Acknowledgement of Country
Honi Soit is produced, published and distributed on the stolen land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Sovereignty was never ceded. For over 235 years, First Nations peoples in so-called ‘Australia’ have continued to suffer under the destructive effects of invasion, genocide, and colonisation. As editors of this paper, we acknowledge that we are each living, writing, and working on stolen Gadigal, Wangal and Bidjigal land, and are beneficiaries of ongoing colonial dispossession.
We acknowledge that the University of Sydney is an inherently colonial institution which is not only physically built on stolen land, but also ideologically upholds a devaluing of Indigenous systems of knowledge and systematically excludes First Nations peoples. We recognise our complicity in such systems. We strive to remain conscious of, and actively resist and unlearn, colonial ideologies and biases, both our own and those perpetuated by the University and other institutions like it.
As a student newspaper, we pledge to stand in solidarity with both First Nations movements and all Indigenous struggles toward decolonisation worldwide, endeavouring to platform Indigenous voices. Honi is committed to countering the exclusion, censoring, and silencing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in mainstream media.
Always was, and always will be Aboriginal land.
Editors
Huw Bradshaw
Valerie Chidiac
Aidan Elwig Pollock
Victoria Gillespie
Ariana Haghighi
Sandra Kallarakkal
Zeina Khochaiche
Simone Maddison
Angus McGregor
Amelia Raines
Contributors
Thuậ n Ánh
Purny Ahmed
Eko Bautista
Iris Brown
Emilie Garcia-Dolnik
Khanh Tran
Meisha Vu
Kate Zhang
Crossword
Michael Smith
Cover Art
Yasodara Puhule
Back Cover
Editorial
Aidan Elwig Pollock
The Pacific runs against the East Coast of Asia. It surrounds the archipelagos of Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. It brushes past Australia and Papua New Guinea. It envelops Aotearoa New Zealand and a myriad of tiny Island nations — Samoa, Fiji, and Tuvalu — oases in a desert of water. It embraces the territories of Tahiti, New Caledonia and Hawaii, ongoing victims of colonialism still ruled from distant metropoles. It crashes against the great western coastline of the American continent, with its soaring mountains, parched deserts, and verdant jungles. This wide blue expanse touches an immense diversity of people and places, with definitive implications for them all.
This is a basin living in the shadow of multilayered and persisting colonialisms: Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch; French, British, American and German; Australian, Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian. This is a basin still living within the rolling effects of the 20th century Pacific War, a conflict often overlooked in its own century, but that has come to define the following. This is a basin that, with the rise of China and the declining prominence of Europe, has become one of the axes of global geopolitics. This is a basin enclosed by the great ring of fire, uniquely affected by climate change, where whole countries are facing literal obliteration by sealevel rise. This is a basin within which we live on unceded First Nations land. And yet this is a basin that Australians seem to pay little attention to…
When I came up with the idea of Honi Soit: the Pacific Edition, these eddying thoughts were washing across my mind. I wanted to invite reflection upon our place in the world as inhabitants of Australia: our place in the Pacific. I hope the articles within these pages will make you, dear reader, think deeply on the swirling pan-Pacific forces that shape our lives. Inside this edition of Honi you will find a brief collage of the complexity, diversity, violence and ingenuity of our Pacific home. From colonialism in Timor and the Bikini Atoll, to the experiences of international students living across the Pacific from their homelands. From the massive natural forces of Volcanism in the Philippines to the similarly devastating impact of anthropogenic climate change on islands across the Pacific. From the legacy of our University’s links to American violence in Vietnam to the legacy of Paul Gauguin French Polynesia. From our sibling student publications in Aotearoa New Zealand, Land of the Long White Cloud, to Glass magazine, much closer to home in southeastern Queensland. I hope these perspectives can make you stop and think more often about where we live, why our home is the way it is, and what we can do about that.
staff angry at CAP
9
6
Who’s who on the working group Debating and war crimes Why we need feminism
Timor Leste
StuJo across the Tasman
best event ever Unexhibiting Paul Gauguin
12 StuJo spotlight: Glass Perspective Distance makes the hear grow fonder Reviews
My friends across the
18 Fancy a review or two or three?
ISSN: 2207-5593. This edition was published on Wednesday 25 September 2024. Disclaimer: 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. Honi Soit is printed under the auspices of the SRC’s Directors of Student Publications (DSP): Dustin Dao, Jasmine Donnelly, Lia Perkins, Tiger Perkins, Victor Zhang, Lucinda Zheng. 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.
Jo Staas
Cartoon Caption Contest
Submit your best caption for the above to editors@honisoit. com for a chance to WIN and be published in the next edition! Winners receive a personalised limerick from Angus McGregor.
Honi Soit’s statement on QuAC errors
Aidan Elwig Pollock
Honi Soit would like to acknowledge that it has made factual errors related to the Queer Action Collective in previous editions, including not acknowledging Esther Whitehead as SRC Queer Officer and mistakenly calling the Queer Officer’s an unpaid OB position.
HONIMOI
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Got something you want to get off your chest?
A love letter? A limerick? Something you would tweet back when Twitter was good?
What’s on?
Wednesday 25 September
Genocide, Ecocide & Homicide Webinar including APAN’s Nasser Mashni, BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, BDS Youth’s Rand Khatib & Elyse Cunningham from Friends of the Earth Naarm. From 7:30pm.
Thursday 26 September
‘rock flight’ book launch: Hasib Hourani in conversation with Andrew Brooks. From 6:30–8:00pm @ Better Read Than Dead.
Friday 27 September
Student Journalism Trivia Night. From 6:30–8:30pm @ Fisher Rooftop.
Submit your letters to us! editors@honisoit.com
Winner’s caption:
“Now take me to the river…”
NRL Finals Week 3 Game 1: Melbourne Storm v Sydney Roosters. From 7:50pm @ AAMI Park.
Saturday 28 September
Student Journalism Party. From 6:30–11:30pm @ Petersham Public House.
NRL Finals Week 3 Game 2: Penrith Panthers v CronullaSutherland Sharks. From 7:50pm @ Accor Stadium.
Sunday 29 September
Palestine Action Group (PAG) protest, 1pm @ Town Hall.
Night at the Museum Ball / Stujo Conference Closing Ceremony. From 6:30–8:30pm @ Chau Chak Wing Museum
Tuesday 1 October
Fbi Radio & All the Best Radio’s (Un)Intended Consequences live storytelling night. From 7:00pm @ Knox Street Bar, Chippendale.
Winner’s reward:
There once was a biker named Fred, With a duck perched up high on his head.
Like the rat and the chef, It controlled every step, And Fred pedaled wherever it led!
Thursday 3 October
“Nature’s Mysteries” visual arts collection by Nasser Palangi. From 6:00–8:00pm @ 181 Harris St, Pyrmont.
Saturday 5 October
BODIES IN CAGES: Trans experiences of the prison system. From 1:30–2:30pm @ Loading Dock Theatre, Qtopia Sydney.
Sunday 6 October
One year of genocide PAG protest, 1pm @ Town Hall.
Honi Soit’s statement on Israel’s successive attacks in Lebanon
Since last Tuesday, Lebanon has been subject to terrorist attacks from Israel that resulted in the explosion of pagers, walkie-talkies, solar panels, and car batteries targeting Hezbollah members in highly populated residential areas. Many media outlets have marvelled at the technological wonders of detonating devices remotely, ignoring that these attacks serve as a collective punishment of the Lebanese people. As a result, 80 out of Lebanon’s 150 hospitals struggled to cope with treating almost 3000+ injuries.
On Friday, Israel launched a “precision strike” on senior Hezbollah commanders in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Like what is happening in Gaza, Israel’s targeting of militants is attached to the steep price of dead and wounded civilians. American-made F-35 warplanes were used to conduct this attack, while the missiles dropped were manufactured by Raytheon, Northrrop Gunman, Boeing, BAE Systems, and Lockheed Martin. These companies have institutionalised partnerships with various Australian universities, in addition to Australia providing key parts for the F-35 fighter jet. Thus, it is imperative that Australia must cease its two-way arms trade with Israel, and end its role in a supply chain linked to an ongoing genocide.
Massacres in Gaza continue, as the media continues to use passive language, referring to Palestinians as “lifeless bodies” when reporting on Israeli soldiers pushing corpses off roofs. It is clear that the ‘rules of engagement’ are a sham, and that the ‘rules-based international order’ does not apply to Palestinian or Lebanese victims.
While “controlled” exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon have occurred for 11 months, the “security” of Israel’s northern border and Israeli civilians has been deemed more newsworthy than Lebanese civilians who have fled their homes, or stayed behind and been subjected to an intense barrage of bombardment.
Lebanon cannot withstand any exacerbation to its precarious political and economic situation. Citizens remain afraid of what is to come. These attacks are provocations for Israel to open a second front — and potentially, a regional war — with Lebanon as the battlefield yet again.
Honi Soit says no to a war in Lebanon and reiterates calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
- Marcus Gregson
Cartoon: Ariana Haghighi
Cartoon:
Calls for Charles Sturt VC to resign after Robodebt findings
Angus McGregor
Calls for the resignation of Charles Sturt Vice Chancellor Renee Leon are increasing after the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) found she breached public service rules 13 times.
Leon oversaw Robodebt as Secretary of the Department of Human Services between 2017 and 2020 and was appointed to lead Charles Sturt in 2021. The 14-month investigation found 12 public servants breached their obligations with many demoted or fined for their role in implementing and enforcing the policy that was ultimately found to be illegal.
The scheme cost the lives of multiple Australians who were sent false debt notices from Centrelink asking them to pay thousands of dollars back to the government.
The APSC found that Leon made misrepresentations to the Commonwealth Ombudsman in 2019 and slowed down the legal advice the Department received from the Solicitor General.
Leon argued the investigation violated the Public Service Act but the Albanese government passed legislation that made findings against Department Secretaries an explicit part of the act.
The NTEU is calling on Leon to resign, arguing that these findings show she is unfit to lead a public university.
A spokesperson for the University told Honi Soit that “Charles Sturt University fully supports ViceChancellor Professor Renée Leon in the wake of recent comments about the Robodebt program.”
NTEU General Secretary Dr Damien Cahill said that he was
shocked that no action was being taken by the University.
“The Chancellor’s claim that Ms Leon has the full backing of the university completely ignores the fact staff want the Vice Chancellor to resign.”
Leon rejected the findings of the inquiry in a statement, saying that she “acted with integrity” and followed all rules during her 30 years in the public service.
Leon noted that the Royal Commission into Robodebt did not refer her to the APSC or the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
Public Service Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer, who delivered the findings, said that during interviews with public servants, like Leon, there was a lack of self-reflection.
“It appeared that few actively considered the ethics of the scheme during its inception and implementation, as opposed to whether it could be defended on legal or policy grounds.”
NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes agreed with the CSU branch that Leon’s position was untenable.
“A public university should not be run by someone found to have breached public service rules more than a dozen times through their role in one of the greatest public policy disasters in Australian history,” she said.
“The Chancellor’s immediate defence of Ms Leon after the public service commissioner’s report was released raises serious questions about university leadership’s attitude to governance, integrity and accountability.”
USyd applies ‘Chancellor level’ background checks on Senate candidates
The University of Sydney has started doing extensive background checks for all students running for the University Senate this year as management fears more pressure from the government on potential foreign interference.
Every two years, one undergraduate student and one postgraduate student are elected to serve on the Senate and vote on University policy. The current representatives elected in 2022 are Ben Jorgensen (Liberal) and Benny Shen (Independent).
This year, four and six candidates are contesting the postgraduate and undergraduate position respectively. In an email to all candidates after close of nominations last Tuesday, the University asked candidates for
information would be disclosed to voters.”
Former SUPRA President Weihong Liang is running for the postgraduate spot and is widely expected to be one of the frontrunners due to his extensive network and experience in student government.
Liang was a member of the Chinese Communist Party for years and was trained as a poverty alleviation officer in the province of Xinjiang before returning to the University to start his postgraduate studies.
Liang told Honi that “I was not employed as a party officer, nor did I receive any party training. Before starting this job in 2019, I completed standard staff training to prepare for my government role.”
His Master’s Thesis, completed last year, examined the current President Xi Jinping’s policies in the province where a widely reported genocide has taken place against the minority Muslim Uyghur population, who still face heavy discrimination.
Sources inside the University told Honi that there were growing concerns Liang’s public candidacy would attract negative attention and would be weaponized by politicians.
International students have been placed under particular pressure from political parties including being unfairly blamed for the housing crisis.
A source familiar with the process told Honi that the University has sought legal counsel on whether it can bar candidates from running if they have international political affiliations.
They also said the vetting was described to them at a similar level to a potential chancellor.
There is no suggestion that Liang is engaging in any foreign interference or supporting the actions of the Chinese government, only that the University is concerned about the optics of his candidacy.
The spokesperson said that the University “would expect disclosures such as membership of a political party to be the kind of information provided when these disclosures are requested.”
They also said “the University is not attempting to prevent any particular candidate for nominating for a Senate role. Membership to a political party would not exclude someone from being a viable candidate for a Senate role.”
All members of the Senate are required to maintain an up to date register of conflicts and interests in organisations or political parties and those disclosures are published on the University website.
Shen, who is running for re-election, told Honi that he “respects the practice [checks] as transparency and integrity are essential in any governance role, particularly within our university community that values trust and accountability.”
When asked, Shen said he was not a member of a domestic or international political party.
Undergraduate candidate Alexander Poirier, a current member of the ALP, told Honi that “candidates definitely should have to declare their political affiliations — it helps students have fully informed opinions of the person for whom they are voting.”
Poirier opposed any move from the University to bar candidates “with the exception of those who have breached academic honesty, done sexual violence and misconduct, and bullying, harassment, and discrimination.”
“Preventing students with political affiliations would be hypocritical then to the many political donors on the senate (such as former Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson and her donations to the Liberal Party).”
Voting opens on October 8 and will run until October 24. Students will be sent an electronic voting link to their university email.
Law School pens open letter ‘seriously
concerned’
about Campus Access Policy
Amelia Raines
consent to provide their contact and biographical information to Managed Verification Services International, a compliance firm who has been tasked with doing the checks. Candidates were also asked to provide a headshot.
The lists the candidates will be checked against include police records but also the records of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) which keeps records on individuals who are banned from managing corporations.
A University spokesperson told Honi Soit that “for consistency and in line with best practice, we have extended our standard background checks for Senate Fellows and external members of committees to our student Senate candidates, and commenced this process late last year.”
The spokesperson said the process would be “confidential” and no personal
On September 20, the University of Sydney Law School published an open letter expressing concern with the Campus Access Policy 2024. The letter has been signed by 54 academics thus far. The letter was addressed to Chancellor David Thodey, ViceChancellor Mark Scott and the Academic Board.
“We, the undersigned, are seriously concerned about the Policy because of the process through which the Policy was introduced, the substance of the Policy, the broader message sent by this Policy, and the period for review,” the letter says.
In July, the University rescinded the Campus Access Rule 2009, announcing that the Campus Access Policy 2024 would take its place. The controversial policy has since been protested by student activists and
condemned by the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.
The letter foregrounds serious concerns with the manner in which the Campus Access Policy was passed, unilaterally and “without consultation.”
It is noted that the onus is on the Vice-Chancellor “to show how the policy accords with the object of the University,” which includes “the promotion of scholarship, research, and free inquiry.”
Honi spoke to signatory Professor Emeritus Simon Rice OAM, former Kim Santow Chair of Law and Social Justice.
“We’ve ended up with a Campus Access Policy which we think unreasonably limits freedoms,” he said. When asked about the concerns behind the promulgation of the policy,
Angus McGregor
Mark Scott apologises for ‘failing’ Jewish students and announces external review into University policies
On September 20, a second public hearing debating the Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities Bill 2024 (No. 2) was held by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. Labor Senator Nita Green chaired the proceedings while Liberal Senators Sarah Henderson and Paul Scarr questioned individuals before the Committee.
The Bill aims to establish a commission of inquiry with similar powers to that of a Royal Commission in order to “effectively probe the rise of antisemitism on campus in Australia”. The bill’s explanatory memorandum emphasised that it would “exclusively focus on antisemitism” in universities and “not extend to other aspects of Australian life”.
Vice-Chancellors Mark Scott (USyd), Ian Martin (Deakin), Monash’s Sharon Pickering, Genevieve Bell (ANU), UNSW’s VC Attila Brungs and Chief of Staff David Cross, and University of Adelaide’s Provost John Williams and Chief Operating Officer Peter Prest, all spoke to the claims that Australian universities have not adequately responded to the rise of antisemitism on campuses.
The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) President Noah Loven spoke to the fact that he and Vice-President Zachary Morris were elected representatives leading “the only organisation here that represents Jewish Students.”
Loven also said that protests have crossed a line to “intimidation which is designed to silence Jewish students and exclude them from university life” and that this is the moment to decide whether to “improve campus life for all students” or “play politics.”
Senator Green asked if the recent legislation to introduce a National Student Ombudsman could be used to address antisemitism amongst other student concerns and Professor Steven Power reiterated the need
Professor Rice spoke to how “sound process” is paramount.
“Had there been consultation, had there been obvious inquiry into the implications of the policy, we might have ended up with a policy that was more reasonable in its limits,” he said.
The letter noted that it is “procedurally unfair” for the VC to have implemented the policy without “consulting elected representatives of the university’s community,” with the letter citing the NTEU, CPSU and the USU. The letter continues:
“The Senate has reason to be concerned that the Campus Access Policy 2024 was developed:
1. Without consultation,
2. Not so as to promote the object and interests of the University, and 3. Not so as to be consistent with legal
for safe reporting mechanisms for Jewish students. AUJS welcomed this suggestion but raised questions over issues of accountability and regulation of conduct that is “not within the ambit of the university”.
AUJS Vice-President Zachary Morris stated that there is “a complete lack of trust in the existing university systems” and that the administrative response was most concerning. Morris explained that AUJS received assurances about the monitoring of USyd’s Graffiti Tunnel but alleged that swastikas were left up for 2 weeks before being taken down.
When asked about the universities role in not immediately removing encampments, Loven said that AUJS met with university administrations early on, and had warned that “if there’s no red lines when it comes to protests, things will get out of hand”.
“I can say with confidence that the University of Sydney is probably one of the worst places to be a Jewish student right now and Mark Scott has failed Jewish students”, Morris concluded.
USyd Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott’s opening statement, later shared in an all-student email, reaffirmed the rise of antisemitism within Australian society and that this is “reflected on university campuses, including the University of Sydney.”
“The testimonials are heartbreaking and unacceptable. And for that I am sorry. No one should feel at risk, unsafe or unwelcome at any place of learning. No one should feel the need to hide their identity or stay away from classrooms or campuses,” Scott continued.
As for the encampment, Scott stated that the University “prioritised engagement,non-violence and a peaceful resolution”, balancing of psychosocial safety, the various needs of a diverse student body and commitments to academic freedom and free speech.
Student organisers and activists like Students for Palestine and Students
requirements and community expectations.”
It goes on to examine the substance of the policy, noting that “the relationship between the Policy and the Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom is crucial to the Policy’s validity.”
The letter identifies that the validity of the Campus Access Policy is compromised by failing to meet requirements of “reasonable and proportionate” regulation of conduct, rendering it incompatible with the Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom, and inconsistent with other statutory duties.
“Accordingly, the Senate has reason to be concerned that substance of the Campus Access Policy 2024: 1. Fails to meet the requirement of
Against War have consistently rejected the presence of antisemitism within the Palestine solidarity movement, emphasising that Jewish students were part of the encampments and proPalestine protests.
On August 8, ACAR and BDS Youth had released a statement calling upon the Australian government to dissolve the role of the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, and reinstate the responsibilities to the Racial Discrimination Commissioner.
“The appointment of a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism continues the settler-colonial practice of dividing minority groups along racial lines, suggesting that combating antisemitism and Islamophobia requires mutually exclusive and special attention. Anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism – which exist beyond Islamophobia – are left out of this equation entirely. In reality, Jewish safety is compromised by this genocide which is enacted by a state purporting to be representative of all Jews.”
Scott acknowledged that decisions “did not always meet the expectations of the Jewish community”, one of which was not communicating the agreement to end the encampment with the Jewish community prior to it being publicly announced but emphasised his commitment “to win back the trust and confidence of the University’s Jewish community.”
During the questioning, Scott said that he wanted to avoid situations like Columbia University and despite advice from NSW Police, the University declined the involvement of riot police.
The USyd submission had included reference to the Campus Access Policy and its commitment to reviewing it before the end of 2024, willingness to cooperate with sector regulator TEQSA, the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism and Special
‘reasonable and proportionate’ regulation of conduct
2. Is incompatible with the Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom.
3. Is inconsistent with the University’s statutory duties under the Higher Education Support Act 2003
4. Fails to meet these internationally recognised standards”
When asked about the open letter, a university spokesperson told Honi “We always welcome feedback and appreciate the time and consideration colleagues have taken to share their views about our new campus access policy.”
“We updated the policy to ensure we are striking the appropriate balance between protecting freedom
Envoy for Social Cohesion in judicial inquiries to combat antisemitism on campus.
Scott also revealed that an independent review of University’s policies and processes will be led by Bruce Hodgkinson AM SC, “a preeminent Senior Counsel with expertise in health and safety”.
A University spokesperson told Honi Soit the “top priority” is “rebuild[ing] trust with the Jewish community and ensuring the safety of the wider community.
They confirmed the commissioning of an “external review to ensure that its relevant processes and policies are appropriate and accord with applicable standards” which is anticipated to conclude “after [the] completion of the Senate Committee inquiry and report”.
When asked about the adoption of the IHRA definition, the spokesperson stated that “alongside many other materials, [it] is included in a resource section designed to support the endorsed statement.”
Following the proceedings, Jews Against Facism released their Senate submission as a statement, which was endorsed by USyd’s Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR):
“As an explicitly Jewish organisation, dedicated to fighting fascism and racism in all its forms, we write to make clear that we firmly believe that it is unnecessary – and counterproductive –to form a Commission of Inquiry into antisemitism in universities.”
They continued, “It is clear that while antisemitism exists in Australia, in its most pernicious forms it is to be found amongst the far-right, spread through organised online channels and on the streets, rather than in universities.”
Jews Against Facism concluded by saying that “more work needs to be done to combat fascism and racism on university campuses” and that “it is evident that this Commission of Inquiry will not deal with these incidents.”
of speech and academic freedom, while making sure our campuses are safe and welcoming for all our students and staff, and our core operations can take place without disruption.
As we said when it was announced, we plan to review the policy before the end of the year – and will keep listening to our community and monitor its operations until then. We’ll be inviting formal submissions to the review soon, and will treat this letter as part of that process.”
A review into the Campus Access Policy can be anticipated before July 2025.
Valerie Chidiac and Sandra Kallarakkal
USU Debating and American war crimes
Khanh Tran exposes.
Imagine a Quadrangle alight with endless raucous and passionate debates over the political questions of the day, all tightly packed resembling a Westminster parliamentary formation in the Professorial Boardroom. This was the 1978 University of Sydney Union Honeywell Debating Championship, lasting for nine days in July 1978.
Teams flew from across the Anglosphere to duke it out over what the ABC called “the most important debating event ever held in the southern hemisphere” in its own live coverage of the debates. The prize ceremony was a spectacle in its own rights with the victor, the University of Sydney itself, presented a trophy by the late Vice-Chancellor Sir Herman Black and the Presidents of the Oxford and Cambridge Unions.
Yet, underneath all this glamour lies a darker association with American war crimes in Vietnam, specifically, through its namesake sponsor, Honeywell.
Honeywell, with a mammoth revenue of US$36.7 billions in 2023, is a US computer firm with a dual role as a weapons manufacturer during the Vietnam War and other conflicts. According to the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), the company produced
a number of cluster munitions — weapons specially designed to cause devastating casualties through countless shrapnel and latent bombs.
“The CBU-24, like the child burned by napalm, became a symbol of the Indochina war,” UNIDIR’s John Borrie explains.
“Honeywell Inc., a leading producer of the CBU-24, was a target of demonstrations, stockholder resolutions, consumer boycotts and other forms of protest in the United States and other countries.”
Similarly, Otfried Nassauer’s Berlin Information Center for Transatlantic Security noted that, aside from cluster bombs, Honeywell manufactured multiple other deadly weapons, including components for Polaris submarine launched nuclear missiles.
The legacy of Honeywell’s weapons can still be seen in the Museum of Đà Nẵng. Over five decades ago, this fragment formed part of a CBU-24 bomb that fell on the city. The carnage left by cluster bombs eventually led to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (2008), an international treaty aimed at eliminating the use of cluster weapons.
It’s no secret that USU Debating is widely perceived as a clique dominated by wealthy private school alumni.
I reached out to current USU Director of Debates Will Price for his
reflection on debating’s legacy given Honeywell. Sadly, his authority was overridden by current USU President Bryson Constable (Liberal) who said that the USU is “proud of the 150th anniversary celebration of student unionism” that was “well received by the community”.
Does that mean being proud of historic ties to a weapon manufacturer who supplied weapons for U.S campaigns in Yugoslavia, Laos, and much more? An answer to that question remains unanswered.
Similarly, a question mark is placed over how USU Archivist Marlow Hurst missed the mark entirely.
However, the USU and Hurst are far from alone in falling into amnesia. Despite being a University famed for its vociferous activism against American involvement in Vietnam, previous generations did not detect Honeywell’s controversial legacy.
A far more illuminating response came from former Honi editor Patricia Lane (1978) who edited the paper the year that the Honeywell Festival took place.
“In terms of the things we wrote editorials about, there were domestic concerns, there weren’t so much concerns about international politics,” Lane explains.
That year also marked the dramatic upheavals of the first Mardi Gras (1978) that dominated
Who’s who of USyd’s divestment working group
Ariana Haghighi and Valerie Chidiac regroup.
USyd has revealed the members of the Investment Policies Review Working Group (as below). The Working Group is taking staff and student submissions until 5pm Friday October 4.
Dr Simon Longstaff AO — Chair of the Working Group
Dr Longstaff is a philosopher and the Executive Director of the Ethics Centre. Longstaff’s ethical examinations have been published in the Jewish Independent, including his views on the encampment protests and the rise of anti-semitism and Islamophobia.
His article on the encampment broaches various incidents in very vague terms, to be as minimally inflammatory as possible. For example, when condemning certain behaviours at the encampment, he refers to those perpetrators as “those… who deliberately seek to cause as much harm as they can inflict”. The ambiguity shapes the article as a dog whistle to Zionists unhappy with some of the encampment’s more provocative strategies.
Though Longstaff’s philosophical experience is strong, his position as Chair of the working group suggests it may engage in debates on the ethics of divestment and the impacts on students.
Professor Justine Nolan
Professor Nolan is the Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute (AHRI), and a Law Professor at UNSW.
One of Nolan’s research interests is corporate responsibility and socially-conscious investments. She cowrote the journal article, “Corporate Responsibility for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Rights in Search of a Remedy?” in 2009. Considering the university acts much like a corporate body, it is likely Nolan will apply similar principles in discussions about the university’s investments.
Stephen Dunne
Stephen Dunne holds various Board positions, including Director & Chair of the Investment Committee for the Cbus Super Fund.Cbus is, as of May 2024, reviewing ties to weapons manufacturers with links to Israel, such as Lockheed Martin and RTX, suggesting that Dunne has been involved in this investment review process before. Dunne’s knowledge and experience in investments across different corporations is likely to influence his approach to the Working Group.
Lisa Jackson Pulver
USyd’s Deputy Vice Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services)
Lisa Jackson Pulver has historically countered local campaigns for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli occupation.
In February 2011, Jackson Pulver addressed Marrickville Council about a resolution passed in December 2010 to invoke BDS against Israel. She spoke about her opposition to this
Honi and national headlines in the month leading up to the Debating Festival. This meant that “domestic preoccupations” overshadowed any controversy that the Honeywell sponsorship may have generated, three years on from the Vietnam War.
The second reason, for Lane, was that debating was never high in Honi’s purview in any capacity. Lane also explained that debating itself was a confined silo in itself that the average student
“A lot of my peers didn’t have a clue what debating was, couldn’t give a shit about it, it didn’t mean anything to them. It’s a private high school-level activity, to put it in those crude terms. It didn’t really speak to the experience of a lot of people who are in my peer group.”
In a sense, the USU and past generations’ lack of attention tells a fascinating story in and of itself. This year’s 150th anniversary represents a powerful chance for the largest student organisation in the nation to take a thorough look into its history.
The USU, as an organ of university life, should engage robustly with intellectual rigour and honesty with its past rather than seeing its 150th anniversary as a superficial exercise in public relations. It is this reflection that is indispensable to the future. Otherwise, amnesia is yet another symptom of a poor university culture.
resolution, claiming it would, “divide rather than unite our community”. The Times of Israel reported that she “battled a Sydney municipality in 2011” over this incident.
Bryson Constable — Student Representative #1 Constable is a card-carrying Liberal and is currently in his third year of Economics/Law. He was listed third on the Liberal ticket for the North Sydney local council elections this year.
In a USU Board candidate interview in 2023, Constable was asked if politics would affect decisionmaking surround USU corporate partnerships, to which he responded that his role would not be to “comment on the validity” of claims against exploitative companies but said there would be a “threshold” where the USU should consider: “are they war criminals?” He elaborated to say that he would weigh up the moral considerations of partnering with exploitative companies, alongside the question of whether a boycott of these companies would “drastically affect service provision.”
Muhammad Yaseen — Student Representative #2 Muhammad Yaseen was the Sydney University Muslim Students’ Association (SUMSA) President in 2020 and studied Economics/Law at the University of Sydney.
SUMSA ended their encampment
on June 21 and signed a deal with Management “to publicly disclose its ties to Israel, take steps to divest, and support academics in Palestine with expanded funding”. SUMSA President Abdullah told Honi of their “aim is to express the wishes of the encampment — full divestment from any weapons company complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
“We strongly believe that no institution should be contributing to the horrors in Gaza, let alone a University which prides itself on its progressiveness. We have appointed Muhammad Yaseen as a representative on the working group, a recent outgoing president of SUMSA.”
After the deal was announced, six Jewish organisations released a statement opposing the SUMSA deal, and revealed that they “rejected the University’s offer” to participate in the review of USyd’s investments, labeling the process a “sham” and “fundamentally flawed.”
On Saturday 21 September, SUMSA posted a link to an e-form inviting “staff, students and members of the community” to make submissions, including anonymous submissions, to the Working Group. As of publication, the deadline was 5pm on Friday September 27.
To make submissions to the Investment Policies Review Working Group, click the link in our full article online.
2024 Presidential Debate
An annual tradition of that ever-waning campus culture, the SRC Presidential debate is a rare opportunity for intellectual discussion, a fierce exchange of ideas, total desertion of dignity, and outright barbarism.
The 2024 candidates for SRC President are Angus Fisher (NLS) Rand Khatib (Grassroots) and Thompas Thorpe (Liberal). A three way race comes as a surprise for the first time since 2018, several candidates are running for the esteemed role of President.
Following an Acknowledgement of Country, Honi Soit’s 2024 Presidential Debate commenced. Before we got to our questions, each candidate was given 2–3 minutes to provide an opening speech, which was conducted in ballot order.
ANGUS FISHER
Angus Fisher, representing the National Labor Students (NLS), began his statement by introducing his Economics degree and his position as a tutor at the University. Fisher referenced his experience in USU debating, Boulder Soc and his latest work with Students for Drug Reform. Moving swiftly to critiques of his rival, Fisher accused Grassroots of “failing” students and fostering a “playground for Grassroots friendships”.
RAND KHATIB
Rand Khatib opened with an intimate personal account of growing up as a Palestinian refugee, navigating “colonial violence in so-called Australia”. Khatib described her vision as “revolutionary” and stated she is “here to challenge the institution”.
Khatib referenced her experience “kicking anti-abortion freaks off campus”, collaborating with Invasion Day rallies, and her lead role in organising the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Khatib mentioned various Grassroots platforms she intended to continue, including fighting for better staff working conditions, introducing and safeguarding 5 day extensions and holding management to account.
THOMAS THORPE
Thomas Thorpe, the Liberal candidate, sat coolly in his chair before claiming the candidates to his right “made the case for me”. Regarding his fitness for presidency, Thorpe cited his Civil Engineering degree, two society executive positions, and his position as a tutor at St Andrews College. This was met with heckling, “SHAME!”. Thorpe spent most of his opening statement condemning the current SRC, claiming “the SRC has no credibility” with “no students taking interest”.
What is the single most important issue impacting students?
Fisher declined to nominate a single issue, instead stating “I think students face a multifaceted set of issues,” including “their government being complicit in genocide,” and the “shameful” cost of living crisis. Khatib, on the other hand, said that the “single most crushing thing is the corporate university” that creates exorbitant profits by “cutting our courses.” Thorpe claimed that for him, the “one issue that encapsulates all” is that students “aren’t represented,” claiming that “we have an SRC speaking on behalf of students that is elected by 5% of the students.”
What efforts should the SRC take to advocate for Palestinian liberation?
Khatib stated that the SRC needs to throw “everything it’s got behind the Palestinian liberation movement.”
Khatib referred specifically to the ICJ ruling that institutions should do everything they can to end their complicity. Speaking to the success of Grassroots presidencies in this regard, Khatib claimed the faction “used the SRC to build the campaign, and the encampment, and the SGM.”
Thorpe, ever on the contrary, stated that “it’s a bit arrogant to think the SRC can solve a war,” declining to label the attacks on Gaza a genocide. “We’ve seen it for years, the SRC has been doing all these motions about Palestine, which is very tragic,” Thorpe said, arguing this is “beyond the scope” of the SRC.
Fisher stated that the SRC should be doing “every possible thing to fight for Palestine.” Curiously, this passion and strategy were largely missing from Fisher’s policy statement. Moreover, NLS were present at the 2-month long Gaza Solidarity Encampment to a significantly lesser extent than other groups and factions.Fisher responded by saying that what the SRC needs to begin with is “exposing the ties” of the University, and using “the NUS to build a national student movement” to push the government to “do better.”
Cost of living for students has risen rapidly in the last year. Beyond advocacy, what are the concrete steps you will take to harness the SRC’s budget and influence to help students alleviate financial pressures?
Thorpe referred to the SRC’s $2.9 million budget, claiming “a lot of it goes to a bunch of rubbish to be honest.” “The SRC is not doing much to benefit students,” Thorpe continued, “its advocacy powers are redundant.” Instead, Thorpe stated he would aim to take “material steps” to “help students,” including “encouraging the
University to employ students more” to give them access to money. Fisher on the other hand advocated a “multifaceted approach” in line with his two-pronged strategy, acting “inside and outside of the chambers”. He also stated he would “use the National Union of Students,” which “sits in on Senate inquiries and [so] can get politicians to listen to you.” Fisher also said he would “actually attend meetings,” and “lobby the USU and work with SUPRA” to do things like improve transport. Fisher also promised to “increase support and exposure of Foodhub.”
Khatib said that she would focus on the caseworker system at the SRC which can help students fight for their housing rights. For her though, empowering collectives with more funding is crucial to force more action. “Look at the Stucco co-op housing,” she said. “We know that was achieved by stucco. Hands of students instead of hands of management.”
ANGUS FISHER
When criticised for his Labor party membership, Fisher stated that the Labor Party is “essentially a movement that is built by workers” but that it is “not perfect in and of itself.” He went on to state that the party is “as good as the members that are within.” “I’m not in the Labor party to be comfortable,” Fisher said, “[I’m here so] that I can influence the party, push it to the left and make it work for students.” The classic reformist adage received an uproar from the NLS table.
Fisher was then asked on how he plans to “push management” when negotiating with them: “Pushing management is a two-pronged solution,” Fisher said, involving “building a student movement such that they [Management] are scared.” Fisher promised that the would “actually be at the meetings,” claiming that “if you do not engage with the powers that be in our world, you cannot change fuck all.” Fisher finished with a barb at Grassroots, claiming that their strategy is “to ignore and ignore and ignore.”
RAND KHATIB
Khatib was pushed by the moderators on the extent to which she would be willing to negotiate and work with management. “I sat with management after being elected by the encampment,” Khatib said, “it is a similar model with the NTEU, where you are democratically chosen.” Khatib, referencing Fisher’s platform, claimed that “the two-pronged solution is unserious.” “They are diametrically opposed,” Khatib argued, “pick one and do it, and do it well because that’s what Grassroots does and does it well.”
Khatib was also asked about
whether she believes there is a gap between Grassroots and the average student, as her opponents often allege. “Absolutely not,” Khatib replied, “Grassroots does a fantastic job,” noting the “power is in the collectives” with their “convenors democratically chosen at Reps-Elect.” “You can’t get more democratic than that,” Khatib said.
THOMAS THORPE
Thorpe was first asked whether his support of the Campus Access Policy really did identify with the “average student” his platform seems to endlessly talk about.
“Yeah,” Thorpe said, continuing by claiming that the SRC is not sufficiently representative of the broader student body: “Do you think many students like it when you go into their lectures?” he posed to the audience, receiving a roar of heckles in response.
Following this, Thorpe was pushed on the policy of his fellow Liberal ticket ‘Reform USyd’ that called for Honi Soit to be defunded. When asked how student politicians would be held accountable to students without an independent student newspaper, Thorpe stated that “I don’t think Honi Soit holds student politicians accountable.” We would highly recommend Thorpe to actually read the paper from time to time!
Thorpe was asked about his position on the presence of “far-right anti-abortion thugs” on campus and his stance on abortion himself. Thorpe called this a “redundant question,” saying that he is aware of the snap rally but that his “stance on abortion is “what does that have to do with the SRC?”
Thorpe’s flippant response to women’s reproductive and menstrual health sent the room into a frenzy. Both Grassroots and Impact heckled, ‘Women’s rights are students right!”
Conclusion
Thorpe stuck out for his unashamedly populist rhetoric, claiming the SRC is broken and ineffective but his solution of collecting trash and building water fountains is far from revolutionary. His refrain of ‘supporting the average student’ would suggest the average student does not care about freedom of speech or reproductive health.
The battle between Khatib and Fisher was a repeat episode. Grassroots were able to claim stronger activist credentials, and have a clear record of successive progressive and independent administrations. While Fisher’s main critique — that the SRC and collectives only engage with a narrow group of students — has some foundation, it’s unclear how NLS would do any better. If the issues are as systematic as they suggest, fixing them with a new face and sausage sizzles is a tall order.
Purny Ahmed asks.
As girls, we collect rites of passages like badges — the inevitable events which raise us into the women we will one day become, pinned all bright and shining across sashes. The first crush. The first boy to pull our pigtails or push us into the mud. The first adult to tell us that boys are only mean to us if they like us. The first bra we buy. The first sex joke we’re meant to take as a compliment. The first romance. The first slut shame. The first ‘text me when you get home safe’. The first cat call. The first grope. The first kiss. The first assault.
We don’t stop collecting. We watch our experiences grow, watch how they shape us, how they harden our exteriors, and think “ah, so this is what it means to be a woman.” We go through life with keys for knuckles and a constant, deep-rooted fear for our safety, and then some guy tells us that “we don’t even need feminism anymore!” It’s an ingenious, never-heard-before take.
I have always understood my place in society, that the world would always view me as a woman before all else. A sum of all my parts before I could be myself. According to Plan International Australia, 90% of 500 female participants aged 1825 in Sydney had been harassed, catcalled, followed, leered at or groped on the streets. For so many, it begins at childhood. I was ten years old in a striped dress and thick black stockings the first time I saw men staring, and they haven’t stopped since.
As women, the first lessons we learn are about distrust and safety, taught by the experiences of mother and sisters and friends. Our mothers teach us what clothes to wear, what will attract the least attention, muted colours and ornas to cover our chests. We’re taught to be home before dark, to not be too friendly with men.
They don’t teach you that as a woman, you are more likely to experience sexual violence at the hands of someone you know — maybe even trust — rather than a stranger. According to the ABS, “20% of women aged 18 years and over have experienced sexual violence by a male perpetrator who was a known person.” Instead, they teach us how to slowly move away from an uncle’s too friendly of a touch without offending him. They don’t tell you that it is not enough to hide yourself away, because the monsters will still find you in the dark.
Our sisters teach us how to see danger before he approaches you, how many drinks you can have before you become prey, how to smile and flirt as you reject someone, so they won’t get angry. Not too much, of course, so they don’t follow you home. They sit around with you after the first time you are slut shamed or groped, and they tell you their stories (and they always have stories –it’s a rite of passage, after all).
Your friends and you learn together simultaneously, how to read each other’s eyes for fear, how to pull each other away from men who get too touchy on the dancefloor, how to sit with each other after its still was not enough to protect each other and someone’s hands wandered further than it should have. We take our turns laying our horror stories on the dinner table before ordering dessert. Nothing feels more like girlhood than sitting around and trading
stories of all the ways men have harmed you.
Our survival and safety rests on ensuring we keep men happy. It’s the hardest lesson a woman learns — no matter all your efforts, all your protections and all your modesty, your safety is never in your own hands. Harassment and assault are always motivated by the desire for power, control and a sense of superiority over women. It stems from the belief that respecting women must be beneath a man, that making another person feel weak and vulnerable and scared is a show of masculinity. Not only is it enabled between guys, but it is encouraged and celebrated — you receive a clap on the back for every girl you bag, throw around abusive and insulting language with your trusted circle of friends, stay quiet as you watch your mate treat a woman with disrespect or harassment or even assault in the name of ‘loyalty’.
I remember the other day I had thought to myself that I was so incredibly privileged to have a partner who respects my boundaries and consent. I was standing at the sink, hands washed, with droplets of water dripping slowly onto the porcelain. The soap had slunk down the drain. The tap was still running, and there I was: a proud feminist, musing on the bare minimum of my boundaries being respected, my voice not only heard, but listened to, thinking, shouldn’t we have bigger wars to fight by now?
But we were raised to accept crossed boundaries, to take an assault like a tap to the wrist rather than a violation of our rights. We are told it is not a gender issue when we are told to add a layer or clothing to avert the eyes of family friends who are never held accountable, or when we cannot even walk down a street without the eyes of men crawling up our legs. We are told it is not a gender issue to wonder if you will make it home safe that night, if at all. When our women are on every news headline – a new case of rape, a new case of femicide – everyone is outraged. How could we let this happen, they ask? But these outraged men are the same boys who whistle out to girls from their cars. The same boys who call girls bitches and sluts just because they can. The same boys who let their hands wander after being told no. The same boys who say nothing, who look away from the problem, and never hold their mates or themselves accountable. They are the same boys who make up the 97% of sexual assault offenders, the boys that reflect the statistic that 26% of men actually admit to committing an act of violence in adulthood. The same boys who tell us that we don’t need feminism anymore.
Instead we are told it is our fault, the way we dress, the way we smile, the way we tempt boys and lead them on, the way we simply exist in the presence of men. We’re told to take the compliment, if they grab us by the tits that means they like us. No one ever told those boys in the playground that you don’t show a girl you like her by shoving her down and pulling on her pigtails until she gives into you. We have been fighting for the same tired fight: the right to exist safely.
Breaking stories, sparking controversy, and producing politicians:
Student journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand
In the lead up to the 2024 Student Journalism Conference, and through the variety of publication profiles Honi Soit has published this year, avid readers may have developed a greater awareness of the wide array of student media outlets across Australia. Every university seems to have at least one intrepid group of student journalists defending the bastion of the fourth estate in an increasingly restricted media environment.
What Australian Honi readers may be less aware of is the equally vibrant ecosystem of student media publications across the Tasman Sea in Aotearoa New Zealand. Just like in Australia, Kiwi student journalists have been holding power to account, causing controversies, and being general rabble-rousers for decades.
Critic Te Ārohi
With such a complex stujo ecosystem, it is hard to know where to begin. But where else to start than the Land of the Long White Cloud’s oldest weekly student magazine: Critic Te Ārohi. The Critic — student publication at Ōtepoti Dunedin’s Otago University, in the frigid deep south of the country — has been printing weekly magazines since 1925. That’s four years older than our own esteemed publication. Much like Honi Soit, the magazine is associated with the Otago University Students’ Association. The magazine reportedly has a circulation of 5,000, with an alleged 99% pickup rate — possibly linked to Dunedin’s intense student culture. “Students make up a lot of the population of Dunedin,” Lucy Currier, a Dunedinite now living in Sydney said, “most students come down here for the ‘Otago Uni experience’ as it has come to be known for extreme parties and general havoc.”
“It’s always just been a thing since I’ve been alive,” Currier continued, “the messy street parties, couch burning, flat initiations… it definitely doesn’t have the best reputation with everyone else living in Dunedin.”
Currier noted that Critic’s track record in “bringing to light the negative sides of that student culture, such as the flat (sharehouses in Ōtepoti Dunedin parlance) initiations last year [referring to allegations of extreme hazing rituals involving live eels].” Currier said that exposing these events “in the hope of stopping them is a good thing, especially when they seem to be getting worse each year.”
The Critic has a history of local breakthrough investigative journalism ranging from misogyny at residential colleges to infiltrating white supremacist groups. This has contributed to the Critic repeatedly sweeping the floor of the Aotearoa Student Press Association’s (ASPA) annual awards.
Additionally, the paper has been lauded for its visual design, with a history of full-page-art covers and pull-out spreads that have adorned student flat walls in Ōtepoti Dunedin since time immemorial. Currier told me that she and her flatmates would decorate their sharehouse with this art. “We needed cheap decoration, but also all the art in the Critic was done by students,” Currier said.
“They were always creative and cool and well thought out, and it was fun to display them,” Currier continued, “each week we’d go through and there was usually a two-pagespread dedicated to an art piece a student had done for the theme that week. It was just cool art!”
Much like Honi, sometimes this art has led to controversy. In 2018 the Critic published The Menstruation Edition. The cover consisted of a stylised image of a naked person menstruating, which drew the ire of then University Proctor Dave Scott. Scott, controversial for many reasons, including allegedly entering a student flat without permission to confiscate a bong, decided that all copies of the magazine should be confiscated. Following national media coverage and an open letter written by former Critic Te Ārohi editors, the University of Otago walked back on the confiscation and issued an apology.
Salient
FurtherAccording to Salient contributor Max Nichol, fighting between leftwing student groups at VUW played out in the paper, with the Maoist editors barring Trotskyite Young Socialist members from writing to the point that they founded their own alternative student paper, Censored Salient, in 1977.
north is another paper
with its own fair share of critical journalism and controversy. Salient (not to be confused with Salience, the publication of USyd’s media department) is the student publication at the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). Salient is structured more rigidly than Honi’s rather anarchic team of 10 equal-role editors, with a chief editor, dedicated news editors, and a dedicated designer.
Typically, much like Honi, the magazine takes a leftist stance. At one point, however, “leftist stance” meant Maoism, as editors through the 1970s were aligned with the Wellington Marxist-Leninist Organisation — an avowedly Maoist group at the time.
This was not the only controversy in Salient’s history however. When I interviewed Kiwi comedian Guy Williams earlier this year, it was the Lundy 500 controversy that stuck in his memory. Two pieces of Kiwi context are required for understanding this anecdote. The first is the Undy 500, a tradition whereby Otago University students would buy and decorate a car for under $500 and then drive it from Ōtautahi Christchurch to Ōtepoti Dunedin before destroying it.
The second is the Lundy murder case, in which Mark Lundy was convicted of the 2000 murder of his wife and daughter in a controversial, high profile case that hinged on a police allegation that Lundy had driven between Te Whanganui-aTara Wellington and Te Papaioea Palmerston North — 300km — in 68 minutes. Whilst Lundy was later found guilty on other evidence, NZ Police’s attempt to allege that the convicted murderer had made this drive in astonishing time was met with ridicule.
Williams’ recalls when his friend, then editor of Salient, jumped on the band-wagon. “To make fun of that on the day after he lost his appeal and went back to jail… to show how
disgusting the police case against him was, they invented what they [the editors] called the Lundy 500.”
“The concept was that all the students get together and try and drive the drive that Lundy was alleged to [have] do[ne] by the police in the time he did it,” Williams said, “so it’s like a car race.”
“It’s so perfect,” Williams said, “his name is Lundy, it’s called the Undy 500… and obviously it was a joke.” According to Williams, “it got a huge backlash,” a backlash that the comedian called “totally undeserved.” In Williams’ view, no one was seriously going to attempt the race; if they did they would be “pulled over and arrested” for speeding. Williams also claimed that the editors weren’t saying Lundy was innocent — in fact they knew he was guilty — but instead were trying to make fun of the police case. Regardless, the controversy was at least a joke in poor taste, and whilst I don’t share Williams’ opinion that the backlash was undeserved, the stunt certainly illustrates the irreverent tone that dominates Salient. And the fact that it’s still stuck in Guy Williams’ head after all these years is a testament to the impact of student journalism, for good or ill.
Craccum
Another Kiwi student media outlet is Auckland University’s Craccum. Founded in 1927, this is another
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland Craccum
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington Salient
Ōtepoti Dunedin Critic Te Ārohi
Aidan Elwig Pollock does a paper run through the Land of the Long White Cloud.
weekly magazine older than our own Honi Soit, with an alleged circulation of 10,000 papers. Craccum is not as wreathed in laurels as the Critic, nor does it have Salient’s history of Maoism. It has, however, unlike any other Kiwi student publications, produced a premier of South Australia — Mike Rann —who edited the paper in 1975, and went on to lead South Australia under the Labor party from 2002 to 2011. If that’s not a claim to fame, I’m not sure what is.
Aotearoa Student Press Association
Breaking stories, sparking controversy, and producing politicians, however, are not unique to Aotearoa New Zealand’s student publications: university newspapers across Australia can claim similar (in)famy. What is different about Aotearoa New Zealand, however, is a functional nation-wide student journalism body.
The Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) includes Critic Te Ārohi, Salient, and Craccum, along with five other student publications. The association holds an annual awards ceremony which crowns the “best publication” — an honour won by Critic Te Ārohi 12 times since 2002 — amongst other prizes.
Significantly, ASPA previously held a parliament press access card for participating student publications. This allowed Kiwi student journalists from member-papers to attend Aotearoa New Zealand’s national parliament for press conferences and other media events.
However, as reported in The New Zealand Herald earlier this year, the ASPA’s press card was revoked by the new National Party government. According to the Herald, Parliamentary Speaker Gerry Brownlee attributed the cancellation to “security”, claiming that students did not attend the Beehive regularly enough to necessitate swipe card access.
This was disputed by the editor of Salient, Phoebe Robertson, who told the Herald that “the whole point of democracy is that people can have access… and ask politicians questions that other people aren’t asking.” This is an important role in a country that has lurched to the right following New Zealand Labour’s landslide 2023 defeat to a National-ACTNZ First coalition that has already begun attacking Māori rights, environmental regulations, and government institutions.
Regarless, the clout garnered by eight student publications coming together under the auspices of ASPA was essential in getting access to parliament in the first place. This is something that Australian student journalists would do well to pay attention to. What could we achieve by coming together as one? The 2024 Student Journalism Conference being held at USyd this weekend is a good start, but such a question could only be answered through a functioning Australian Student Publications Association. Furthermore, given the myriad similarities between student publications on both sides of the Tasman, what great things could international collaboration in this arena achieve? Well, in the realm of student media, anything is possible.
STUDENT MEDIA SPOTLIGHT
Glass
Zeina Khochaiche heads to the Sunshine State.
So far the Student Media Spotlight has travelled through Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and ACT. So, it was only fitting that we venture north to our friends in the Sunshine State.
Glass student magazine hails from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and has lived many lives, succeeding decades of union funded student publications on campus.
When I was doing background research for this interview, I noticed it became increasingly difficult to trace Glass’ history. I wanted to understand the mystery and history of our formless friend that I couldn’t find in the archives. Naturally, I dialled into Queensland to talk with some of the editors of the paper.
Jumping first into introductions, Glass was represented by their editorin-chief Celeste, alongside their zine connoisseur and creative writing editor, Jacinta and Tione, and their battle-of-the-band and self-professed fan of Facebook Love Letters content editor.
Glass was born in 2019, and before Glass came Universe. All publications are funded by the QUT Guild’s SSAF resources and have historically changed shape and theme approximately every 5 years.
Glass functions with four editors and one editor-in-chief (EIC). Glass also pointed out that the Guild’s publications have historically been mostly edited by women and are proud to carry on that legacy in four of their members. Like Honi, no one is responsible for a particular section of the publication but tasks are divided based on preference, affinity and weekly expectation of hours. Unlike Honi, Glass has an EIC who is responsible for the administrative, media and budgeting mechanics of the publication. They describe their team as having a “pretty flat hierarchy and function is achieved through collaborating.”
Each year they produce three main editions; ‘Summer’, ‘Winter’ and ‘Annual’ alongside three special editions; ‘Election’, ‘Glassies Guide’ and ‘unSEXpected’. The Glassies guide is composed of explainers and campus pieces on the cultural functions of campus. unSEXpected is a collection of sex and relationship columns ranging from topics intimate safety online to understanding kinks and fetishes. For regular contributions, Glass has a strong creative writing fanbase, publishing fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction, opinion, memoir, reviews with editors mainly managing the hard news. The publication is
constantly working on producing new content for their audiences with their recent podcast, Just to Be Clear, which is coordinated, recorded, edited and promoted by another editor on the team, Ben.
After learning how Glass operates, I asked Celeste about the history of the publication. “There’s always been mystery around this. Student media on campus has existed since the Union existed from the late 1960s. The paper has changed names and structure at least 8 times”, Celeste revealed.
When asked about the character of iterations that came before Glass, Celeste chuckled, “We don’t quite know”. Celeste did tell us about Unit, the first publication aligned with their Guild’s 1966 inception. Like many, Unit covered salient issues of the 1970s including the Vietnam War, freedom of expression, drug rights and counter-culture stances.
It was here that we learnt that QUT was formerly separated into two campuses and subsequently two guilds. In the 1980s, the north campus had DeCAE and the general campus had PLANET which was a product of institutional collaboration. It wasn’t until the official formation of QUT that a more streamlined timeline of publications emerged, seen in the 2006 CirQUTry which Celeste described as “moving away from political articles and student journalism, and towards Guild promotion and entertainment”. In the years that followed at least three more publications took tenure as QUT’s publication until you get to Glass
Last year, Honi covered the funding cuts that hit Glass, citing a $20,000 budget cut. This barrier has unfortunately impacted editor funding amongst other internal governance sturcutres.
Regardless, Honi has yet to interview a student publication with a history that is as non-linear as Glass. According to the editors, archive management has been sparse and disorganised over the years but Celeste compiled all Glass knows into an impressive guide that we recommend you read, ‘A Fairly Comprehensive History of QUT Student Union Publications’.
Celeste noted “the vibe of the campus is politically neutral”. She went on to explain that QUT student activists would join the UQ encampment and SGM due to a lack of mobilising efforts. This would naturally bleed into QUT’s activist coverage who joked that “we covered UQ happenings more than their own student publication” which is Semper Floreat.
Earlier this year one of the editors, Jacinta, covered QUT Disability Collective’s ongoing fight for a disability room and increased accessibility on campus. Jacinta told Honi, “the collective had been fighting for it for 5 years and because the article got reasonable attention, their room is now in development”. While demoralising that it took so long, the power of student media in amplifying underrepresented or discounted voices remains an indispensable aspect of tertiary institutions.
Despite the self proclaimed ‘apolitical campus’, Glass has taken on coverage of pressing political issues. Tione has led the newly launched ‘Human Rights and Wrongs’ series where long-form opinion pieces tackle issues pertaining to national and global crises such the Palestine and West Papua pieces. Tione told Honi she “worked on the [Palestine] article for months’, collating different representations, statistics and organising efforts students need to understand the crisis.
Glass has also leaned into popular and campus culture through Tione’s fascinating experience with Facebook page QUT Love Letters. Tione wrote a satirical article detailing how the date of her love letter was incorrect because the account posted her letter late and did not account for this. After narrowly missing out on finding the pink mullet person of her dreams, the account was prompted to now include the time and date.
All too familiar to student publications and this spotlight is the barrier of funding. Part of the reason there is little or no record of previous editions is due to receiving budget cuts in recent years. “It doesn’t help that every other year the publication changes because you lose the audience and narrative you’re built”, Celeste noted.
Fast forward to their fifth year in existence, the team unanimously dream to “keep Glass alive and well for at least ten years”, with Tione stressing the importance of building campus culture around student media. The editors’ passion and admiration for their publication is striking with a fight to preserve their legacy. Perhaps the cracks in Glass have been mended into a kaleidoscope — one through which students may one day trace the history of this institution.
Separating the artist from the art exhibition:
Gauguin’s World at the NGA
Meisha
Vu interrogates an artist.
Content Warning: Mentions of sexual violence and exploitation, rape, mention of pedophilia, colonial violence, domestic violence and racism.
Pablo Picasso was a misogynist. Claude Monet brought his mistress home several times while his wife was dying of cancer. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was a murderer.
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) exploited Polynesian culture, perpetuating harmful stereotypes among his French audience. He also was a ‘sex tourist’, preying on Polynesian girls as young as 13 years old. So when the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) decided to hold an exhibition called ‘Gauguin’s World: TŌNA IHO, TŌNA AO’, one can’t help but raise an eyebrow at why we are celebrating such a problematic artist.
The 1892 painting, ‘Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching)’ depicts a Tahitian girl called Teha’amana lying on her stomach, nude, with her head facing us, and directly looking at the viewer that’s looking at her. Gauguin attempts to represent the Polynesian fear of the Tupapau, the ‘spirit of the dead’, that looms over her. However, given his sexual predilections and the probability that Teha’amana was Christian and did not believe in these spirits, the self-mythologising essence of Gaugin’s oeuvre is to be questioned. Is Teha’amana fearing the ghost, or is she fearing the man before her — her husband Gauguin?
Teha’amana was Gauguin’s first muse after setting sail for French Polynesia, in a search for an untouched land. As he put it, he was escaping “everything that is artificial and conventional,” in reference to the Western art world. She was around 13 years old when she met Gauguin according to Noa Noa (199394), his partly autobiographical, partly fantasised journal about his experiences in Tahiti, in hopes of depicting the idyll of the Polynesian Pacific life. She became what was commonly known in French Polynesia as his ‘native wife’, meaning a legally non-binding marriage typically between a French man and a Polynesian woman — or in this case, a girl.
Much of Teha’amana’s story is told through Gauguin’s exaggerated perspective from his journal Noa Noa. He described his relationship with Teha’amana as “youth and old age, light and darkness, and life and death.” The age of consent in Tahiti at the time was 13 years old, and many young girls would become ‘native wifes’ to Western men as they provided opportunities for wealth. In other words, marriage to native women was exploitation disguised as a chance for fortune.
Gauguin was a French postimpressionist, most known for his liberal and non-representational uses of colour. But as Amelia Hill in The Guardian wrote “[he had] falsely cast himself as a creature of exotic sexuality, a defender of women’s rights and a bastion of socialist ideas.” Not only did Gauguin have extensive selfaggrandisement depicting himself as
the Christ, he raped many child brides, infected them with syphilis, and assaulted them.
Gauguin has always been controversial, but for what reason? Was it his liberal use of colour? Or his daring departure from the Western art world? It has only been in recent years where we have consistently labelled him with his sexual misconduct as “Gauguin the monster.” He was responsible for the characterisation of Polynesia as a submissive culture, an exotic realm of sensuality, and alluring women — a characterisation that will leave an impression on the rest of the world for over 100 years to come.
Gauguin writes in a letter to his wife Mette while overseas, referring to his work Manao Tupapau:
“I painted a nude of a young girl. In this position she is on the verge of being indecent. But I want it that way: the lines and movement are interesting to me. And so, I give her, in depicting the head, a bit of a fright. It is necessary to justify this fright if not to explain it because it is in the character of a Maori person... One of our own young girls [in Europe] would be frightened to be caught in this position. (The women here would not.)”
His exoticised and animalistic perception of Pacific women are detailed in another letter he wrote to Mette: “like she-cats, she bites when in heat and claws as if coition were painful. She asks to be raped.”
There is a sense of detachment in his words, an unnerving separation of himself from his Tahitian muse. Polynesian girls are for sexual encounters, emphasising their ‘otherness’ by comparison with European girls.
The NGA is aware of the cavity in the art world that is the inherently celebratory nature of exhibitions dedicated to problematic artists. To combat this, they placed Polynesian voices at the forefront of the exhibition. The exhibition features a podcast hosted by Sosefina Fuamoli, a Samoan music journalist with guests such as Maori artist Angelea Tiatia and Gauguin expert Elizabeth C. Childs. The podcast is called ‘The Gauguin Dilemma’, and it discusses lenses we should and shouldn’t see Gauguin through, yet it almost leans into dismissing the true nature of his misconduct and buries his actions in
context of Tahiti’s ‘age of consent laws’ and the normalisation of native wifes.
This transcript excerpt from the podcast with Gauguin expert Elizabeth C. Childs and producer Marcus Costello, amplifies the debate on whether separating the art from the artist is viable.
Elizabeth C. Childs: “Are you going to damn the artist for their personal life? Now, we can pretend it didn’t happen, or we can try and separate out the personal life from the art. And I do think we need to point out that there are many, many figures in the art historical canon who live some pretty tacky lives… I think the fundamental question is, are you going to align the life and the work [of the artist] and say that one has to be admirable for the other to even begin to be addressed?”
Marcus Costello: “Can I ask you that question?”
Elizabeth C. Childs: “I don’t think hiding the work is a solution.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who unveiled ‘Gauguin’s World’ echoed this sentiment, stating,“I am an opponent of cancel culture”.
The NGA uses Gauguin to highlight the Polynesian exhibition ‘SaVāge K’lub,’ held alongside ‘Gauguin’s World,’ but begs the question if the works are being overshadowed by Gauguin’s presence. Is the NGA subconsciously perpetuating the idea that they need Gauguin for a gallery audience to view authentic Polynesian culture and art?
To this day, Tahitians seek economical benefits from Gauguin’s exploitation of their culture in the form of tourism drawcards. From the Gauguin museum in Tahiti to the Paul Gauguin Cruise, a luxury cruise brand, Tahitians use Gauguin’s exploitation to their benefit. But at what cost? Although helping the Polynesian economy, Paul Gauguin cruises are not owned by Polynesians but ironically enough, a French company called ‘Compagnie du Ponant.’
My French Art tutor experienced
the exhibition in person. When I asked her what she thought of how Gauguin was dealt with, she said: “I think they could’ve done more”.
So what more could the NGA have done and what should we do with these sorts of artists in future exhibitions? It’s hard to compensate for the long-lasting impacts that French colonialism has had on Tahiti and its surrounding islands with a single exhibition, but if I had to exhibit it, I would emphasise in all aspects of his paintings the confrontation, sinisterism and exploitation.
Sasha Grishin in The Conversation addresses the ethics of this exhibition stating: “I do not know the answer to this question, but feel uncomfortable in an atmosphere where so much dismay is expressed concerning domestic violence in Australia to be simultaneously celebrating an artist for whom violence against women was part of his everyday life”.
The art cannot be separated from its gruelling context, especially Gauguin’s work, one whose context is intertwined with its subject matter. Within the past few years, the accountability we hold to artists has changed rapidly due to the emergence of ‘cancel culture’. Yet, hiding these works is not a solution. In a moment in culture and art where resources could be distributed to help contemporary problems, Gaugin’s predatory behaviour and exploitation has been lumped into the description of his story as “nuanced”. As such, Gaugin’s Exhibition remains a missed opportunity at better handling this contentious subject matter, in a manner that comprehensively yet carefully engages with all aspects of Gaugin’s life and art.
The National Gallery of Australia is currently hosting their Gauguin exhibition, Gauguin’s World: TŌNA IHO, TŌNA AO until October 7.
‘Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching)’ (1982)
The question of East Timor
Iris Brown takes a trip to Timor-Leste.
East Timor, also known as TimorLeste, is an island country only 400 kilometres north of Darwin, but you wouldn’t be the only Australian who may never have heard of it.
East Timor is a nation on a fault line, comprising rugged mountain regions and headlands. It’s also a part of the Coral Triangle, hosting reefs that house more than twelve hundred reef fish species. Multilingualism is the norm, with the two official languages of Tetum and Portuguese, as well as English and Indonesian, as working languages, plus an estimated thirtytwo Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken. Despite this uniqueness and natural beauty, Timor Leste is not well woven into the Australian public consciousness. It receives little media attention, and unlike Indonesia and other neighbouring Pacific countries, its languages and history are remarkably absent in the Australian education system, despite Australian and East Timorese relations spanning decades, and continuing today.
A Brief History
The land that now constitutes East Timor was inhabited by huntergatherer communities in the Neolithic period as far back as thirty five thousand years ago. Defined societies emerged, with complex social hierarchies, cultural traditions, and laws, as well as strategic alliances between communities.
Portuguese colonialists established a port on Timor Island in the 17th century, but lost half the island to the Dutch in 1749, maintaining the Eastern half, hence ‘Timor-Leste’, or East Timor.
The Japanese regime conquered many territories in the Asia Pacific, including Timor Leste in 1942. East Timorese guerilla fighters, aided by Allied soldiers, resisted the Japanese in a long campaign, which resulted in the death of up to 70,000 civilians. Japan occupied the territory until the end of WWII, when control was restored back to the Portuguese.
In 1975, Portugal withdrew from the territory and after a civil war, the left-wing Fretilin Party took control of Timor Leste, the first independent government of the new country. Indonesian forces then invaded the territory, claiming to be fighting against the communist threat, and annexed a portion of the country.
A quarter of the East Timorese population, more than two hundred thousand people, were killed, either from direct involvement in the conflict or from resulting famine and disease.
In 1999, a vote was held for independence, in which 78% of the country voted to separate from
Indonesia. Anti-independence militias, supported by the Indonesian government, attempt to violently suppress the move to independence, triggering UN and Australian peacekeeping forces to become involved. In 2002, East Timor formally achieved independence.
Youth and Development
Timor-Leste has one of the youngest populations in the world, with 57% of people under 25 years of age. In most cases, their quality of life is bleak.
There are many levels of poverty in East Timorese society. The country has the highest rate of monetary poverty in Southeast Asia. More than 40% of the population lived below the poverty line in 2022. There is also limited access to quality education, with overcrowded schools and lack of access in regional and remote areas. There are significant social and welfare barriers as well, including access to essential healthcare.
Most solutions regarding poverty and under-utalised human capital in East Timor focus purely on economic terms. Every report seems to include a variation of the following: ‘If only we invest more financially, if only we add more youth programs, if only we can encourage more young people to work in the agricultural sector’. There is rarely a questioning of why systemic issues exist and persist. In fact, examinations of the ongoing impacts of colonial rule are notably absent when attempting to solve why young people don’t want to work in agricultural or oil production industries that they or their country rarely see the benefits from.
Following independence, there was no clear maritime boundary set between East Timor and Australia, a situation which Australia exploited for its own financial gain. It was only in 2018 that a deal was reached, in which East Timor is still only guaranteed 70% of profits from the largest oil field in the area. In 2013, it was revealed that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) had planted espionage listening devices in governmental offices in East Timor to listen to closed-door discussions relating to the maritime boundary with Australia. After Witness K, the secret agent, came forward, the East Timorese government was eventually able to negotiate a better deal for oil and the maritime boundaries. But the scandal begs the question: why is Australia able to take so much from a nation that is clearly in more need?
In fact, Timor-Leste, under international law, has claim to all of the oil and resources in their maritime border, but requires infrastructure and
investment money to capitalise on the resources. Australian corporation Woodside Energy Group takes advantage of East Timor’s predicament. In 2002, the company announced delays to projects in the oil and gas fields at the same time Australia and East Timor were negotiating on an agreed maritime border, a clear move warning the Timorese government that development would only continue under Australia’s terms.
Questions are also being raised about the sustainability of the current economic development plan for East Timor. As oil reserves begin to diminish, there is no current answer for how the government will continue to finance services, as it currently relies on petrol funds. Economic diversification of markets is a popular suggested solution, but how East Timor would be able to develop such markets and make them competitive against other already strong agricultural and tourist markets in the region is unclear.
Although East Timor continues to face unemployment and labour challenges, one way young people are improving their economic prospects despite their country’s uncertain future is moving and working overseas. There are two migration schemes that assist Timorese people to come to Australia as workers. The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) Scheme connects Australian employers to Timorese workers, and is used to fill labour gaps in regional and remote areas and the Pacific Engagement Visa offers the possibility of permanent residency for workers and their families.
Remote agricultural work has an increased risk of exploitation and forced labour practices, of which migrants with no prior connection to the country and reduced working
rights, and in some cases, facing linguistic barriers. Debt bondage is a common example, where employees are tricked into believing they owe their employer debt and must work, without pay, to resolve it. There are numerous reports and stories of workers from the Pacific being exploited. In 2022, a group of Pacific workers in rural Queensland spoke to lawyers and the media regarding their treatment, detailing how their personal lives outside of working hours were restricted by employers and how conditions were significantly different to what was advertised.
The defection of many Pacific workers formerly part of the PALM scheme indicates issues, with many applying for permanent protection visas instead. Permanent protection visas offer unrestricted working rights and greater security, as the PALM scheme only offers work for up to four years. Permanent protection visas thereby reduce the exploitation of Pacific workers, but farmers are not happy, with some even calling for penalties for those who attempt to switch visas.
Where to from here?
The future of East Timor, like many countries labelled ‘developing’, is an uncertain one. Despite mainstream economic investments and promises of developmental projects, the situation for young people and workers is not improving. The question of development is an ongoing one, but current trends indicate that this may need to be analysed less through economic considerations such as markets, but how the country’s social fabric can be restored and become truly self-sufficient following decades of colonial rule and economic exploitation.
Map of Portuguese Timor by Japanese cartographer Sanbo Honbo, 1940. Image: National Library of Australia.
Bikini Atoll, nuclear imperialism, and ecocide in the Pacific
Emilie Garcia-Dolnik explores the nuclear history of the Pacific.
Before the term ‘Bikini’ evoked memories of a sultry summer, it referred solely to Bikini Atoll: a coral reef in the Marshall Islands. Between 1946 and 1958, Bikini Atoll became the testing site for at least 23 nuclear bombs, detonated by the United States. To cover up these ecocidal crimes, the term Bikini was weaponised and subverted, and the female body became centred as a hyper-sexualised object. Nuclear imperialism has been violent across the Pacific, and the threat of devastation continues through risks associated with climate change and fossil fuel capitalism.
Throughout its history, the Marshall Islands have been a colony of Germany, Japan and the United States. The United States gained control of the area as a result of the Japanese defeat in WWII — becoming the occupiers of an Indigenous population who had never ceded sovereignty. Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll was accompanied by the evacuation of 167 Bikini Islanders, who were told they would be able to return to their lands after the tests had been completed. To this day, the Indigenous people of Bikini Atoll have been unable to return to their lands due to the threat of radiation poisoning. These communities continue to face ongoing health issues, such as greater risk of cervical, lung and oral cancer.
We cannot extricate colonial violence from ecocide. In fact, it is a core tenet of imperialism. To Amitav Ghosh, author of The Nutmeg’s Curse, colonial violence marked a new form of warfare where “Indigenous peoples faced a state of permanent war that involved many kinds of other-thanhuman beings and entities: pathogens, rivers, forests, plants, and animals all play[ing] a part in the struggle.” The ability to dictate which environments and peoples live, and which environments and peoples die, is the ultimate form of biopower bestowed upon the colonial state; a power most ‘legitimately’ exercised in warfare, but also through soft power and total inaction. Any measures towards decolonisation cannot be considered meaningful without consideration of environmental and multi-species justice.
Teresia Teaiwa, in bikinis and other s/pacific and n/oceans, links together the erasure of Bikini Atoll from Western consciousness, and the weaponisation of both the female body and the semantics of the term Bikini. She argues that “the bikini bathing suit is testament to the recurring tourist trivialisation of Pacific Islanders’ experience and existence.” The bikini performs a sexist dynamic where “objectification through excessive visibility” is inverted to the effect of “objectification through rendering invisible.” The female body operates as a hyper-sexualised guise for an imperial
legacy: a perverse reminder of shared struggles and the need for solidarity across gendered and racialised lines. This is an instalment within the historic campaign of sexualised language, with phallic language and references to ‘virginity’ common in nuclear discourse. The disposability of the environment that occurs within the “loss” of nuclear virginity is akin to the disposability of the female body under the global patriarchy.
Bikini Atoll is not an outlier, but one of many areas in the Pacific affected by nuclear imperialism. The region has historically been used as testing grounds for nuclear weaponry, with tests being conducted by the United States, France, and the United Kingdom across the Marshall Islands, French Polynesia, Kiribati, and Australia. Nuclear apocalypse is not a distant future, but a lived reality for some communities in the Pacific. With the ongoing threat of climate change, communities across the Pacific find themselves exposed to vulnerabilities unique to their positioning within a matrix of colonial power relations. The risk of rising sea tides, warming temperatures, tropical storms, and ocean acidification all exacerbate the threat to the Pacific. When coupled with continued nuclear contamination, inaction on both nuclear disarmament and climate change sparks risk of environmental disaster across the entire globe.
We must not excuse so-called Australia from the discussion. While we exist in close proximity to our Pacific neighbours, we certainly lack a sense of Pacific identity or any meaningful ethos of regional solidarity. Within Australian consciousness is the prevailing view of the Pacific as a convenient dumping ground. We flaunt our place in the Pacific when it is convenient, during regional conferences and diplomatic meetings, while remaining manifestly a part of the Global Northern elite. Australia has an enhanced capacity to mitigate the impacts of climate change compared to its neighbouring states. A failure to extend this capacity regionally in fact constitutes a form of genocide by negligence. Our climate change policies remain steeped in empty promises to reduce emissions and climate-migration deals that become tokenistic and reactionary when coupled with the former. We are beginning to see the deliberate weaponisation of climate change globally, including in occupied Palestine. Australia’s failure to make strides towards climate justice normalises this weaponisation and diminishes efforts towards decolonisation at both a regional and local level.
Insidiously, we also refuse to acknowledge the cruel nuclear atrocities committed on Indigenous land in so-called Australia, against
populations at Maralinga, Emu Field and the Montebello Islands from 1952 to 1963. None of these tests considered the impact on the traditional owners of the land, indeed many people were not properly evacuated or informed at all. At Emu Field, communities were directly exposed to nuclear fallout. Decontamination attempts were consistently negligent. Maralinga was not returned to its traditional owners until 2009. We cannot separate nuclear imperialism from our own history of genocide.
The struggle for disarmament remains inseparable from the struggle for environmental justice. State security is a flimsy, violent, ironic notion at best when the idea remains so entwined with the stockpiling of ready-to-use nuclear weapons. While the history and impact of both colonialism and climate change in the Pacific is specific, this is a pattern replicated across the globe where communities that are not responsible for climate change bear the brunt of the impact. We must turn to the strong Pacific activists who have been mobilising for decades against both nuclear proliferation and climate inaction, and critiquing these ideas of security. It is only through meaningful engagement with their voices that we can strengthen our regional ties and commit to a decolonised and feminist future.
Pinatubo 1991
the eruption and bayanihan after
On the Ring of Fire, a tectonically active area of the Pacific Ocean, Mount Pinatubo rises high among the Zambales Mountains. It is an active stratovolcano on the island of Luzon, with rainforests around the hills, rice fields stretched far and wide in the valleys. In 1991, Pinatubo ejected 10,000m3 of fallout. It was the largest volcanic eruption since 1912.
“umitim ang langit, kasing dilim ng gabi” (The heavens turned black, dark as night) my Lola spoke shakenly, recalling the twelve days of tectonic chaos. My family saw hell spew from the heart of the Earth. Yet, Lola was steadfast, embodying Bayanihan, our indigenous “mutual aid”, and hoped that all would end well.
It was June 13, in the second month of the semester at Clark Air Base, Pampanga, roughly 22km from the peak of Pinatubo. With the first major magmatic eruption on June 7, it was unclear whether or not evacuations would be necessary for the area. My Tatay, in his early aeronautical engineering class, was startled by the loud tremors and ear-piercing explosion. “I was crying as the Airmen rushed us to large military vehicles… smelling the sulphur with my hair full of ash.”* Seismic tremors bore into his head, watching the heavens darken and lighting shoot as ash poured out. Ash Columns soared high, 21km into the atmosphere, spewing volcanic matter and gases. Pyroclastic surges filled the river valleys, rushing down the mountain, covering everything in a layer of ash and volcanic matter.
To evacuate was to leave all his belongings behind under the fallen foundations of the boarding house, crushed by metres of ash and debris. An hour drive south from Clark, the Philippine Air Force deemed it safe in Guagua’s wetlands, on the edge of our peninsular province, Bataan.
Having felt the earthquakes on the days prior, Lola and the village were not prepared for what was to come. June 15 saw Pinatubo’s final climactic devastation. In Bataan, the extent of Pinatubo’s destructive power did not pass our northern border. But as the sky turned black, Lola’s face turned grim.
“We were scared, like it was the end of the world… People rushed home, unable to sleep as pounds of ash poured onto rooftops. Electrical and road infrastructure out of Bataan
were destroyed. We were isolated from the rest of the nation.”
The collapse of the summit was felt throughout Luzon. As Pinatubo erupted, Typhoon Yunya passed north, raising the ash clouds 34km into the air. Rain mixed with dacite tephra creating slushing lahar landslides, covering farmland, forests, roads and worse. “Towns in Pampanga were entombed by the rain and ash. Levelling the villages and removing them off the map. The highway to Manila was gone, people resorted to walking to the evacuee camps” Lola remarked.
The aftermath of this catastrophe left so much in chaos and so many in despair. 17 megatons of Pinatubo’s debris spread throughout the world causing global cooling by 0.5°C. But back home, Lola and the community internalised the tenet of Kapwa, a shared innerself, through pakikisangkot, the act of joining a movement. With the rice sprouts crushed metres deep by the ash, she and the farmers of the town sought to assess the fields for insurance claims.
Lola and her children went door-todoor to the surrounding towns seeking aid and donations, raising money for the Rural Reconstruction Movement. Prompted by seeing the slurry-covered roads and collapsed houses near her sister’s in Olongapo, they gathered water, rice, and other aid and packaged care boxes for the victims.
Even with destruction, reasoning looked towards indigenous beliefs. Local Sambali and Ayta myth states Bakobako, the angry turtle spirit, dug into Pinatubo’s mountainside, spewing fiery stones for three nights long. The ash nurtured the newly volcanic soil as if it was ‘ready to be made to grow’ (Pinatubo in Sambali). Thus, Apo Namalyari, the supreme moon-goddess of events, claimed this mountain. Elders preached her disgust towards the illegal logging and exploratory drilling, saying she enticed
Bakobako to wreak havoc and restore balance.
With all the events attracting Apo Namalyari, I am still in awe with the community and its bayanihan. Despite catastrophe, My lola, my tatay, and the rest of the family continue this act of love and care for the community, one which all indigenous peoples know too well. Though getting back on track with life was tough, the seeds of change were planted. Blessed by the volcanic soil and Apo Namalyari, Lola continues her care for others, instilled and instilling pakikisangot to the newer generation, waiting to grow.
* All direct quotes translated from Tagalog unless otherwise stated.
When distance makes
Thuận Ánh writes.
the heart grow fonder
“In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Có nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant,“Do you remember me?” I miss you more than I remember you.”
Every birthday, Mum and I write each other letters: a little tradition that began when I was fifteen, physically and emotionally awkward, trying my best to condense all the feelings I had no idea how to deal with in one piece of prose. In the very first birthday letter, I drew parallels between her and the Moon: how art has always revolved around it, what life would be — if not nonexistent — without the brightest object in our night sky. About the moonlight’s quiet but consistent presence above our head, gently caressing us regardless of whether dusk has fallen. Private, intimate confessions are our love language, but only in the form of writing.
Years later, when I moved to Australia to study, Mum and Dad stayed home, leaving moonlight to follow my footsteps to a place oceans away. Yet, before crossing the ocean in an eight-hour flight, I could not bring myself to voice out anything aching inside my heart. Words weighed heavy on my tongue. “I love you.” “I am gonna miss you.” “It would be so hard without you.”
Nothing came out. Suddenly, all the languages I knew failed me.
Saying goodbye to familiarity is hard; I sobbed my entire flight, and for days after that, when I looked out the window and saw the Moon. No different from my parents, it still silently observed my days and nights. I started calling them at least once every day, eager to know what had changed and what had not about their lives. Overwhelmed by their absence, with a yearning that I did not know one’s heart could bear: I was hit with the realisation that I love them more than I ever thought.
As I searched for similar experiences, I learned that the relationships and communication between international students and their parents have always been complicated.
From January to May 2024 alone, 717,587 international students studied in Australia. Moreover, students from overseas make up nearly half of the University of Sydney’s student body across undergraduate and postgraduate levels, a ratio of 31,429 to 68,421: thousands of lives living away from home, thousands of different relationships with their families.
When beginning university, family seems to be the sole source of stability in a world full of change. Still, this does not mean there has been no shift in the role of parents. From being the primary caretaker of students, they have become more of a support system, expected to offer advice and encouragement when their children seek them out. As parents of international students become more open and empathetic with their kids’ stories and experiences, high expectations about academic or career success no longer dominate conversations. My parents’ main priority and interest now lie in my wellbeing and health, which they exhibit through our calls and texts throughout the day. “Did you eat?”, “Is the weather too cold for you?”, or “Have you been sleeping well?”, instead of the same old “How was the exam?”.
The geographical differences do not only open the door for international students to the world but also the door from their hearts: they start sharing more when they feel they have a sense of agency. Opposed to the socially enforced interaction of in-person contact, communication from a distance requires initiative
My friends across the Pacific
Cyber housemates
I currently live in Sydney and enjoy my time with friends here, but I make sure to keep my connections with people from the other side of the Pacific. They were my classmates, but we went to universities in different cities. We keep in touch through video communication platforms and games.
I remember the time when all of my friends shared rooms with several other students. When we have a call, their roommates would notice and join us. In that way, I got to know some of them, and our small friend group grew bigger and bigger.
It was just like living in a big house together. We held FIFA World Cup and UCL watch parties. Without my “commentator” friends, I would have no idea what those football matches were about. Besides, it’s interesting to see them argue against each other as fans of different sports clubs. We held Chinese traditional festival
celebrations and watched special television programs together. We held birthday parties, where we played games against each other and sang karaoke afterwards. We have late-night conversations, where if one of us feels depressed, all the other people would be there to listen and offer help.
It could be lonely sometimes to stay in my room, especially during the lockdowns. But when I miss the feeling of people getting together, I can always connect my cyber-housemates across the Pacific.
Across time and space
My friends get together sometimes, but the Pacific is much more difficult to cross. Every time they travel to the same city to meet, they always call me. I was able to attend all the events in the form of a phone: they shoot the attractions for me when boating on the lake. They gave the phone a microphone when going to the karaoke, even if I can never sing
on the beat because of the internet delay. I watch them play Mahjong as a virtual advisor, sadly I’m not a mascot so I can’t provide good luck. They have dinner and ask me to have a seat as well — usually on tissues, so that we can chat together.
We once tried to share our locations in an app to see each other on the same world map. I have to zoom out a lot to see everyone. We are not even in the same time zone, nor the same hemisphere, and yet we get together.
Cross the Pacific is not easy
To maintain this kind of connection, the most difficult problem to overcome is the Internet delay. Overcooked is one of the games we often play, where players cooperate as chefs to prepare meals that customers order within a strict time limit. Conversations like this always happen: “We need cabbage – chop some!” “I’ve already done that!” “Pass that to
and intention. Children living away from their parents are also given the freedom to become selective when it comes to sharing things with their parents, yet despite this, it seems we actually share more about their lives than we did living together.
The saying “distance makes the heart grow fonder” surely applies to the complicated parent-international student relationship, as it can foster trust, support, and intimacy. Ironically, it seems geographical and cultural gaps permit students and parents to view one another more holistically than episodically. They see each other as equal beings with values and interests worthy of respect. As close proximity might create space for arguments about trivial, daily life details, distance increases the value of rarer connections.
It seems like the separation makes the bodies apart, but pulls in the hearts.
“I love you.” “I miss you.” “It is so hard without you.” It is so much easier for me to confess to the Moon now. It is so much easier for me to thread them into letters and texts. And when they cross the ocean on an eight-hour flight to see me, I hope I can tell this to my parents’ faces.
me!”“I’m on it — why are you always repeating what I’m doing!” “Because of the internet delay!”
Chatting with my friends in Sydney, I found that lots of us have friends across the Pacific despite the difficulties. Like me, some keep close connections with their friends even when they come to Australia for study. Some have made new friends via online communities. Some still keep connecting with the friends they made in Australia after they graduate and return to their home country.
I like to stare at the sea, trying my best to reach the farest edge of the Pacific with my eyes. But usually, there will be nothing except for the endless blue. The future is like that as well. It is so mysterious that we can hardly predict anything. But when I think of my friends across that vast ocean, there’s something I know for sure – that no matter how delayed it is, the voice from them will always be delivered to me.
Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Kate Zhang dials up.
Iris at the Sydney Fringe Festival
Eloise Aiken reviews.
Iris is a one-person show and a debut for Dead Fruit Theatre Company, cowritten and performed by Mish Fry, directed and co-written by Clementine de la Hunty, and stage managed by Domenic Hort. Iris follows a young woman’s spiralling descent as she reckons with guilt, her past, and questions of ‘who am I?’ (and ‘am I self absorbed for asking that?’).
The show centres on Iris and her diary. Well…not necessarily a diary, a book moreso. And it goes by a few titles: ‘How not to be a Cunt’, ‘How not to be a Shit’ and most famously, ‘How not to be a Bad Person’.
For a while, the audience is left wondering what event has left Iris feeling so guilty. We begin to get glimpses into her muddy past — stealing and breaking rubber toys in school or being fired from her job, for example. But there isn’t anything that seems to warrant her mad avoidance of her past, until we slip further down the spiral.
Iris deploys technology cleverly, using projection to portray Iris’ internal world of anxieties. The set is bare, bar a few milk crates, and is dominated by a large sheet strung across the stage. Throughout the show,
pre-recorded shadows, past selves and physical manifestations of Iris’ thoughts are all projected on screen and seamlessly blended into Fry’s performance on stage.
As we hear Iris try to make excuses for some of her past mistakes, a shadow appears and begins to dramatically dig a hole as she digs her own grave of weak excuses. It’s difficult to pass judgement on any of Iris’ stories because her inner self is already two steps ahead. The little devil on her shoulder, complete with a monochromatic red get up, has beat you to it — “there’s a lot of talking about yourself”, “I felt, I felt, I felt”. Her overthinking is exhausting and all-consuming. And when it feels that words can no longer express her anguish, Iris breaks into movement and dance. Fry’s dance background is clear; their movements, natural and fluid. At one moment they perform a planche on a stack of milk crates, using an incredible amount of control and strength.
In recounting a past relationship with an emotionally abusive partner, Iris begins to express her tumultuous feelings through movement as ‘Olympus’ by Blondshell plays. At times, Iris moves in unison and synchronicity with her projected
self, whereas in other moments she actively works against it. In line with the character’s inner tumult, Iris uses a non-stop stream of consciousness to express herself. In the occasional moments of silence, where Iris attempts to find tranquillity — she is interrupted by her intrusive thoughts, that come in on literal roller skates, gliding into her mind, “remember that time in Year 7 when you pooped your pants?”. It’s relentless.
Fry is magnetic, it’s near impossible to take your eyes off of them as they take you through an emotional ringer. It is no small feat to command an audience’s attention for an hour. Fry’s ability to flick between heart-wrenching scenes and lighter, comedic moments is a real credit to their performance and de la Hunty’s script development.
It’s exciting to see work that pushes the boundaries of what theatre can be with the use of technical production elements, especially on a smaller scale to what we’re seeing with ‘Cine-Theatre’ and the works of Kip Williams. Dead Fruit Productions have created a work that is not only technically impressive, but grounded and impactful. It’s one that will leave you thinking deeply. But don’t overthink it! You don’t want to fall down that spiral. Iris urges us to let ourselves be free from the prison of our inner critic.
Megalopolis (2024): “a succession of special effects”
“Coppola makes his film like the Americans made war” writes Jean Baudrillard in 1981. “With the same immoderation, the same excess of means, the same monstrous candor … and the same success.”
It seems forty-five years on from Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), little seems to have changed. The latest instalment in an extensive filmography, Megalopolis (2024) seems to similarly incorporate the instruments and mechanisms of American imperialism and capitalism into its representation of them. Yet where the former consciously uses destruction, excess, and debauchery to produce a monumental reflection of its times, the latter engages in a confused, masturbatory performance of self-aggrandisation and pseudointellectualism.
Cesar Catalina, played by Adam Driver, chairs the Design Authority and oversees the reconstruction of New Rome, a futuristic city built with a material aptly titled Megalon. With the power to stop time and control space, Catalina threatens the status quo established by Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) who is content with the state of his city. Of course, Cesar falls for Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) in a not-sonew take on Romeo and Juliet, further complicating his plans for a megaloncentric future.
Immediately we are introduced to a series of megalomaniacs comprising the political and economic elite of a futuristic city named New Rome. The filmic world is presented to us as an
amalgamation of ancient roman and high modernist aesthetics, with a wardrobe department of Togas and Pin-stripe suits, and names varying from the overtly classical Cesar Catilina to the almost Pynchonesque Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza).
Milena Canonero’s quasi-Roman, quasi-contemporary costume design is one of the few elements that can escape criticism, elevating the aesthetic far more than the use of special effects. Similarly, the moving statues that appeared sporadically were intriguing to the eye, but like Jason Schwartzman were relegated to the background.
Beyond these basic elements of world building, the film attempts to overwhelm you at all times with a surge of culture signifiers and clashing aesthetics. At a certain point you give up trying to identify these varying symbols and let them wash over you, as glimpses of German expressionism, MTV music videos, and Luhrmanesque theatricality are all flashed within seconds of each other. To an extent this attempt at large-scale montage is one of the film’s few successes, the lack of continuity or coherence in style and ideology reflecting contemporary American society.
Yet this is where the film’s boons begin and end. What seems at first to have the promise of another American epic of Coppola’s — albeit much more visually experimental — quickly devolves into a series of attempts at saying something, without having anything to say. Dimensions of class and gender are thrown at the audience as an afterthought. To Coppola, clearly,
Resonance, revenge and humour in You’re Killing Me
Anastasia Dale reviews.
You’re Killing Me deftly balances dark humour with sincerity, heightened fiction with realism, to create a tender and deeply engaging piece of theatre. The show centres around Harper, a university student, as she writes and directs a play inspired by her own experience of sexual assault. As such, the show is tense, raw, at times uncomfortable — and surprising in its humour, relatability, and Heathers-like campy ending.
the most interesting aspect of empire is the man who creates it: an angle already tirelessly explored in much more interesting ways.
Critical and commercial failure is not something new to Coppola, as evidenced in One From The Heart (1982), yet Megalopolis seems to reflect a more devastating failure, a failure on a moral and spiritual level. In the biography The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola (2023), author Sam Wasson stated that the first draft was written in 1984: an admission befitting this grandiose attempt at creating a science fiction epic.
Once again Coppola has attempted to achieve a meta-textual depiction of the American empire, yet without any serious critique to put forward to this reality, he merely replicates it: as such, the film devolves into a “succession of special effects” without meaning.
Looking Coppola’s creation in the eye — as an extension of himself — the audience is pushed to question why he chose to fork over $120 million to build his own Megalopolis if this was the end result.
Besides the aesthetic, what exactly is Megalopolis? A vision of a new city? Slanted structures? Dreams come true? While Cesar might have the power to halt time, Coppola appears to have only halted himself, while the world, fed-up with the exploitative delusions of the auteur, has evidently moved on to bigger and better things.
For now, the mythologised narrative of how Megalopolis almost never made it to the screen will certainly overtake the film itself.
Megalopolis is in Australian cinemas September 26.
The play opens with an empty bed. Scout McWhinney’s set design is reminiscent of Tracey Emin’s famous work My Bed (1998) where Emin exhibited the bed she lived in during a depressive episode. We sit with this bed as the content warnings are read out, as we are given time to process the warnings. This bed is at first glance childish — kids patterned sheets and a teddy bear — but looking closer, we recognise the symbols of young adulthood. Heels and Pepsi Max cans are strewn around. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton. Photos of friends. An ashtray. The bed stays on stage, bearing silent witness to each scene.
You’re Killing Me plays with the idea of theatre, specifically student theatre, dipping in and out of narrative and embedded narrative. A melancholy guitar theme signals the transitions between storylines. Alex Butler as Harper begins the play with a short spiel about what writing this play meant to her. Toby Eastway as Ben shouts from the audience: “I didn’t do it!” And the play begins. This choice was uniquely well-suited to the intimate atmosphere of the Cellar Theatre, and the preconceptions an audience has going to see a SUDS show. The rehearsal and writing process scenes felt very real. I’m sure many people in the audience truly believed Alex, not Rose Cooke and Aqsa Suryana, wrote the show.
There is an intriguing interplay between reality and fiction. The play is explicitly based on true events, and as the show-within-the-show unfolds, its central plot is mirrored in the lives of the actors in it. This is particularly impactful as we see Harper struggle with affirming the reality of her lived experience. Many scenes involve repetition and mirroring, giving the audience time to think about the things not being said, and about one’s own relationship to sexual assault.
The play’s comedy and tragedy is true to life: we do live in a world where you can run into your rapist at the bus stop and have to make small talk.
You’re Killing Me runs 11–14 September, and 18–21 September, at the Cellar Theatre.
Read the full review online.
Valerie Chidiac and Huw Bradshaw review.
VOTE!
Voting will be open on September 24, 25 & 26
All Sydney University undergraduate students who are currently enrolled are eligible to vote in the upcoming 2024 SRC Elections. For more info see: bit.ly/SRC-vote
2024 Polling Booth Times and Locations
President’s Report
Harrison Brennan
The President did not submit a report this week.
Education Officers’ Report
Grace Street & Shovan Bhattarai
Another week, another multiple events on campus to protest for their ties to genocide. Last Tuesday, Students Against War and Thales off Campus led a speak out against Thales (one of the world’s largest weapons companies) and ANSTO (creating the nuclear for AUKUS subs) being invited to the Faculty of Science’s Industry Networking Night.
On Wednesday, Students for Palestine hosted a great forum, ‘Degrees of Complicity’. As we protested Mark Scott speaking at an event about liberalism at the Women’s College on Thursday, this high degree of institutional complicity became ever more clear.
Following the ICJ and UNGA’s decisions about Israel’s apartheid and illegal occupation, we still are yet to see any semblance of boycotts, divestment or sanctions from our university or government.
In fact, the Australian Labor government abstained on the recent vote at the UNGA, which is an utter shame and disgrace. This is the party of genocide and we will never forget it.
As Victoria Police brutalised protestors at the Land Forces Expo protest and USyd continues its crackdown on activism and Palestinerelated events, we need EVERYONE to get involved to fight for justice and for our rights.
Keep an eye out for the National Week of Action for Palestine, ‘there are no universities left in Gaza’, for late October which is being organised by the National Union of Students and BDS Youth.
Check us out, get involved!
@usyd.education.action
@thales_off_campus
@studentsagainstwar_
@studentsforpalestinesydneyuni
@bds_youth
SRC Reports
Women Officers’ Report
Eliza Crossley & Rand Khatib
Editors: Huw Bradshaw, Valerie Chidiac, Aidan Elwig Pollock, Victoria Gillespie, Ariana Haghighi, Sandra Kallarakkal, Zeina Khochaiche, Simone Maddison, Angus McGregor, Amelia Raines. Pay: $146,250.94 ($14,625 each).
Number of WoCo meetings, working bees, or banner paints attended by any Honi Soit editor: 0 out of 21
Number of WoCo forums, teachins, film screenings, reading groups or social events attended by any Honi Soit editor: 0 out of 15
Number of WoCo rallies attended by any Honi Soit editor: 0 out of 3
Number of articles contributed to WoCo publications by any Honi Soit editor: 1 article out of 2 publications Grade: Absent Fail (AF)
While FLIRT for Honi can be commended for producing a weekly student newspaper, this year’s editorial team has developed a perplexing aversion to feminist organising as FLIRT appears to have chosen to boycott collective organizing meetings and WoCo events altogether.
Not one Honi editor has attended a WoCo meeting this year, or a nonautonomous forum, teach-in, or reading group. The name Flirt for Honi seems wellearned—with this ticket seeming stuck in the flirting stage, admiring activism from a distance rather than committing.
Though, credit where it’s due— they did throw a fun party.
We remain optimistic though, last week’s OB report cards suggest enthusiasm for the happenings of WoCo and for Radical Sex & Consent Week, which is returning this October 8th to 11th under a new name, Reclaim & Resist. We are very excited that the editors want to get involved!
In love & rage,
Your favourite Women’s Officers xx
Intercampus Officers’ Report
Lydia Elias, Alexander Poirer, Zijun Shan & Zifan Xie
The Intercampus Office has been primarily focusing on the student experience with the expansion of the Conservatorium’s campuses. The Footbridge Theatre has now been signed-over to the Conservatorium, and will become the hub of music theatre teaching — we are also working to guarantee that student organisations then have access, to hopefully see a return of the Revue Season to its historic home. The Seymour Centre has been receiving renovations to ensure it is a safe and comfortable space to learn and practise.
The Conservatorium has also been guaranteed ConTwo — a new campus in Parramatta alongside the Westmead expansion of the University. It will become the hub of digital music and studios, and we’re ensuring that students will have simple travel and student support. Many other non-Conservatorium students will also be studying in Westmead as the University plans for 40,000 students on that campus, and we are discussing proposals to bring to the SRC to ensure they are supported.
A 2-hourly shuttle bus between the Conservatorium’s Macquarie Street campus and Fisher Library is in the final stages of coordination. Alex has had meetings over the past year with the Office of Student Life, and it now been finalised with Protective Services to run the Redfern shuttle bus to the Con during the day.
We’ve also looked into getting free HIV finger-prick tests on campus. Many venues on Oxford Street, as well as the University of New South Wales, have free machines where anyone may request up to 4 free rapid-HIV tests per month.
We have also been participating in the planning for the NUS National Week of Action for Gaza, helping gather more universities around the country to join in the week.
Refugee Rights Officers’ Report
Daniel Holland, Annabel Pettit, Reeyaa Agrawal & Lucas Pierce
The Refugee Rights Officers did not submit a report this week.
Global Solidarity Officers’ Report
Nabilah Chowdhury, Gabriel Crowe, Tamsyn Smith & Lia Perkins
The Global Solidarity Officers’ did not submit a report this week.
Drugs, Alcohol
and Gambling. How to get help if you have a problem
Does your escape from uni and from life’s hardships come in liquid, powder, pill, or even in plastic (credit cards)? Chances are that you’ve already tried something, taken a gamble of some sort, or you may be trying to help someone out of a destructive habit. Our campus community should accept that a person is not defined by what they are addicted to or dabble with. Unfortunately, an escape that involves substance use or gambling can quickly become a trap. If you are between 16-24 years old, you are at greater risk of getting stuck with the consequences of substances use. It’s fair to say that drug-taking is widespread and accessible in the Uni environment (and in the city). But getting help & moderating your participation in it is also accepted and encouraged.
Gambling has also increased given the availability of apps, Australia’s love of sports, and the false hope of solving financial hardship with a big win.
We encourage you to ask for help and offer support for those who’d like to reduce substance dependence. If you’re not ready for others to accompany you, you can explore selfhelp options.
Turning Point Australia offers free online counselling related to drugs, alcohol, and gambling.
We encourage you to ask for help and offer support for those who’d like to reduce substance dependence. If you’re not ready for others to accompany you, you can explore self-help options.
ReachOut offers some alternatives if you’re not ready to give up your usage, but are keen to cut back. For instance, tips on how to drink but not get drunk, or how to party (and get home in one piece).
Gambling has also increased given the availability of apps, Australia’s love of sports, and the false hope of solving financial hardship with a big win. However, gambling is not an investment; it’s designed to make players lose more than they win. Sports betting companies use social media to normalise gambling, and make you feel a like part of the squad…except that you pay the bill for all rounds. Gambling is especially hard to stop as many do it in isolation. Luckily, help is available at Sydney University via Gambleaware Their program considers your beliefs about gambling, treatment goals, other problems such as anxiety, depression & relationship issues. Although substance use and gambling may be encouraged by peers, the SRC Caseworkers can help connect you to support.
Ask Abe
SRC Caseworker Help Q&A Group Work
Dear Abe, I’ve just received a letter from the Faculty saying they think I’ve breached academic honesty rules for a group assignment. I didn’t bother reading the whole assignment because I was busy, but I know I didn’t break any rules. Can I get into trouble for someone else’s cheating? Am I going to get kicked out of uni?
Group Work Sucks
Dear Group Work Sucks, The expectation in group work is for you to be acquainted
with the assignment, know its requirements, and collaborate with your peers, contributing equally to the assignment. The Uni’s website has information about academic honesty, with specific reference to group work. If you receive an allegation for breach of academic integrity, it is best to be as honest as possible and explain exactly what happened. You can ask an SRC caseworker to provide feedback to your response before you submit it to the Faculty. The Faculty absolutely cannot kick you out of uni for this.
Cheers, Abe
If you need help and advice from an SRC Caseworker, start an enquiry here. bit.ly/contact-a-caseworker
Talk to a counsellor about strategies to cope. You can book an in person or online appointment with the Uni’s Counselling Service, or join an online forum at eHeadspace.
Ask an SRC caseworker for more details.
1. Which three letter code designates Hamburg Airport in Germany?
2. Cudgel, Berghain, and Iron are all types of what?
3. On a pool table, what name is given to the holes in which balls are shot?
4. Which three letter slang term refers to gossip?
5. Prost, Cheers, and L’Chaim are all types of which expression?
6. Which revolution occured between 1952 and 1959?
7. In The Hunt for Red October, which vehicle does the antagonist command?
8. This Australian eshay slang term means ‘to rob or mug’.
9. In football, which type of shot involves the ball being kicked from underneath?
10. What connects all these answers?
Dusting off the cobwebs
Crossword
Across
1. Bank whose logo is made of red triangles
5. The US’s youngest-ever congresswoman, in brief
8.‘Bubbly’ chocolate bar
9.“With the bow”, on a string player’s score
10. They really make you cry
12. Con’s specialty?
13. Shaving goofs
15. Australian comedian Pacquola
17. Chunk in some Weis Bars
21. One on a taskbar
22. OKs
23. Corporate bigwig
24. Bits of forensic evidence
Down
1. Akubra product
2. Appear to be
3. German razor brand
4. Mediterranean island inhabitor
5. Story segment
6. It starts next week, in brief
7. Button on a scientific calculator
9. City bordering on the Hauraki Gulf
11. Recipe specification, for some vegetables
14. Actor Farnaby or Pegg, e.g.
16. Titular character in a Verdi
opera
17. Word after hot or before stand
18. Crush, as an exam
19. Dove’s noise
20. Rump
Honi Soit 1976 Issue 23: The Filth Issue
Crossword: Michael Smith.
Constructor’s note: Beware of rising sea levels in this puzzle...
Submarine
Roll
Chip
10. Sandwiches
Always Balanced Coverage
