Acknowledgement of Country

Honi Soit publishes on the Gadigal land of the Eora nation. Sovereignty was never ceded. All our knowledge is produced on stolen Indigenous lands. The University of Sydney is principally a colonial institution, predicated on the notion that Western ways of thinking and learning are superior to the First Knowledge of Indigenous peoples.

At Honi Soit, we rebuke this claim, and maintain our commitment to platforming and empowering the experiences, perspectives and voices of First Nations students. This basis informs our practice as a paper. As a student newspaper, we have a duty to combat the mechanisms of colonisation.

Editors

Misbah Ansari, Katarina Butler, Luke Cass, Bipasha Chakraborty, Ethan Floyd, Veronica Lenard, Luke MešteroviĆ, Eamonn Murphy, Caitlin O’KeeffeWhite, Andy Park

Contributors

Lucy Bailey, Nicola Brayan, Eleanor Douglas, Daniel Holland, Zeina Khochaiche, Angus McGregor, Grace Mitchell, Nicholas Osiowy, Lia Perkins, Tiger Perkins, Evelyn Redfern, Ellie Robertson, Khanh Tran, Kate Zhang

Artists

Long Huynh, Estella Kennedy, Evelyn Redfern, Margot Roberts, Ely Yu

Front Cover

Casey Zhu

Back Cover

Misbah Ansari and Caitlin O’Keeffe-White

As student journalists, we recognise our responsibility as a radical student newspaper to oppose the inherent racism and exclusivity of mainstream media outlets. We also uphold the struggle of other Indigenous communities worldwide and acknowledge that our resistance is intertwined.

As an editorial team of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage, we are both victims and beneficiaries of colonisation. We are committed to unlearning our colonial premonitions and working to hold current institutions accountable.

We are galvanised by our commitment to Indigenous justice.

Editorial

White possession, according to Goenpul academic activist Aileen Moreton-Robinson, impacts our knowledge production in the form of dominant forms, values and beliefs. Being settlers in a colony like Australia means we find ourselves engulfed within the colonised narrative of Indigenous bodies, land rights and sovereignty. This edition, despite all its collaboration and communication, features a lengthy discussion of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament that is up for a vote soon. The edition is curated majorly by settlers who are learning along the way but broadly profit off the heinous possession of this land.

“The act of making a radical case for the Voice is an integral part of our historical contribution to the struggle for civil and political rights. It is Honi’s opposition to the Vietnam War, its support for queer and women’s liberation, its ongoing critique of Invasion Day which come to mind in this history.

“The referendum facing us now is different to these issues. The Voice has been proposed by the government and has received support from broad swathes of the political and corporate establishment. Yet, it is nonetheless incumbent on Honi , and all leftwing students, to support the Voice because it is fundamentally right to do so. Australian citizens must vote in this referendum. A ‘Yes’ vote will provide a foundation upon which the radical work towards true First Nations justice can begin.”

This edition, however, is thankfully full of our reporters’ pieces too. Khanh Tran speaks of the crisis facing the Aboriginal Legal Service (p. 14), and Grace Mitchell recalls the history of a Glebe women’s refuge (p. 8). Where Nicholas Osiowy speaks of the intersection between art and geometry (p. 15), Nicola Brayan explores how translated language is represented on-screen (p. 18).

We hope that you enjoy this edition.

The Editors

Apology

Honi Soit made a fairly large mistake with the layup of our puzzles in our Week Ten edition, with many of the clues not present in the paper, making it impossible (unless you are very, very, good) to complete the crossword.

Sorry!

This is not the fault of our dedicated

Reviewing the USU Candidate slogans, pt. 2

It’s a Sargun Slay

Oh no. Oh no. This is not a slogan slay. Honi’s first question is “what is a Sargun slay?” The NLS candidate’s use of slay as a noun, rather than as adjective is honestly confusing. Can Sargun be an adjective? Is Saluja herself the eponymous “Sargun Slay”? Slay, we guess!

Sabaat for Change: Your Voice, Your Union, Your Choice

Aww Sabaat. This is a nice slogan, albeit a bit long. Change would be good. I guess it is our union. It is our choice. This is food for thought.

Grow with Grace

Honi loves a verb-based slogan, and this is giving Christian school assembly. It’s still sweet though :) puzzles team, but the klutzes in charge of editing this rag. Our copyeditor has been sacked for serious misconduct. They have since joined Puzzles Alternative.

Please keep on picking the puzzles up. We’ll get better, we promise.

Dear Honi Soit Editors,

I would like to congratulate Luke Cass and Veronica Lenard on their fine analysis article explaining the flaws in the University’s policy for increasing the proportion of EFR academic positions.

In your article you state that “In her email, Jagose argued that the imperative for introducing EFRs is due to the USyd’s low scores on its teaching efficacy.” In this argument the Provost refers to national student survey results, the QILT survey, as a justification. However, the Provost never actually shows the data. Perhaps she just expects staff to accept her word and not bother to look at the actual data, because if one does, the true data actually paints a very different story which doesn’t support the agenda she is trying to push at all.

I have attached the actual 2021 QILT survey data which was presented to the Vice-Chancellor in a meeting with the University of Sydney Association of Professors (USAP) in December 2022. The attached excerpt of the meeting was approved by the Vice-Chancellor’s own office.

If you look at the histogram plots you can see that amongst the Go8 universities there is virtually no difference in teacher quality. Based on this data It would be untrue to say that

Sydney University’s teaching staff are performing poorly in comparison to other Go8 universities. There is no basis for such a statement in the data.

What the data does show, i.e. the plot with the red box around it, is that Sydney University is performing poorly in student support, which, based on the questionnaire that students completed, includes the following areas: enrolment and admissions processes; online administrative services, frontline staff, enrolment systems; career advisors; academic or learning advisors; counsellors, financial/legal advisors and health services; English language skill support.

These are the areas that are pulling down the overall student educational experience at the University of Sydney.

Therefore, if the Provost was really interested in the quality of the students’ educational experience at the University, she should be trying to improve the quality of student support. The QILT survey data shows that there isn’t a lot to be gained by focussing on teacher quality, and as you point out in your article, it is debatable that education-focussed academics are better teachers than academics on 40:40:20.

So, to sum up, the policy that the University is pursuing and presenting as

Whorescopes

Aries: Does your fire feel dampened? Not too long, Aries, you’re going to need some ice for your knees because you will be on them almost everyday. In the temple of lust, we’re all sinners and we know you’re the naughtiest of them all.

Taurus: Absurd time for Mercury retrograde to be in Taurus season but getting lost in the abyss of your local sex shop can feel better. Pour some vodka in your thermos and go feral with the veiniest dildo you can find. You know that will spark some joy down there and other places no matter what!

Gemini: You might find yourselves amidst the hustle of a corporate meeting but who said you cannot steal a secret kiss from your lover during breaks, slip your hand on their thighs and have a quick fuck in the bathroom?

Excitement in the corporate dullness is risky and oh, so sexy.

Cancer: It’s okay to not want to kiss anyone and simmer in the beauty of your own company. A mocha by the harbour on autumn mornings can be a good expression of love to yourself in the sex-obsessed world that we live in.

Leo: Don’t worry about being too intense, those who actually honour you will love the intense mess that you are. Introduce new positions, light the room with their favourite lavender candles, use a bit of feather for tickling and compliment them raucously in bed.

Virgo: Mercury is the fastest planet but you’re faster. You might have your thoughts racing recklessly but calm down — go amidst nature, a way of improving teaching efficacy is not based on any solid evidence. In fact the evidence suggests that the policy will do nothing to improve teaching quality.

That said, the alternative hypothesis that you present in your article, that the real reason for increasing the number of EFRs is actually to save money, seems even more plausible.

I just hope that in the enterprise bargaining that is still proceeding, the decision to appoint EFRs is left in the hands of individual schools and that the fallacies in the University policies are recognised by enlightened Heads of Schools. The worst scenario would be if the appointment of EFRs is imposed on Schools by the University Management.

Best regards, Ron

Wednesday 10 May