Staff Solidarity, Nuclear Waste, and Parliament Protests: Inside 2023’s SRC5

By Saffron Geyle, Sophie Felice, Angela Paulson

The Student Representative Council (SRC)’s fifth meeting for the year was held on August 16 in Marie Reay 4.02 and on Zoom. Significant topics discussed were the NTEU strikes, AUKUS and other upcoming protests. 

ANUSA President Ben Yates opened his report at SRC 5 by affirming ANUSA’s support of the recent National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) strike that ANU staff participated in on July 27th. Yates stated that it was “really pleasing to see student levels of support” and that “solidarity with staff was strong”. 

Later in the evening, Motion 6.2 ‘Solidarity with staff fighting back’, proposed by Socialist Alternative ANU (SAlt) member Nick Reich, was heavily discussed with Reich calling on ANUSA to condemn ANU management for the “inadequate deal” that was “nowhere near where it should be”. While the best course of action for the NTEU was debated, support for the sentiment of the motion was universal in the room, with Education Officer Beatrice Tucker and General Representative Yerin Park both speaking in favour of it.

Yates also touched on student and club complaints regarding levels of SSAF funding available this semester. Yates commented in response to club funding and subsidies that “we’re never comfortable in our SSAF funding, we will always be forced to make resourcing scale fundings” but stated that ANUSA itself is in a “financially stable place with SSAF”. 

Newly appointed welfare officer Luke Harrison published their first report for ANUSA, having acquired Kai Dreyfus-Ballesi’s position as the permanent officer on July 31st. Harrison is taking over as convenor  of the Housing Action Collective from General Secretary Phoenix O’Neil and is aiming to address both the ANU residential hall fee increases, and the broader housing crisis across Canberra. 

Motion 6.3 was held for the opposing of nuclear power in Australia. The essence of this motion revolved around the vote to stop the ANU from utilising students and researchers at the university for contributive research towards nuclear power. In the context of building domestic nuclear capacity in alignment with AUKUS, the motion stated that ANUSA and student unions should take a stand against nuclear power in Australia.

Moving the motion was Socialist Alternative (SAlt) member Carter Chryse, who said that nuclear power is “always a cover up for the development of weaponry”.

“The way nuclear weaponry has been developed around the world has been done so because getting billions of dollars outright for such purposes is a really bad look.”

Carter stated that they had worked on nuclear research at ANU and that much of the funding for this research came from the military. Carted claimed that researchers had “no say on what the research gets used for”. Thus, they were against the notion of such research being able to take place in Australia, as “any advancement in the field is an advancement in weaponry”.

Seconding the motion was fellow SAlt member Chris Morris who pointed out that while unlikely that the nuclear industry is becoming Australia’s main form of power generation, “it’s important to ask questions”. Morris stated his main concerns were around nuclear wastage and its effect on Indigenous soil, stating that “scientifically [there is] no way of doing it safely”. 

“There’s no good use of nuclear power.”

Making amendments to this motion were Luke Harrison and Skye Predavec, stating beliefs that the union should not take a blanket opposition towards nuclear power, and that the “expansion of knowledge is not always a bad thing”. Essentially, the amendments stated that one cannot and should not blanket ban research on technology at the ANU.

Speaking against the amendments was SAlt member Aveline Cayir, who emphasised that the “nuclear stuff is just inseparable from tech research”. 

“We have to be clear about nuclear power being clean energy – it’s utter bullshit, it’s propaganda.”

Speaking in favour of the amendments was ANUSA president Ben Yates, who argued that he doesn’t “support creating a list of things that researchers cannot research”.

“The idea that we are to tell people there are certain scopes of knowledge you  can’t explore is limiting us.”

Although a seemingly close call, with large numbers of votes both for and against the passing of this motion, the motion was ultimately carried.

Motion 6.4, was moved by Skye Predavec who stated that a “second terf event has hit parliament”. The motion was to oppose an upcoming event  that involved a group of panellists platforming “anti-trans ideologies”.

This event, “Why can’t women talk about sex”, is being held at Parliament House on September 11. Predavec claimed that “nine serial transphobes” who each have a “laundry list of horrible things they’ve done” are platforming anti-trans ideology through a lens of women’s rights.

Predavec noted that “they can’t get a venue” and that Parliament is the “most out of way to the general public.” She urged members to protest against this, to show that “they are not welcome in Canberra – or anywhere, just anywhere.”

“ANUSA is in a powerful position to get people to that protest..to show that we don’t support [this] bigotry,” stated Predavec.  The motion was seconded by Luke Harrison, who emphasised that it was “ANUSA’s role as student union” to support trans people and stand up against terfs. 

Women’s Officer ​​Phoebe Denham spoke on this motion, affirming the Women’s Department’s definite support for this protest. Carter Chryse further spoke in support of the motion, highlighting that no member on the speaker list could be considered a feminist due to their identification as a “far-right transphobe”.

SRC 6 will be held on September 20. All ANU students are welcome to attend.

Graphics by Will Novak

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