By Nuria Olive
Content Warning: mentions of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
There are three candidates running for the executive ANUSA position of Welfare Officer for 2024: Sarah Strange from the independent ticket Standing with Sarah – Fighting for Working Students, Lata Warner from Stand Up!, and Skye Predavec from Together for ANUSA.
The Job
The ANUSA Welfare Officer was first introduced in 2022. The role is responsible for advocacy and aiming to improve student welfare. In particular, the Welfare Officer tends to focus on improving student welfare with respect to “housing, food, financial security, and access to services”.
According to the ANUSA Constitution the position must also “provide general advocacy on welfare issues” and “oversee the implementation of welfare and related policy of the Association”.
The Candidates (in the order they appear on the Election Candidate List)
Sarah Strange
Independent candidate Sarah Strange is running for Welfare Officer under the ticket ‘Standing with Sarah – Fighting for Working Students’. She is also a candidate for one of the fourteen General Representatives to be appointed for 2024.
Strange’s policies focus on working students who are “disenfranchised from student politics for obvious reasons”.
Strange’s first policy aims to build a campaign for better working conditions for students. This will include addressing wage theft on campus, contesting laws that prohibit striking, and “demand[ing] real rights for casuals”.
Strange also puts forward running “more events on worker exploitation” and an academic extension policy that is “deeply important to disabled students”. This extension policy allows students to obtain three or five day extensions without the need for documented evidence, particularly as students struggle to balance working long hours with studying.
Further policies that Strange outlines in the areas of “Fighting for Disabled Students & Cheaper Medical Costs” include advocating to remove newly reintroduced in-person exams, heightened bulk-billing practices and lowering medical costs, and supporting the ANUSA Disability Officers with their ‘Access for All’ Campaign. This campaign “demands better governance and transparency from the ANU on disability issues”, and improving accessibility in residential halls.
Strange has been involved with ANUSA’s Housing Action Collective in 2023, claiming the Collective has “become moribund”. Strange wishes to revamp the group, particularly considering the prevalence of “housing injustice” across both residential halls and off-campus.
Strange also proposes “translating ANUSA’s most important announcements and information” into other languages alongside “expanding to more social media platforms” such as TikTok.
Strange’s other policies are: contributing to the August 1st campaign against sexual assault and sexual harassment at the ANU, increasing advertising for student donations to mutual aid and “clear out the mutual aid shelf”, becoming involved in residential hall accessibility, and working to “Raise the Rate and Lower the Age of welfare benefits for students out of a job”.
Lata Warner
Lata Warner is running for Welfare Officer under the ‘Stand Up!’ ticket.
Warner’s first policy is making getting involved in activism more accessible at the ANU. Warner pledges to work alongside the Clubs Officer to develop “a centralised calendar of advocacy and activism”. In the ANUSA Election Debate, Warner stated that an “activism calendar” would be created, including photos of locations and directions. Meetings regarding activism would have a point of contact for concerns or queries to be directed to, especially if a student attending has accessibility needs.
This candidate further pledges to ensure no assessments are weighted over 50% due to the “ridiculous amounts of stress” placed upon students. Warner pledges to do so by working with the elected College Representatives.
Warner further proposes a program to lend out equipment for returning in-person exams as students may forget to bring certain equipment and “don’t need the added stress of having to buy equipment that you barely use”.
Warner also wishes to introduce ANU and ANUSA “survival guides” which will incorporate themes including, getting extensions, EAPs, special considerations, deferred exams, and accommodation.
Finally, if elected as Welfare Officer, Warner will continue the work of ongoing campaigns against the university and government, while also working with the National Union of Students to create nation-wide campaigns as “it is the role of a strong Welfare Officer to push back”.
During the ANUSA Election Debate on September 18, Warner emphasised “We have to combine a service provision approach with an activism approach”, rather than “pit them against each other”.
Skye Predavec
Skye Predavec is running for Welfare Officer under the ‘Together for ANUSA’ ticket. This candidate was deputy Education Officer in 2023. Predavec’s campaign places emphasis on the importance of being “actively engaged with students and their lives”, and making ANUSA more accessible.
Predavec hopes to expand the Education and Welfare Action Group, which is currently convened by the ANUSA Education Officer. She states, “it must be officially co-run by both the Education and Welfare officers”. Predavec also speaks to the importance of working together with groups outside of ANU “such as PTCBR, the Unemployed Workers Union, [and] the CFMEU”.
Regarding the improvement of ANUSA welfare programs, Predavec re-emphasises the need to integrate organisations, for example by “collaborat[ing] with LegalAid” to support students requiring legal advice as much as possible.
According to Predavec, collaborating with the Food Co-op and through BKSS will be beneficial to students who are “struggling to put food on the table, or are simply exhausted by a schedule of work and University which makes cooking an untenable chore”. When it comes to food, Predavec will “expand the existing mutual aid program”, including by potentially reintroducing a ‘Buy Nothing ANU’ Facebook page.
Predavec’s campaign also has a focus on queer and trans rights. She aims to eradicate deadnaming on campus, which is the act of referring to someone by their name from before they transitioned. ANU continues to refer to students by their deadnames over email, which Predavec notes is an “easy fix” for all students’ preferred names to be entered into the system. Furthermore, Predavec aims to become more involved in trans and queer activism as Welfare Officer.
To address housing issues, Predavec states she will “organise a large rally in coordination with the NUS and other key groups around budget day to push our demands to the forefront”. Predavec also addresses the issue of low welfare payments during the cost of living crisis, pushing for collaboration with organisations tackling poverty.
Furthermore, Predavec was part of running the campaign for the Daley Road bus this year and hopes to continue it “in collaboration with other campaigns and groups such as PTCBR”.
Predavec states “We need to force the ANU to fully implement the recommendations of the 2022 Wage Theft survey” to improve the treatment of workers alongside developing “an education program” for the purposes of ensuring “students are aware of their rights and their ability to enforce them”.
Whilst Predavec emphasises the importance of this on campus, she also speaks to the need for the Education and Welfare Action Group to become more involved in ACT-wide Union campaigns alongside supporting the NTEU in its efforts across other Australian cities.
Voting for the ANUSA election is currently open, and closes at 12pm on Thursday September 28.
Graphics by Will Novak
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