Association will serve free daily breakfasts, and they will provide more funding for clubs, societies and student art projects.

The Australian National University is starting a brand new mental health support program for its students. This is a worthy project, given a 2010 ABC report found “mental illness among Australian university students is five times higher than in the general population”.

Before VSU, compulsory union fees went straight to student unions.

But while universities are required to consult student organisations about how the SSAF money should be spent, they have no obligation to pass any of it on to student unions, councils, or other organisations. Universities can choose to give student organisations some of money – if they want to. They could even subsidise union membership – if they want to. But no one is forced to join their student union or pay membership.

But how will our estimated $11 million in SSAF funding be spent?

University of Sydney administration has mostly stayed silent on their plans for the fee. In late October, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Derrick Armstrong emailed all students with a link to a survey listing each of the 19 areas universities are allowed to finance with the SSAF, and asked students to rate how urgently they thought each should be funded.

The survey was criticised by student leaders for being unclear and difficult to understand. “It literally took the words out of the legislation and put them into SurveyMonkey,” former University of Sydney SRC President, and current National Union of Students President, Donherra Walmsley, said. “Legislation isn’t designed to be understood by the average student, and what the various spending items actually are wasn’t very well explained in the survey.”

While the survey’s results were not made public, Professor Armstrong sent out a follow up email roughly a month later which outlined the University’s funding priorities.

In it, he wrote that the university’s priorities for SSAF spending were: • Orientation (accustoming new students to campus life) • Advocacy and information • Aiding student health, welfare and careers

The Student Services Amenities Fee money will fund more than just clubs and festivals. It also aims to provide important student services including affordable food on campus, adequate academic advocates, counselling services, childcare, free legal advice, and medical care.

The introduction of VSU meant many quality-of-life student services had their funding reduced or even cut. According to the 2008 Bradley Higher Education Review this led to higher numbers of students dropping out of their degrees.

Our own Vice-Chancellor, Dr Michael Spence echoed this sentiment, telling the Herald in 2011: “Without proper support for student services… students may have to drop out of university if they face significant upfront costs.”

“

No matter whether the University spends the money itself, or gives a cut of it to student organisations, there are strict guidelines on how it can be spent. The legislation states SSAF money must be spent on nonacademic services – things that make student life easier outside of the classroom, like “providing legal service to students” or “supporting an artistic activity by students”. Importantly, universities “must not allow fee revenue to be used to support political parties, or to support the election of a person to a government body”. This, in theory, will stop unions from spending student money on political activism, one of the factors leading to VSU in the first place.

students experience more than just life inside the classroom. “Uni is about making new friends, meeting new people and experiencing vibrant campus life,” Ms Walmsley said. “It’s critical that these services are wellfunded.”

Photo courtesy of The University of Sydney

“ While universities are required to consult

student organisations about how the SSAF money should be spent, they have no obligation to pass any of it on to student unions, councils, or other organisations.

employment, which could limit them to students who are already better off. These and many other funding proposals have been handed to the University, which is scheduled to announce its funding breakdown after the census date (March 31).

Those plans are being complicated by a strained relationship between the university and the University of Sydney Union (USU), after two years of negotiation and argument over who should control food and drinks services on campus.

In late 2010, the Deputy ViceChancellor proposed the USU allow its bars and cafes to be run by the University. The Union board rejected this offer and the university subsequently cut all funding to the Union, which is now operating in 2012 without any University money. ViceChancellor Michael Spence terminated the negotiation process in January.

In an email to students he wrote: “I doubt that further negotiations could produce anything of merit or value.”

The USU is still asking for a cut of SSAF money to fund its clubs and societies program. But it seems the University is trying to apply as much financial pressure to the USU as possible, in order to secure control of campus retail services. If this is so, SSA funding for the Union is unlikely. The University has also rejected a proposal to subsidise a free Union “Access” card for all students, in stark contrast to UNSW’s newly free ARC Union membership.

Most universities around Australia have announced how they

”

Many universities are passing their student unions a cut of SSAF money. UNSW has committed to give their student program, ARC, 50 per cent of the profits to subsidise the new $0 membership fee, and is consulting with ARC and the student population on how the remainder should be spent. The student union at the University of Western Australia will receive a whopping 70 per cent of the SSAF money.

For other unions this money is too little, too late. Macquarie University’s union fell due to financial pressure and mismanagement post-VSU. At universities with no union, University administration will manage student welfare and spending of the SSAF. In Victoria, Monash University is giving their students no extra funding from the SSAF, and in some cases is actually decreasing Union funding.

“It’s the only Group of Eight University we’ve chosen to condemn,” explained NUS President Donherra Walmsley. “They share a very hostile relationship with their Union.”

Aspects of the SSAF have been criticised by the NUS, which believes that if students are paying the fee, students should decide where the money goes. “We believe they should be run by democratically elected student negotiations so they’re servicing student needs best as possible,” Ms Walmsley said.

Most student organisations are excited at the idea of a new, SSAF-fuelled student experience.

Ms Walmsley believes it’s vital that

www.honisoit.com

While many students are excited about the possibilities the SSAF offers, others believe it will only reintroduce the problems of Compulsory Student Unionism. Theoretically, unions can’t use SSAF money for political causes, but according to John Shipp, President of the Australian Liberal Students Foundation: “you can drive a truck through the loopholes left in the protections against political expenditure”.

While government guidelines state “providers must not allow [SSAF] revenue to be used to support political parties”, former ALSF president Sasha Uher has said “there is nothing stopping this fee from going to political third party organisations such as unions or GetUp.” Other students disagree with SSAF on a more fundamental level.

Trisha Jha, an International Relations major at ANU, said: “the notion of a compulsory fee is outdated these days.”

While many students are financially secure enough to spend their spare time enjoying on-campus entertainment, others are too busy working jobs or raising children to take advantage of the services their $263 will be going towards.

“For a huge number of students uni is a part time thing, to study, and that’s all,” Ms Jha explained.

It appears a significant number of students agree with her - 24% of comments on the Sydney University SSAF survey said they disagreed with the introduction of a compulsory fee in the first place.

Luckily, the SSAF can be deferred under a HECS-like scheme called SA-HELP, making the fee far more equitable than compulsory student unionism. At universities like Macquarie, it is too late for the SSAF to help student unions. But regardless of where the money goes or how much student unions get, the SSAF should bring about exciting new possibilities for students in 2012 and beyond.

Adam Chalmers is on Twitter:

@adamchal

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Culture Vulture REVIEWS: FILM

REVIEWS: MUSIC

Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas

Any Questions for Ben?

Dan Zwi reconnects with a legend

Victoria Lui enjoys montages of Melbourne “AT LAST! AN AUSTRALIAN FILM THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU WANT TO CLAW YOUR EYES OUT WITH SALAD SPOONS”.

The highest-rated YouTube comment on the trailer for ‘Any Questions for Ben?’ encapsulated everything I felt about this film. While that probably says more about the state of Australian cinema than it does about the film itself, ‘Any Questions’ actually is a surprisingly enjoyable take on the romantic comedy.

Directed by Rob Sitch, the movie follows 27-year-old Ben (Josh Lawson), a successful strategic brand manager living in Melbourne. When he’s not busy attending wild brand launches or falling into bed with promo models, he’s enjoying rooftop drinks with his urbanite friends and planning exotic holidays.

His only problem is an inability to commit. An invitation to speak at his old high school’s careers fair and an encounter with old acquaintance, Alex (Rachel Taylor), forces him to look for meaning and purpose in his life.

sympathy for Ben, whose very existence reads like a first world problems meme, but Sitch somehow makes it work. Much of this can be credited to a snappy, genuinely funny script as well as a cast of affable characters. Lawson’s Ben is endearingly clueless, rather than annoying. Felicity Ward and Daniel Henshall are particularly good as Ben’s supportive friends.

The movie is also beautifully filmed, with great sweeping shots of Melbourne, though if there are any complaints to be had, it’s with the avaricious use of music and the hyperactive editing. Along with what seems like every Australian entry – ever – in the Triple J’s Hottest 100, Angus and Julia Stone’s ‘Big Jet Plane’ is used very literally in the denouement.

The film is also about a handful of rapid-fire cut scenes away from being an extended montage. When it’s not busy being a Tourism Victoria ad, ‘Any Questions for Ben’ is a humorous, affectionately Australian look at being young and confused. No eye gouging here.

It may seem hard to muster much

It’s a curious oversight by those who insist on characterising Leonard Cohen as a ladies’ man that he invariably casts himself as submissive towards the women he sings about. Recall the endless malleability promised in I’m Your Man (“If you want a lover, I’ll do anything you ask me to”) and his deference to the titular character in Suzanne, who “takes you down/ to her place by the river” and “feeds you tea and oranges”. For all his successes, romantic or otherwise, it’s Cohen’s fragility that time and again shines through.

Old Ideas, his new album, is no exception. In the opening track, ‘Going Home’, Cohen refers to himself as “a lazy bastard”; in ‘Show Me the Place’ he entreats his lover to tell him “[w]here you want your slave to go”. Self-deprecation endears us to his character, and his character is what makes the album so enjoyable despite one substantial drawback: its similarity to his previous work. All the old tricks are here: the female backing vocals permeate each song and actually take the foreground in the album’s prettiest track, ‘Come Healing’;

his voice is again recorded ultraclose to the microphone, allowing it to sink so low you need a subwoofer to fully appreciate it. We don’t mind this repetition because ultimately it’s his personality, and not his musical iconoclasm, that we’ve grown to love.

Some originality is, however, important, and there are songs on Old Ideas that tend dangerously towards pastiches of the genres they employ. ‘Amen’ is an archetypal polka track that recalls Tom Waits but lacks that artist’s mitigating weirdness. ‘Darkness’ is a similarly cookie-cut spaghetti-Western blues. But usually the songs are sweet, sad and well crafted. These are old ideas, but they come from somebody so darned charming that we receive them like old friends who haven’t changed in years, and are the better for it.

REVIEWS: GIGS

We Grew Here, You Flew Here (And Played Our Festival) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: it was the Sydney Big Day Out, write Jack Gow and James O’Doherty.

Every Australia Day a throng of boozed-up, thong-wearing, adolescent munters make their annual pilgrimage to Sydney Olympic Park for the Big Day Out (BDO).

The reputation of the BDO precedes it, and for good reason. Year in, year out, the festival manages to attract the highest concentration of the biggest names to tour Australian shores whilst also being in a horrible location, which seems to be exclusively populated by douchebags. So this year, we thought we’d check it out.

The day begins at Central station, where the Australian citizen de jour was the drunk hoon running amuck, yelling racist epithets. Standing in line for train tickets, the sunburnt semblance of a man standing before us wears the Australian flag draped across his shoulders like some kind of horrible, bogan Caesar. His shirtless back is adorned with a Southern Cross encircled with the motto: “Courage. Mateship. Sacrifice. Endurance.”

Already, things were looking decidedly bleak.

A sweaty, over-populated train ride later and the festival atmosphere of Olympic Park was there for the taking,

but there was little relief. An official police warning later, and with all our stashed alcohol confiscated by an overzealous i-Sec employee, we entered the muggy greenhouse that was the Big Day Out. Arriving to the sounds of Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, we had high expectations for the day. The dulcet lo-fi tones of the bona fidé Indie goddess had the crowd entranced. ‘When I’m With You’ had young lovers embracing, and ‘Boyfriend’ had the outdoor stage singing along in reverence. Whether the experience was more worthwhile than an inexpensive side-show ticket, however, is debatable.

The experience consisted almost exclusively of old leathery-skinned rockers, muscle-bound twenty-something munters, and teens using the opportunity as an excuse to get completely rat-fucked.

That is, until we saw Architecture in Helsinki. The Sydney five-piece demonstrated just why they are heartthrobs for the entire Indie population. They pranced around on-stage in pastel suits and played irreverently with their props gigantic blue polystyrene scrotums hanging from the ceiling. The live experience of ‘Hold Music’ and ‘Heart it Races’ was overwhelming, with everyone in the packed crowd losing their shit - whether or not they were older than the band themselves.

The progression to the aptly named ‘Boiler Room’ kept the enthusiasm high; we entered to the closing tracks of the Purple Sneak-

This is everything that’s wrong with this festival.

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ers DJs, just before Girl Talk began. For the same reason Architecture was so good, the Sneakers DJs and Girl Talk were somewhat of a disappointment. The music was fine, and the environment was fun, but it provided nothing a Thursday night at World Bar or a Friday at Oxford Arts wouldn’t. The exorbitantly high drink prices, monsoonal humidity and bar queues for days made it decidedly worse.

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All took to the stage in a blaze of adolescent, testosterone-fuelled glory only to be hamstrung by arguably the worst sound engineer in history. For all but two of the group’s songs the backing track was so loud it rendered Tyler the Creator’s mic utterly inaudible. Despite their repeated requests to “turn up the motherfuckin’ mics yo”, it wasn’t until their second last, and most well-known, track ‘Yonkers’ dropped that we could finally hear half of what was being rapped.

In spite of all this, the raw, chaotic energy that Odd Future bring to their live performances shone through, with their howling, visceral rendition of ‘Radicals’ sending the crowd into an animalistic lather. The set was well-received but the point was missed: as Mike G put it, “c’mon I know you niggas is drunk as fuck but let me feel some energy for the last song!” Tellingly, the crowd responded by one punter throwing a beer can at Tyler’s head.

The biggest drawcard for the festival was undoubtedly headliner Kanye West; his audience began congregating almost a full hour before he took to the stage.

This is what everyone had come to see; everything else was just killing time. Unless, of course, you liked Soundgarden.

@honi_soit

True to form, Kanye delivered a filibuster to make the most stalwart of congressmen blush. But twenty-five minutes of ‘Runaway’, blatantly self-indulgent arpeggios and an almost perverse penchant for auto-tune had BDO patrons disgruntled. The extended refrain of “if you love someone tonight, hold them tight” showcased that Kanye, like the modern day Shakespeare he is, had finally mastered the art of the rhyming couplet.

However, before too long drug-addled calls rang out to get to the Boiler Room stage quick smart. “Oi Kanye wrap it up!

I’m dinging off my head and I’m fucking chargin’ to get to Nero!”

We tried to have fun at the Big Day Out - we really did - but ultimately we were thwarted. The weather was awful, the acts weren’t excellent, and the crowd (to put it bluntly) was shithouse. Kanye was almost enough to save the festival with his two-and-a-half hour blockbuster - but only almost. With eight hours to kill before the main event, something really needed to justify the heat, frustration, and money-sap the day provided.

There were times when the enjoyment took over and we could legitimately have an unqualified good time. Standouts, whilst notable, were few and far between.

But there comes a time when you question the existence of humanity, when a guy with neck-tatts, ear stretchers and septum piercing strikes up a conversation with the words “Oi, I mean, how easy would life be if you were a chick?” He continued: “You get on the Slingshot for free if you get your tits out... this chick was like ‘nah’, but the dude was like ‘come ooon’... Then she FULL DID!”

Culture Vulture POP CULTURE

The Construct of Lana

Is Lana Del Rey the real deal or just manufactured indie pin-up girl? Matt Clarke muses There’s been a lot of talk about Lana Del Rey recently, most of it negative.

The singer caused a minor scandal here in Australia after cancelling her performance at Oxford Art Factory due to unprecedented international demand. The fact that a cancellation of a one night gig at a small Sydney venue caused any headlines at all is evidence of just how fast Del Rey’s star has risen in the last few months. This has meant huge commercial success for the twenty-five year old New Yorker, but it’s also bred an offthe-charts explosion in media scrutiny.

Critics have been scathing, attacking everything from her bee-stung lips to her rumored reliance on her father’s Amex.

On top of this is the mysterious midcareer name change from Lizzy Grant to Lana Del Rey which included a shift from folksy, café-lounge singer-songwriter, to seductive, bling-bearing pop-star.

Most of the hype surrounding Del Rey’s music arose out of the phenomenally successful single ‘Video Games’ released mid-2011. It’s mournful, nostalgic, and probably wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack to ‘The Big Sleep’. It made critics sit up and take notice.

Unfortunately for Del Rey, when critics did start to take notice, they saw some things they didn’t like. For starters, there was her cringe-worthy performance on Saturday Night Live in January where

her onstage demeanor seemed to waver somewhere between sleepy and overmedicated. After the release of her full-length album Born to Die later in the month, critics turned out every form of invective against the album, labeling it facile, hollow, contrived and just plain bad. Admittedly, the lyrics may genuinely have been lifted from a ninth grade HSIE essay (like this philosophical gem: “money is the reason we exist / everybody knows it, it’s a fact / Kiss kiss”). But fatuous lyrics have never been a bar to success, and the album debuted at number one on the UK album charts and soon others, including Australia.

“EVERYTHING I WANT I HAVE. MONEY, NOTORIETY AND RIVIERAS - I EVEN THINK I FOUND GOD - IN THE FLASH BULBS OF YOUR PRETTY CAMERAS.” She takes everything her critics have accused her of – manufactured, fake, fame-whore – and claims them as her own. But as Born to Die makes clear, having everything you want isn’t the same as being happy. This is what makes Lana Del Rey such an interesting figure – that she’s somehow able to take all that nothingness, and turn it into something worth listening to.

THE ALTIVERSE

While most of the criticism about Del Rey has involved typical media browbeating, there has also been pointed attacks on her personality. Despite her commercial success, some people can’t seem to admit ‘Lana Del Rey’ is real.

This is perhaps the strangest thing about the whole story – it should be Del Rey alone that is pinpointed as a fraud.

While Del Rey isn’t the best singer in history, she’s also not the worst. What people seem to be reacting against is her bleak, ‘kissed-by-a-Dementor’ persona.

Strangely enough, it’s that empty, deadbehind-the-eyes quality that seems to drive her entire brand.

#WhatisTheAltiverse?

The description on Del Rey’s twitterreads, in glaring capital letters:

textbooks

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honi soit

15

Technology Online WEEKLY NEWS

INFOGRAPHIC VIA MASHABLE

TECH

SPHERE

Our round-up of the major tech events over summer

Facebook IPO

Facebook filed for their Initial Public Offering with a company evaluation of $100 billion USD, making it the the biggest net-company IPO in history.

Almost all of Facebook’s early employees are set to become millionaires overnight, including their janitor. While their initial offering is being privately traded, meaning you or I can’t buy Facebook stock right now, once it is officially listed expect it to be at an extremely high price! coritio restiorit lacerfs.

@RupertMurdoch joins twitter Rupert Murdoch has discovered the joy and simplicity of sending his views within 140 characters using Twitter. It has given a rare and direct insight into the thinking the 80yr old media mogul.

CES 2012 Las Vegas The Consumer Electronics Show went down with a bang with many new gadets revealed. Microsoft delivered a hilariously poor keynote while LG won the ‘Best of’ award for thier new OLED TV; 1mm bezzel, 4mm thick, amazing picture quality- and price tag, at over 6k.

Apple sell 37m iPhones Apple announced in January that they had sold over 37million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads in the first quarter, generating a whopping 43 billion dllars.

As a result Apple now has more cash than the Reserve Bank of America. Tim Cook (CEO) commeneted “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline” , further fuelling specuation of a Apple TV.

REVIEW: WEBSITE

Pinterest: surfing by sight Joseph Wang investigates why people are flocking to this new blogging-esq platform.

In the age of social media saturation, it is difficult to envisage yet another website making a huge splash on an already crowded webscape. Yet that’s exactly what Pinterest has done, growing fortyfold in the past 6 months, clocking over 11 million visits per week. The self-proclaimed “Virtual Pinboard” allows you to collect any pictures that you may find while browsing the web, and organise them into “boards”, which you can then share with your friends and the rest of

the world.

Pinterest generates an air of fauxexclusivity with an invite-only registration policy, though the turnaround from requesting an invite to receiving one is about a day. Once registered, it allows you to choose your interests (eg. architecture, food and drink, hair and beauty), and suggests established members to follow based on what you have selected. You can also add a “Pin It” button to your web browser to allow for easy sharing and pinning to your boards, and there is an iPhone app that allows you to directly upload photos.

What distinguishes Pinterest from its competitors (Tumblr, Flickr) is its distinct layout, focus and feature-set. The front page of the site is a multi-column

spread of pictures of the people you are following, accompanied by witty and insightful comments on each item. As you scroll down, the page continues to give you more images - a never-ending stream of mountaintop castles, baconstrip turkeys and squirrels in floorboards.

The most innovative of these features is a “gifts” section, which essentially brings window-shopping into the digital era. Although currently more relevant for an American audience, it allows you to select a price range, then gives you a photo stream of some popular, generally artsy items and their prices. Clicking on them will direct you to the website from which you can then purchase the goods.

It is for this reason that companies are

taking a deep interest in the e-commerce potential of the site, particularly due to its predominantly female user base .

As consumers and businesses begin to realise the power of social marketing, more start-ups offering services like Pinterest will penetrate the market.

While they still have a few hurdles to overcome (mainly the copyright issues involved with sharing an image from any website), the potential ramifications this could have on the way we shop is an amazing sight to behold.

REVIEW: VIDEO GAMES

Honi Soit’s most anticipated games

Rob North rips through the hype to reveal what games you should be buying early 2012.

Mass Effect 3 (360, PS3, PC) Release Date: 6 March 2012 The Mass Effect series has been critically and commercially well received, and quite rightly so. It’s arguably one of the defining videogame series of this generation - the first two iterations in the space-opera trilogy proving as immersive as they were entertaining.

Combining the frenetic action of a third person shooter with the strategy and depth of a role-playing game, Mass Effect 3 continues the story of Commander Shepherd’s attempt to unite the galaxy and prevent its impending doom at the hands of an evil alien race.

choices, largely in the form of character creation and dialogue options which allow the player to pursue a particular moral course of action. Players can import their saved games from Mass Effect 2 (which in turn could be imported from the original Mass Effect), with pivotal moral decisions in the previous games effecting the events of Mass Effect 3. However the choice goes one step further this time as players choose from a traditional, combat, or story oriented gameplay setup. Judging by the recent demo the game has a surprisingly strong co-op multiplayer sidegame element to boot, pitting four players online against waves of enemies.

Mass Effect 3 looks to be a must buy for all gamers, but newcomers to the series should consider purchasing the previous games for a richer experience.

Street Fighter X Tekken (360, PS3, Vita, PC) Release Date: 9 March 2012 Since the early nineties, fighting game fans have been divided by a question of preference: Street Fighter or Tekken? The games are broadly similar, with eccentric and multicultural casts of martial artists vying for victory in the ring. Despite these similarities fans are as passionately divided as those of Ruby League or Union, incessantly arguing that their respective game’s combatant could utterly destroy the other’s warrior.

The upcoming release of crossover game Street Fighter X Tekken, therefore, has many players of both games excited.

Taking the best and most popular fighters from each game, Street Fighter X Tekken will retain the ink-style artistic design, gameplay, and batshit insane speed of previous series entry Street Fighter IV.

The series has always been about

16

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@honi_soit #honitech

Diablo III (PC) Release Date: Autumn Diablo III is developed by Blizzard Entertainment, the same people responsible for the meth level addictive, serial relationship killer World of Warcraft.

For all the hours you’ve logged questing in Skyrim, expect to log many more in Sanctuary, the dark, dungeon filled fantasy realm of Diablo III. A closed beta beginning late last year has both teased and abated fans. You’ll be happy to know that the core gameplay mechanic of dungeon looting and questing, as well as co-op and playerversus-player online multiplayer have been retained. The graphics have been given a huge overhaul, but the style remains the same, with a 3D perspective nostalgically mimicking the isometric presentation of previous entries in the series. The long awaited rogue-like role-playing game first unveiled in 2008 is set for release around April.

Action-Reaction SCIENCE FEATURE

3D Printing Revolution

Felicity Nelson ventures into another dimension of design

There are moments when you feel you are living in the future. Like when you realise it is now possible to print practically anything from jewellery to grandfather clocks to lampshades and candle sticks. How did we get to the point where, at the click of a button, the little code of naughts and ones that make up a digital blueprint can be instantly translated into a physical object?

It’s like 3D printing just snuck up on us and we suddenly have the power to

transfer 3D designs from anywhere to anywhere else over the net and print off anything at a moment’s notice. This is insanely cool.

But how does it work? The 3D printing process, sometimes called “additive manufacturing”, uses liquid polymers or metal powders to construct objects a fraction of a millimetre at a time.

The cool thing is that 3D printers work almost identically to conventional printers, with a print head that moves back and forth in straight lines depositing material on a 2D plane. One layer builds on another to create an object.

The technology has been around for a while; architects and industrial designers have quietly been using 3D printing to create fast, accurate models of their designs for ages. Only recently has the process been used to forge commercial products.

3D printing could eventually reduce the entire manufacturing process to a print run. However, unlike a traditional production line, 3D printing is going to encourage the customisation of

products. Changes in design incur zero retooling costs when using a printer, so instead of creating a mass output of exact replicas each item will be precisely tailored to a customer. If you want, say, a flute embossed with pink frangipanis, then your wish could soon be a reality, at little to no extra cost, ready-made to demand. Hooray for customisation, and in this example, poor taste.

Customisation won’t stop at consumer goods. Just imagine: in the future hospitals may be able to replicate any damaged bone from an MRI scan. Just recently, scientists at the University of Hasselt, in Belgium, successfully printed and implanted an entire replacement jaw bone. Dentists have already begun to print teeth. Though they are fighting a losing battle – the new CandyFab 3D printing process uses food-grade sugar to create edible sculpture.

It’s not just big companies that get the fun of using this new technology; thanks to sites like shapeways.com, 3D printing is now available to anyone with an internet connection and a creative streak.

Consequently, 3D printing is starting to emerge as a new medium for artistic expression. Impossible twists and intricate lattice networks are no trouble at all for a 3D printer and shapes that are traditionally quite difficult to craft can be realised with ease. We’re seeing a very healthy democratisation of design through online 3D printing sites. Access to technology has increased and on sites like these it’s a meritocracy and designs are displayed by popularity.

We are yet to see 3D printers in general use. But the efficient use of materials, the low cost of production, the speed and the reduced need for supervision or hands on manufacturing will eventually make 3D printing irresistible for most producers. This technology is the catalyst for a brave new world of production and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.

SPORT NEWS

Summer Sports Recap

Michael Coutts offers a unique take on the summer’s events

Cricket Australia whitewashed a hapless India 4-0 in the Test series during which Ricky Ponting proved he still had ‘it’ by averaging over 100. He then lost ‘it’ immediately after, failing to reach double figures during the one-day series, ending his limited-overs career.

Meanwhile, Brad Haddin played like he didn’t know what ‘it’ was. After losing his spot to Matthew Wade in the limited overs side, he will be under more pressure than Julia Gillard to remain in the Test team. In domestic cricket, the Sydney Sixers won the revamped Twenty20 ‘Big Bash League.’ As the only side brave enough to don pink as their team colours, they probably deserved it.

Tennis If you missed the Australian Open men’s final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, don’t worry: it was only quite possibly the greatest tennis match ever played. The Djoker and Rafa slugged it out for almost 6 hours before the later finally succumbed to the man tipped to achieve a calendar Grand Slam in 2012. If you caught the women’s final between Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova, then you are probably somewhat deafer than before. Sharapova failed to maintain the good form that saw her scream into the final, being crushed by a ruthless Azarenka in straight sets. In the men’s, Lleyton Hewitt and Bernard Tomic were magnificent; in the women’s, the less said about Sam Stosur, the better. For all the quality tennis played, the greatest star to emerge from the Aus Open was Bernard Tomic’s beautiful girlfriend, Donay Meijer. With the amount of gratuitous cutaways to show her reaction to Tomic’s play, she probably spent more time on camera than he did.

Swimming For Australia’s swimming fraternity, it was the summer of comebacks. Ian Thorpe, Michael Klim, Geoff Huegill and Lisbeth Lenton returned to the pool in a bid to reach the London Olympics. Whilst Huegill and Lenton have shown they still have what it takes to be competitive, Thorpe and Klim have fared comparatively worse. Thorpe in particular is on the verge of ruining the legacy he has built, with even the eternally optimistic Steven Bradbury lamenting that “he’s fucked”. In all likelihood, Thorpe will give up on his thus far abject comeback and return to the quieter life of being the object of speculation about his sexuality.

Basketball In the past months, basketball lovers everywhere have developed an illness. It’s called Linsanity, and boy is it contagious. Jeremy Lin, a Harvard graduate, is having the season of a lifetime with the New York Knicks after previously being passed up in the NBA draft.

Lin is the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent (depending on your perspective) to play in the NBA and looks set for a long, profitable, successful, lucrative, enjoyable, and well-paid career. He will also earn a lot of money.

Rugby League Several players were accused of assaulting their partners and/or members of the public whilst under the influence of alcohol, despite being on a drinking ban. All have been given a suspended sentence, conditional on them continuing to play well. Surprise!

Michael Coutts is on Twitter: @MD_coutts

Finally sober, St. Andrew’s College graduate Jack Lerade, dismisses NSW Captain Steve Smith with an ‘unplayable zooter ball’.

NSW Blues Vs. Kirribilli Crusaders

Richard Withers achieved his dream of free admission to the SCG NSW Speedblitz Blues 4/183 Def. Kirribilli Crusaders 86 A 55-strong crowd poured into the Sydney Cricket Ground and tussled unnecessarily for priority seating last week to watch Kirribilli’s B-grade side clash with the NSW Blues.

Kirribilli were the winners of a road safety competition run by the NSW Government encouraging young drivers to take a pledge against speeding. Their winning entry proffering the message that ‘it is better to be five minutes late than lose a mate’ to speeding.

NSW appeared to view the 20/20 fixture as an ideal opportunity for underperforming batsmen Phil Hughes and Usman Khawaja to reinstate themselves in the minds of national selectors. This was irrespective of no national selectors being in attendance at the fixture.

Kirribilli, who boast the perplexing nickname ‘the Thrill Billies’ despite usually playing an unimaginative brand of park cricket, sent NSW in on a greentinged SCG wicket.

After Khawaja fell for 27, Hughes survived multiple early scares to finish

facebook.com/honisoitsydney

joint top-scorer with 48 not out, while Steve Smith (48) was also influential in propelling NSW to 4-183 after their allotted 20 overs.

In reply, Kirribilli struggled to handle the searing pace of former Australiastar Nathan Hauritz, before captain Steve Smith spun his way through the middle order, claiming 3-8 as Kirribilli crumbled to be all out for 86 in the 16th over.

Sydney University’s Oscar Merven told Honi Soit: “when we found out it was the actual Blues we were shitting ourselves a bit about facing the quick bowlers. As it turned out, the fastest bowler we faced was Nathan Hauritz.”

Amidst the excitement of the fixture, the day’s message about speeding wasn’t lost.

“Our captain for the day, Marc Harrold, recited his heart-felt slow down pledge which inspired us greatly. Our team managers, Rory Williams and Sam levy just told us to keep our heads down - Rory says that a lot,” he said.

honi soit

17

The Sandstone Report

S trictly S ara

The Anti President’s Report

G

reetings, subjects.

It is my pleasure to inform you that despite the great disappointment that was last year’s SRC Presidential election the current Honi editors have granted me the space to write regularly to you, the faithful students of Sydney University. Unfortunately, the editors were not able to permit me my requested one page report – an amount I felt necessary to properly combat the ideological drivel put out by your actual president, Ms. Drake.

A few words on the election. Firstly, I forgive you. It is clear now that the myth of student poverty has been so firmly planted in your collective consciousness by leftist political hacks trying to cover up their extreme ineptitude in student governance that my campaign was doomed from the start. I should

have been more militant, bought more novelty rickshaws, and outed more of my female competition as imposters in order to get through to you.

Secondly, no one has answered what I consider the question of the election – where are these so called “impoverished students”? Not in lectures, labs or tutorials; that’s for sure. But if not at university, then where? Probably skipping class to be at their pity day jobs, washing dishes in order to pay rent (to accommodate the delinquent bohemianism they are too ashamed to live out at home) and buy “overpriced” text books (as if any price on literature is a price at all). Oh, the proletariat…

Til next time, your loyal anti-President, John Leigh

I’m finally here; poised, ready, preppy.

As I walked up to the Law School I paused to take everything in. Expensive facilities? Check. Adequate tanning area? Check. Cute boy eating a gruyere and caper bagel? Check. The sun shone on my new Givenchy watch and it made me smile. I looked like a professional and I hadn’t even been to a lecture yet!

Enrollment was going to be fun.

Looking around I saw the people who would be my classmates, colleagues, and friends. I didn’t realise how many people I knew were starting law at Sydney! There was Nat from ballet AND Kat from Yoga, this guy I hooked up with at a foam party (AWKS) not to mention a bunch of people I met on my gap year. It’s true that I’m a bit of a social networker, 1096 friends on facey

College Cultcha with Damo ‘Donger’ Thomson

W

elcome to

O-Week bitches! My name’s Donger and this year I’m gonna be letting all you povrats (regular university students – Eds.) know exactly what the fuck you’re missing out on! Straight off the bat just let me tell youse [sic] that the last few days of the alcoholocaust that is fResher OWeek, have been the best of my entire fuckin’ life! On the first night after the ‘rents had all buggered off, we proceeded to get colossally friggin’ ham-dogged (severely inebriated – Eds.) before headin’ off to the Highlander – let the sluttony begin! I was lucky enough to cop a guernsey in the fResher boat-races (competitive drinking sessions, involving two or more teams – Eds.) and wore

Honi

SRC members gathered en-masse in the late (office) hours of last Friday afternoon, unanimously confused by news that representatives of Honi Soit had declared war on rival student-newspaper Woroni.

At the hastily convened press conference, Honi spokesperson, Damien Duckett, slammed the “misleading conduct” and “mediocre location” of ANU’s Woroni Newspaper.

The declaration was announced as a “necessary recourse to what has fast become an untenable situation. The Woroni Newspaper has repeatedly sought to sabotage the workings of Honi Soit, and by extension, the entire Sydney University community, and possibly even Sydney itself.”

Tensions between the papers initially flared at a student media conference in Melbourne late last year, when Woroni

18

honi soit

it as proudly as I’d wear a Wallabies jersey! My O-Week leader, Ripper, who’s a top bloke, taught me how to down a tinnie in one by head-buttin’ it!

Such a top bloke. The next day I was woken up, still blind (it is assumed this is another reference to drunkenness, though we cannot be certain – Eds.), for fResher athletics. Long story short, I was spewin’ my guts up before breakfast! Again! Then some poor bastard was sent home ‘cos he was caught on CCTV shittin’ in someone’s cupboard!

It was heaps funny, ‘cos we’d stolen his room key and forced him to do it!

The guy was a raging virgin though so I didn’t feel bad. After all that boring stuff though we got back to getting fuck-eyed. So we had the pool party, then the toga party, then the toga-pool party! My roommate, Robbo, picked up this real smashed chick and he full

fingered her on the dancefloor! What a col-legend! I blacked out for a couple of hours after that and woke up naked on the oval… Apparently I’d been running around wearing nothing but a cup over my junk yellin’: “Check it out! My dick is sponsored by Tooheys!” That’s why they call me Donger, actually. Chicks full dig it ‘cos its ‘bout my cock. Yeah,

Once thought to be a conciliatory act, Woroni’s decision to ‘follow’ Honi Soit on Twitter was revealed to be one motivated purely by spite and malice.

It soon became apparent that the move was designed to re-tweet, without the traditional protocol of acknowledgement, the rare but conceivable instances in which Honi may ‘break’ a story.

After Woroni tweeted: “probably not going to go ahead with a summer edition after all, wouldn’t even make any sense with this weather! Haha #ponderingtheweather”, it was logically

Getting my Student Card was by far the MOST stressful part of enrollment.

The guy taking my photo really didn’t look like he knew what he was doing. Eventually I figured out he was a student. Wtf? I freaked. It was going to be like my Ls all over again. So I did what I knew I had to. I was direct.

“It’s not good enough, you can’t even see my face!” I cried. The man behind the counter just told me to stay still and took the photo again. Phew. Crises averted.

xoxo Talk later babes,

Sara xoxo

so other than that, we’ve all gotta go up to the uni this morning to do some bullshit orientation shit, but as soon as that’s done it’s straight back onto the rumbos! So while all you fuckin’ nerds are poncing about ‘taking part in campus life’, I’m gonna go pick up my roofie prescription! Cheers cunts!

Ripper, you bloody ripper!

Declares War

outbid Honi Soit for the right to use the prized Sans Serif font for publishing in 2012. The Annual Font Auction (AFA) is a little known institution of student journalism that plays a key role in ensuring satisfactory levels of font diversification amongst the student papers of the country.

and counting! There were a few faces I didn’t recognise though; International students I thought to myself.

assumed a summer edition was off the cards. Conditions under the Summer Armistice Act 1998 clearly state that both parties must agree to an online summer newspaper in the presence of signatories before an edition can be green-lit.

Yet, supposedly ignorant of the Act’s existence, a compelling, mature and at times heartfelt take on the topical issues of the summer surfaced in January on Woroni’s fully armed and operational website.

While the breach of the Armistice Act was widely regarded as both “completely fucked-up” and “moderately annoying” in the Honi camp, little was known as to how far Woroni’s amoral editors were prepared to go.

Believing they had meticulously planned a unique, original and objectively funny fictional war story that would document the tension between

@honi_soit

WA

RH

ON

the two papers, Honi was mildly shocked to discover the idea had been leaked to Woroni by an SRC officer who was ‘turned’ during the first five minutes of interrogation. With the loss of the “only distinctly original idea” in the paper, Honi felt there to be no alternative to declaring war.

I

Upon hearing news of the declaration, SRC General (Secretary) Tim Matthews released a statement noting that, “while there has previously been talk of a fictional bloodbath between Honi and Woroni, the intentions of the SRC are to realise this ‘bloodbath’ in its more literal sense.”

As of February 2012, Honi is at war.

SRC Help

Another Brick in an Even Bigger Wall

Ask Abe

It doesn’t matter how big your school was, it was not as big as this place

Even the satellite campuses are many times bigger than most high schools. So adjusting to this change can be exciting, challenging and down right horrifying.

The workload here is significantly higher than for most high schools.

There is less individual direction and increasingly larger class sizes. The onus really is on you to do lots of work to learn all of the required information.

Studies have shown that if you don’t make some sort of attachment to the Uni by about week six you’ll find it very difficult to be successful in your degree.

Your attachment may be that you’ve met some other people who like the same hobbies as you, so check out all of the different clubs and societies available through the Union. If you get the chance to go through the o-week stalls then you can meet them face to face and join straight away. If not, you can find them online and go along to a meeting.

Your attachment may be your love for the subject material. Take the time to complete at least the required readings so that the lectures make sense to you. Attending classes is compulsory for a reason, so save the socialising for

another time.

Your attachment may be as simple as meeting a new friend or potential new partner. This is always exciting. Remember to have fun, but don’t neglect the main reason you are here.

Remember that most people feel just as nervous and out of place as you do – even the ones that have friends here from high school. Try to be yourself, so that you avoid huge surprises to them and to you.

Another area of difference to high school is the increase to your own personal freedom. The University prefers to treat you as an adult. You are free to make your own decisions about alcohol and other drugs, and sexual activity. If you have questions about anything to do with these feel free to contact the SRC. We can always point you in the direction of reliable and non-judgemental information.

Living in Sydney is increasingly difficult for anyone on a limited budget.

Wherever possible though you need to remember that your housing is one of the most important factors of your life.

It needs to be affordable so you’re not

spending more than 10 – 15 hours a week working (for a full time student) to be able to support yourself. It needs to be stable, so you are not worrying about whether you’ll have somewhere to live next week, or whether your flatmates are going to pay their rent. It needs to be appropriate. Some students we have met were sleeping on a balcony in the middle of winter and not getting very much sleep. Being constantly sick will not help you pass your course.

When you wrote essays or assignments in high school you might not have been required to correctly reference your work in order to receive a mark. Well those days of fairy floss and puppy dog tails are over. Make sure you take the time to read the subject outline to find out what responsibilities you have.

help@src.usyd.edu.au Phone: 9660 5222

Share Housing: Are you falling outside the protection of the law?

As a result of important changes under the new tenancy law, many people who live in a share housing arrangement would fall outside the protection of the new law.

Residential Tenancy Act 2010 (NSW) (‘the Act’) This act came into force on 31st January 2011, so it is still relatively new and needs to be gradually interpreted by the Consumer Trader and Tenancy Tribunal or the Courts. The Act covers people who are classified as ‘tenants’ under the relevant provisions and gives tenants many legal rights when a dispute arises under the share housing arrangement.

Unfortunately, many people would not be classified as ‘tenants’ under this new Act. This means even though you are paying rent just like other people in the house, you might not have the same legal rights as they do. This might not ring a bell to you now, but it could be devastating if something goes wrong in the future.

So what if you are not a ‘tenant’ under the Act? Potentially, at best you are known as ‘boarders or lodgers’ and the landlord/ other tenants could: • kick you out of the property without early notice; • forfeit your rental bond or other

deposit you paid in advance; • raise the rent at any time without your agreement; • interrupt your peaceful and quiet enjoyment of the room; • restrict your movement and use of common property in the property; • refuse to provide agreed services to you such as working power points; • enter your room without getting your consent; • engage in other unfair conducts against you

How do I make sure that I am protected under the Act? Before you move in, you need to make sure that:

• you have included all oral agreements into the written agreement; • you have a written receipt of everything you paid; • you have not paid anything you are not suppose to pay; i.e. if you should only pay either a deposit or a bond, but not both, and the amount should be limited.

If in doubt, make an appointment with the SRC solicitor and we are more than happy to assist you.

• you have entered a written tenancy agreement. We have prepared and enclosed a template for your reference.

Make sure that the agreement has at least the essential clauses as those on the template provided; • you have asked every question you have and you understand what is required of you;

Abe is the SRC’s welfare dog.

This column offers students the opportunity to ask questions on anything. This can be as personal as a question on a Centrelink payment or as general as a question on the state of the world. If you would like to ask Abe a question send an email to help@ src.usyd.edu.au. Abe gathers his answers from experts in a number of areas. Coupled with his own expertise on dealing with people, living on a low income and being a dog, Abe’s answers can provide you excellent insight.

Dea r Abe , and I’ve atte nde d all of the sess ions was I k. wee stal ls ava ilab le at O g else won deri ng if ther e was any thin do to able be I need ed to kno w to wel l at this deg ree.

Just a Litt le Bit

Dear Just a Little Bit, I’ve seen lots of different types of people go through uni and I reckon there’s a bit of a recipe for success.

Attend all of your classes and do all of your readings. This sounds like more work than just bluffing your way through tutorials, but you’ll actually pick things up much quicker and have a better understanding of the material.

Assessments and exams will also be easier to prepare for and you will score better marks. Most importantly you are less likely to fail anything, meaning you won’t have to repeat a subject.

Check out the Learning Centre courses as soon as you can. Some people say they have no time to do these extra courses, but actually putting in the time for them now, will save you heaps of time later. Generally speaking people who get help from the learning centre will improve their marks by one grade.

That is, if you would have got a pass for that assignment you’d probably get a credit with the Learning Centre’s help.

Check out their website.

Deal with any problems or you have during the semester WHEN THEY HAPPEN. Talk to an SRC Caseworker or someone in the Faculty to get whatever it is you need.

Most of all allow yourself to have fun. This should be an awesome time of your life.

SRC Legal Service Phone: 9660 5222

facebook.com/honisoitsydney

Abe

honi soit

19

SRC Reports SRC President’s Report

Education can’t simply be measured in dollars and cents, writes Phoebe Drake Hi and welcome to both new and returning students. I’m glad you have taken the time to pick up a copy of the orientation edition of Honi Soit - it’s the only weekly student newspaper in the country, so expect to see it often.

My report is weekly, and it’s an opportune place for me to start discussion around some of the critical issues that affect you in higher education. On that note, you will also have seen the new SRC shirts and flyers floating around campus – ‘Our Future Our Fight’. With so much change happening at university, at both a national and campus level, it is really important that students are aware of changes in legislation and Commonwealth policy. It will help you understand why your lectures and tutorials are overcrowded and, consequently, effectively speak out against it.

To an extent, this part is my responsibility, and my report is a great way to communicate news of changes.

The SRC, however, loses its meaning if students aren’t engaged in our processes. Each year, thousands of students participate in our petitions, come to our barbeques and vote in the semester two election. This is the basis of the ‘Our Future Our Fight’ campaign. We need you to keep up your involvement, so we can continue to achieve great results for students. So far we’ve won things like free internet, established a legal service, saved Political Economy (we’ve campaigned for this three times, actually) and helped achieve things at a national level like lowering the Age of Independence for Youth Allowance.

This year, we need you on board when it comes to campaigning against staff cuts and course cuts. As the ViceChancellor Dr Michael Spence said, ‘you deserve better.’ And it’s true – you do. We all do. After all, we are the ones who pay for our education, so this means we deserve an education that is accessible and equitable, but also an education that provides a really high standard of teaching and learning. This means small class sizes. It means all

lectures online and a variety of subjects to choose from. In my opinion, cutting staff is really not the best way to improve our education, and I hold grave reservations about this fiscal approach.

I am always concerned whenever we bring the word ‘profit’ into the context of a university. There are some things in life that really cannot be measured by the dollar sign – I am adamant that education is one of these things.

After all, education is pretty much the only way to overcome some of the disadvantage entrenched in our universities. We need to invest in this and it is a shared government and university responsibility.

I also really wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) and what the university and the SRC are doing about it.

To begin with, the SSAF is a piece of legislation that was passed last year and has come into effect this year. Returning students would have received a letter in the mail and all new students will have been informed at enrolment. It is a $263 fee that is deferrable, unless you are an international student.

It must go towards student services (there is a list of areas considered by the government to be student services) and can include things like student publications, counseling, our casework services, childcare, orientation activities- pretty much ANYTHING to do with the student experience. It cannot, however, go towards any political activities, which was a concern students had with Compulsory Student Unionism (CSU).

The University has, after a survey run last year, devised a list of priorities, which are as follows: 1.) Orientation 2.) Advocacy and information 3.) Health, welfare and career 4.) Clubs and Societies 5.) Facilities What do all these mean? That’s a

very good question, and it’s open to interpretation. The SRC has submitted a proposal based on these areas and we have requested a number of things including (but by no means restricted to) a breakfast bar, expanded legal service and casework and policy department so we can spend more time on satellite campuses, improved and expanded Orientation activities for international students, a survival centre so students can get hygiene products, canned food, pens and paper, as well as food vouchers and an improved publications department. If you want to know more about the proposal, feel free to contact me as I’m more than happy to chat about it.

And what is happening with the SRC’s proposal? At this stage it is unclear. The University of Sydney is remarkably talented when it comes to decision-making processes: our arcane bureaucracy loves committees and makes most decisions through a string of them. With this particular process, all proposals for funding under the SSAF will go first to the newly formed Budget Allocation Committee, then the Senior Executive Group Education Committee (SEG-Ed), then finally the Senior Executive Group (SEG). A final decision is not expected until March 31st (the census date), because only then will the University know how much money will be received under the SSAF. It is anticipated that it will be between $10-11 million.

Apologies for all the nitty-gritty details, but I hope it pre-empts some of your questions. It’s also important that you understand where your money is going and the process that is being used to decide it.

Whilst this has been a difficult process for the SRC because we do not yet know which projects will be given the go ahead, I hope and will advocate that information be released detailing what projects in the University are being funded.

Enriching the student experience is, after all, part of the University’s Strategic Plan. If this is the case, then I

expect it to be reflected in the allocation of funds. And, additionally, if international students have yet another fee that must be paid up front, then I would also expect to see a significant portion of funding directed towards initiatives and services that support international students.

I would like to reinforce that you will see a change on campus under the SSAF- more activities for students, better services and an emphasis on the university community. We will be speaking up for those of you on satellite campuses, because you are also paying the SSAF and it should be reflected on your campus too. It is really important, and I guess this is a message more for the university, that student organisations receive funding, because we have many great ideas for improving, rather ‘enriching’ the student experience.

Ultimately, a positive student experience is crucial at university. For some, it will impact on whether you stay at university at all, and for others it can change the memories you take from your time here. When it comes to the SRC, we are here to help, advocate and support you. We hope you get on board our campaigns too, because it really is our fight and our future. And I completely agree with the VC- you do deserve better.

P.S if you’re 22 and studying full time, you’re eligible for Youth Allowance. Contact the SRC if you need more information.

Phoebe Drake is the SRC President

International Students Officers’ Report Welcome to the University of Sydney, writes Kajing Jay Ng Hello! My name is Jay and I am one of your international student officers we are ready to meet and help all of you this year! Firstly, I would like to express my warmest welcome to all of you.

This year is going to be super exciting and will be unforgettable for all of us.

Everything happening on campus will be a brand new adventure in your life: meeting new friends, taking your learning journey to the next level, getting used to university and for some of you, getting used to life in Australia! The SRC is a place for you to go whenever you encounter any dilemmas on or off

20

campus: from expensive textbooks and language difficulties to legal issues. You can also give us your opinion about things happening on campus that you like or dislike.

The International Students’ Collective is a group of international students who are passionate about helping any and all of you whenever you need assistance. So please sign up to our mailing list to learn all about what we’re up to, upcoming events, and information that is closely related to you! In 2012, we are looking forward to championing different campaigns such as the need

for an International Students Concession card, better Workplace Rights, improved VISA/Immigration Information, and a larger Language Buddies program. Hopefully these will improve your campus experience and make you feel at home in Australia! Don’t be shy and make the most of your new year!

Kajing Jay Ng is one of the International Student Officers

For more information about the SRC, visit: www.src.usyd.edu.au honi soit

@honi_soit

SRC Reports Education Officers’ Report

Cutting staff is not the way to enshrine a reputation for academic research, write David Pink and Sam Farrell Hey there, fellow student! Welcome back to university. For those of you who spent the suspiciously lukewarm summer catching up on the sleep you lost last semester, finding Summer Lovin’, or watching Grease lamenting a lack of Summer Lovin’, some pretty important things have been happening at Sydney University and across the country.

But, before that – hi! Our names are David and Sam, and we’re the Education Officers at your SRC. This means it’s our job to make sure your voices are heard on issues that relate to your educational experience at university. It’s all well and good to sit in your tutorial and moan to your friend about how overcrowded it is, about how much your textbooks cost or about how none of your lectures are recorded. But in the end, you are the ones paying for your degree. You have the right to speak up and make sure you get value for

money! As a preface to our work, we want firstly to point out that there are a myriad of reasons to love studying at our University. Many departments rank among the best in the world, our academics are often of great notoriety, student representation is very much alive and kicking, and yes, the grounds are sexy. But enough love.

Staff Cuts – a sparknotes version In an unprecedented move over the summer, University management announced a 7.5% reduction of staff salaries, equating to the sacking of 150 academics and 190 general staff. In order for academic staff to be safe from redundancy, they must have published at least 4 works in the past three years.

There are two levels on which this is ridiculous. The first concerns the arbitrary, retrospective and crude criterion;

not only does it contradict Sydney University’s own definition of ‘research active’, it is legally dubious. In fact, the redundancies that have already been offered are now subject to a challenge brought before Fair Work Australia.

The second is that much of the savings will be spent on projects that are undeniably not pressing – a $385 million Centre for Diabetes and Obesity, a new swimming pool and a commercial takeover of the Union – to name a few.

To make matters worse, student places from 2012 will be deregulated (A.K.A ‘uncapped’) for the first time.

This means that universities can now enrol as many students as they choose.

At Sydney, student enrolments are likely to increase by at least 17.5% - this means MORE students for LESS staff.

You can expect even more overcrowding, reduced student services and a deterioration of your student experience

inside and outside the classroom.

As your SRC’s Education Officers, we head up the Education Action Group. The EAG is a forum for students to stand up for fair and equitable education for all students (some campaigns to look forward to this year: getting all lectures online, a cap on tutorial sizes, and a fight to stop university cost-cutters getting rid of Honours). All students, new and old, can get involved – the campaign against staff cuts is already in full swing, and it’s set to be an exciting year for education activism!

Our first meeting for 2012 will be on Tuesday the 6th March from 4-5pm in New Law Lecture Theatre 026. After the meeting, there will be welcome drinks at Hermann’s Bar, with bar tab and food provided.

David Pink and Sam Farrell are the SRC Education Officers

General Secretary’s Report

Tim Matthews sat at the back of a Canberra restaurant running the numbers Hey there and welcome to O-Week!

One thing that always strikes me at O-Week is the vast scale of opportunities available to students at the University of Sydney to get involved in.

Around 200 clubs that you can join, a huge range of food and drink options, and around 33,000 new friends to meet – it can all get a bit daunting.

So, to help you get your head around it, I just want to give you a picture of the magnitude of your Students’ Representative Council, so here is… Your SRC By the Numbers: 84 – The number of years that your student controlled SRC has proudly defended the rights of students on and off campus.

33,000 – Approximately the number of undergraduate students enrolled in

the University, all of whom are represented by the SRC. All these students have the right to vote and run in SRC elections, to attend and speak at council meetings, and to get involved in SRC activities and campaigns. I would strongly encourage you to do so!

33 – Number of elected student councillors who ultimately govern the affairs of the SRC. Council meetings are held monthly, and are open to the entire Undergraduate student body. You can come along and hear your reps debate policy issues, or contribute motions and thoughts of your own.

5 – Number of days per week that your SRC caseworkers are available to help you with issues including Centrelink, rental assistance, academic appeals and referrals to external services such as

counselling.

2 – Number of solicitors working in the SRC Legal Service that was established last year. If you need free legal advice, our lawyers are there to help.

600 – Number of pages of student journalism that will be published this year in Honi Soit. The publication that you are holding right now is Australia’s only weekly student newspaper – and it rocks. Honi Soit doesn’t hide behind some internet paywall: it was buzzing about an ALP leadership coup before Annabel Crabb even tweeted it, and Alan Jones almost sued it once. Read.

Enjoy. Write your own articles!

83 – Number of students elected as office-bearers in the SRC this year. Our officers – from Education to Women’s, from Queer to Sexual Harassment – are

responsible for running the campaigns and activities of your SRC. You are able to contact any one of them to get involved in our campaigns, or suggest one of your own!

6 – Number of collectives currently operating within the SRC. Collectives are groups of students who are interested in getting active in campaigns around different issues, from women’s rights to climate change. Collective meeting times are published regularly in Honi Soit.

If you have any questions, or would like to know how to get involved, please send me an email at general.secretary@ src.usyd.edu.au!

Tim Matthews is the SRC General Secretary

Women’s Officers’ Report

The barriers which women continue to face make feminist activism as important as ever, write Kate O’Brien and Annabel Osborn The University of Sydney’s Women’s Collective is a group of woman-identifying students who are passionate about issues relating to women and feminist activism. The Women’s Collective runs a variety of campaigns throughout the year centered around improving women’s experiences on campus at Sydney University as well as in the wider community. We also run lots of social events throughout the year such as discussion groups, film screenings and dinners. We provide opportunities for female students to explore and express the different experiences of women and discover the dynamic and diverse nature of the feminist movement. Most importantly, Women’s Collective is a great environment for women to come together and support each other, share ideas about feminism and make new friends!

Experiences and ideologies differ for every woman and it is important to

us, as a collective, to provide a platform for women to come together with equally important and respected views, and allow for these to be expressed freely- whether this is in discussion or in campaigns we run.

Who is the Women’s Collective for? And who runs the Women’s Collective?

All woman-identifying students (no matter their age, sexuality, ethnicity, backgrounds, experiences, interests) at the University of Sydney are encouraged to join! The Women’s Collective is autonomous - only for female students - however there are other opportunities throughout the year for all students (despite their gender) to become involved with collective activities.

For 2012, there are two Women’s Officer’s - Annabel Osborn and Kate O’Brien - who run the Women’s Collective and provide support to women

students. The Women’s Officer’s are essentially the friend any woman can go to when in need and who enable the campaigns run throughout the year.

kitchenette anytime. It’s a great place to lounge about between classes and catch up on readings or even some sleep!

Annabel and Kate can be found in their SRC office or emailed at any time at womens.officers@src.usyd.edu.au

Why get involved?

How does the Women’s Collective meet?

The Women’s Collective meets every Wednesday at 1pm in the Women’s Room in the Holme Building (on Science Rd, near the footbridge. It’s down the stairs: just follow the corridor around to the left - past mirrors on the wall - and it’s a room on the right!).

The Women’s Room is open to all women on campus - you don’t need to be a part of Women’s Collective or identify as a feminist to use it! You’re welcome to hang out there and utilise the comfy couches, small library and/or

facebook.com/honisoitsydney

As long as political, social, cultural and economic barriers exclude women from full participation and equity in society, the need for feminist activism will remain. Patriarchy is a universal force that oppresses women’s ability to live a free and unrestricted life. The fight for equal pay, the need for the eradication of violence against women, the everpresent sexist culture which permeates our media and workforce (and all other areas of life!) demands for women to unite and break through these patriarchal boundaries.

Kate O’Brien and Annabel Osborn are the SRC Women’s Officers

honi soit

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Lecture Notes THE QUIZ

SUDOKU

1. The first wartime atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. On what date was the second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki?

2. Who will be the host nation of the 2018 FIFA World Cup of football?

3. In what country was Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky assassinated in 1940?

4. What 2012 reality television show did channel nine remove from its prime-time television slot to be placed on their digital channel GO after just two weeks on air?

5. What Oil corporation is the first company to ever make a billion dollars in one day?

6. What film featuring Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon won the Oscar for best picture in 2006?

7. What is an ‘ocular contusion’ more commonly known as?

8. Which chemical element has the shortest name (3 letters)?

9. Who, in July 2011, replaced Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?

10. What famous novel begins, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like”.

11. The ‘Mayflower’ carried the Pilgrim Fathers from England to the coast of which continent?

12. Dropped from the One-Day International (ODI) side last week, in what year did former Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting play his first ODI for the country?

13. Until 1939, Thailand was known by what name?

A) Lavo B) Siam C) Thai 14. Which colourless gas is renowned for smelling like rotten eggs?

15. Who portrays Marilyn Monroe in Simon Curtis’s film, My Week with Marilyn?

16. What is Japan’s largest island?

A) Honshu B) Hokkaido C) Kyushu 17. What is the fifth planet from the Sun? 18. What band won the ‘Album of the year’ award at the 53rd annual GRAMMY Awards in 2010?

19. In which month of 2011 did Prince William and Kate Middleton marry?

A) March B) April C) May 20. In reference to tests of ability, what do the letters ‘IQ’ stand KenKen tips: 1. Numbers can not repeat in any row or column. for?

KENKEN

What word can precede the following words to create common phrases? well, over, in, with & around?

TEASER TARGET

A T S E R R D F U Make as many words out of the letters above as you can, always including the letter in the centre.

10 = good effort bud 20 = actually good 30 = really quite good

2. The puzzle is split into boxes called “cages”

Answers below.

3. In the upper left-hand corner of each cage is a target number and a mathematical sign indicating how the numerals within a particular cage interact to produce the target number.

CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1. “2.718281... 3.141592...” - diagram for a quotation (8) 5. Do tubs break? He’s not sure! (6)

2. Fool’s subconscious is taking in Old Testament (6)

9. Given a bit of lip, panties are superficial (8)

3. Censored, regarding newspaper editor (9)

10. Cricketer’s hat? (6)

4. Flair is cheap an’ nasty (7)

12. Oddly ghostly, he is making mirrors? (5)

6. Honi editors changed direction and atmosphere (5)

13. Master of disguise is an actor in the Common Era with Trotsky (9)

7. Round in newspaper (8)

14. Honi’s leaders reveal _____ of Man (4)

11. Epic! A gas brought up (4)

15. Assign dodgy braces containing Ghoti (7) 19. Give up a ring above... (7) 21. ...floating Irish city? (4) 24. Incestuous poet Emily? (9)

8. Unknown way with park keeper (8) 16. Physical officer has energy (9) 17. Firefly captain falls for island nation (8) 18. A long way to pedal, we hear... that’s ridiculous! (8)

26. To speak or eat messily (5)

20. I’m curious – what’s wrong with New ___land, say? (4)

27. Dr. Frankenstein is the winner (6)

21. Sugar-covered tin expired (7)

28. Can read novel, [i.e ‘Latter’] (8)

22. Disguised a Farsi expedition (6)

29. Spreads small shows (6)

23. Initially really ethical, now everyone gets everyone to break a promise (6)

30. Roller-in-the-deep admits help in city? (8)

Ghoti

DOWN

1. Likeness is effing... no no... yes!

25. Off-white, like Mr. Novello? (5)

Big Quiz Answers: 1. 9th August 1945, 2. Russia, 3. Mexico, 4. Excess baggage, 5. ExxonMobil, 6. The Departed, 7. A black eye, 8. Tin, 9. Christine Lagarde, 10. The Catcher in the Rye, 11.

North America, 12. 1995, 13. B - Siam, 14. Hydrogen Sulphide, 15. Michelle Williams, 16. A – Honshu, 17. Jupiter, 18. Arcade Fire, 19. B- April, 20. Intelligence Quotient

22

honi soit

@honi_soit

The Back Page The Force From The North: Bob Katter’s Political Roundup

G’day folks and welcome to Katter country! Where we like our hats big and our bigotry bigger.

My name’s Bob Katter and some folks think I’m madder than a cut snake on a hot tin roof under a coolabah tree!

That may be so but stone the flaming crows if the honest, hard-working and surprisingly patriotic editors of this here newsy-paper haven’t gone and asked

me to write ‘em a column sharing my wide-brimmed wisdom with you pinko pooftas down there in Sydney town.

I’ve been the member for Kennedy for 18 years now and I know what you’re thinking: what does a loud-mouthed, illinformed, Aussie battler from far north Queensland have to offer the students of Sydney University? I’ll tell you what: mateship, courage, sacrifice, the diggers, cricket, agriculture, cold tinnies, kangaroos, meat-pies, the southern cross and Sunday roasts. Strike me pink can’t you bunch of bloody galahs see that I’m the only hope left for this country?! I’m gonna bring you a barrel full of yarns so true-blue you’d have to view Gallipoli as a military mistake to not be inspired to get out there and do your bit for this

wide, brown, sunburnt country.

And this week I’ve got one word for you: leadership spill. Every man and his dog from Camooweal to Carrandotta has been giving this a good old chinwag and for good reason: Rob Hulls’ two-faced attempt to regain his position as President of the Cloncurry RSL is nothing short of downright un-Australian. As we all know Mr. Hulls’ term as head of the Cloncurry sub-branch caused more havoc than a brown snake at a B&S ball. He may have won over punters with his planned expansion of gaming facilities and his pledge to increase bingo nights two-fold but this seemingly fair-dinkum bloke was hiding a darker side (and I don’t mean that in the same way that we talk about the

Henderson family!). Behind the closed doors of the RSL tearoom RHulls had been known to fail to observe a minutes silence, was accused of rigging the meat raffle and once raised his voice at Doris, the tealady, when her early onset dementia made her forgot the lamingtons. Far from the loveable larrikin he appeared to be RHulls was a flamin drongo with more screws lose than a Chinese screw-maker! Which is why I wanna make my position on this whole bloody circus clear: I will walk backwards from Bourke if the poof population of North Queensland is any more than 0.001 per cent.

I’m Bob Katter and I’m your force from the north!

HONI TAB Odds of Honi being bought this year by:

Aquarius This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius! The Age of Aquarius! Aquariuuuuus! AQUARIUUUUUUUUUUUS!

Pisces Given your fish-like features, water will be particularly refreshing this week.

Don’t think too much about things, that’s what nerds are for and besides your memory only lasts as long as...vv Try something new but it can be anything, like trying a new flavor of chip. I mean if you want to go sky diving that’s cool but make sure you achieve something first as you might die.

Gemini

Scorpio

Return that ‘Breaking Bad’ DVD to the video store! I mean I know it’s a great show but other people want to see it too, you know! I’ve been waiting 3 weeks for you to return Disc 2 of Season 3! 3 weeks!

Leo This week will bring a terrific opportunity for you to reinvent yourself when you are placed into the witness protection system, but I’ll find you! Oh yes, I’ll find you. That fire was an accident you hear me! An accident!

Aries If you just walk away now man, everything will be cool. No-one has to get hurt man. I ain’t goin’ back to jail son fo’ real! You can’t make me go back there! We can all just walk away right now and no-one has t- leave that gun on the motherfuckin’ floor man! Look, if this don’t go down like I say it’s goin’ down then we gone have a problem, ‘cos I don’ mess around son, you can’t afford to mess around on these streets ya heard!

Taurus As Jupiter rises in your celestial sphere, Mars will remain constant on the eliptical plane and your house will burn down. Avoid over-committing yourself, dairy products and chance encounters with newspaper astrologists. Remain positive, try new things and double-check that your phone line hasn’t been cut whilst you slept. Don’t go downstairs, it definitely doesn’t smell like petrol, that’s not smoke filling the room, you’re dreaming. Hush now Daddy’s here, Daddy’s here.

If you are in a relationship, get out of it. Make snap decisions, especially important ones. Life is somewhat meaningless so try to be selfish whenever possible. If you think you’re out of someones league, you probably are. Life is cruel and underwritten by chaos, so yeah...

Sagittarius You have the body of a horse! A horse! You’re some kind of hideous astrological abomination! Once you’ve dealt with being a fucking centaur maybe then you can focus on what the future holds you hoofed freak!

Cancer Get a CAT scan. Now!

Capricorn

Libra This week, why not make contact with a long-lost friend? While you’re at it, why not assist his distraught family members in their desperate search to determine whether or not he is still alive? If you’re going to go that far, why not enlist the help of a bounty hunter and track your friend down, only to discover that he faked his own death to avoid some rather nasty underworld debtors. Those same debtors you unwittingly lead to his exact location as the bounty hunter was on the take the whole time! As you are forced to witness your friends gruesome execution, don’t forget to always make space for some “me time”.

This week you’ll find yourself feeling tropical, think piña coladas and getting caught in the rain! This unseasonably high rainfall will be due to warmer than normal waters over the Indian Ocean encountering a low-pressure cell as it moves across the Arafura Sea. This will be compounded by higher than average temperatures across both your North and North-Western regions, which could lead to increased cyclone activity.

But in good news, La Niña shows some signs of weakening! You are the Tropic of Capricorn.

Gina Rinehart $1.10 Rupert Murdoch $2.40 Lee Lin Chin $3.15 Stephen Conroy $4.30 Mark Scott $7.60 Julian Assange $9.22 Jabba the hutt $11.47 Kim Kardashian $470.00 And the winner is...

Virgo Just keep doing what you’re doing.

Unless you’re doing ice, in which case you should probably stop. Avoid blonde people.

facebook.com/honisoitsydney

Jabba the Hutt

honi soit

23

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