Noise@UNSW’s Election Debate Coverage and the Deathly Breaking Mockingjay

Question time began with Noise Coordinator and debate host Max Richter-Weinstein asking the ticket representatives in attendance what they believed was the biggest issue facing UNSW students, and what their plans were to help. KFC’s Presidential candidate, Anthony Ma, began by expressing that he would “be surprised if anyone says a different answer to me … I think all of us can agree [it’s the cost of living].” A common talking point in our current sociopolitical climate, for sure, though the route KFC was planning to walk down this well-worn path was unconventional, to say the least. “We’re going to get a bill as soon as possible, and we’re going to deliver cheap food for UNSW students. That fried chicken outlet is going to pay rent to the university. It’s going to make other services cheaper.” Ma also promised KFC would “[refund] your SSAF fees by disaffiliating from the National Union of Students,” concluding, “We’ve got so many ways to save on useless fees and taxes … and to make food cheaper on campus.”

“Cutting SSAF is the worst thing you could do for the cost of living crisis,” responded current SRC President, and 365’s General Secretary candidate for 2026, Diya Sengupta, speaking once more in opposition to KFC’s plans. “A lot of students are relying on these free breakfasts that Arc gives out, relying on Food Hub … that is pretty much all that some students are eating in the current cost-of-living crisis. And by cutting SSAF, you’re basically saying: ‘Nope, you don’t get access to that anymore’.” She elaborated: “Others in the community who can afford to pay SSAF [help create] a better campus where everyone is looking after each other.” Sengupta continued to promote 365’s new Clothes Hub, a mutual aid program which was created under her 2025 presidency, and seems to now serve as the ticket’s flagship policy. In contrast, Sengupta says, the plans to lobby for a KFC (the restaurant, not the ticket) on campus, “makes [Ma] look like somebody who has no idea what [he’s] talking about, because clearly you have no idea what university bureaucracy is.” She concluded by saying that “getting rid of [SSAF] is the number one way that you can make wealth inequality bigger on campus,” before adding: “But I guess cost of living only matters when it affects the rich.”

SHOUTOUT!’s spokesperson, Environment Officer candidate Milo Riggs, continued this criticism of KFC’s policy proposals in a more personal manner, calling attention to that photo (you already know the one) of Ma and two of his fellow KFC ticket members, stating that, last year, when Ma was “[asked] who his favourite politician was, he said Peter Dutton,” and referring to an instance when Ma “turned his back to a Recognition of Country in protest.” SHOUTOUT’s answer to the cost of living crisis, Riggs explained, is to provide concession cards to all students, not only full-time domestic students, and free coffee and tea in kitchenettes around campus. He also proposed an expansion of 365’s Clothes Hub into “a marketplace for textbooks which you can buy and sell,” free PPE lab coats and safety goggles for STEM students, and a free vaccination drive run by the SRC.

Despite the call-out from Ma in his opening statement, Left Action’s Louisa Chen decided not to hop on board the Kentucky Fried Criticism train and instead used her time to go toe-to-toe with Riggs, her competition for the seat of Environment Officer. “Free coffee and tea on campus is not going to address the cost of living crisis,” Chen rebuked, “Cost of living is one of the biggest issues, and I think [both the Labor and Liberal major parties] are responsible for it … They have made the active decision to give huge handouts to property developers, to fossil fuel companies … I don’t trust any of the major parties to actually fight for students.” Chen called for free education for both domestic and international students, stating this “should be a fundamental human right” and warning Ma that he’s “not going to like this, but [we can start with taxing] billionaires and rich people like you.” She echoed Left Action’s past policies to introduce rent caps on campus of $100 a week, claiming the university’s 43% profit margin on rent for on campus accommodation was “outrageous” and is “screwing over students in particular.” Her answer concluded with a call to “raise our standards and stakes a bit higher here,” and fight for free education for everyone, not just “[ask] for crumbs from the university.”

Shifting focus from the cost of living crisis, EDGE’s Councillor A candidate Andrew Doan instead answered that “the biggest problem that students at UNSW currently face is they feel unsupported [by] the entities that are meant to represent them.” Doan discussed the issues UNSW students face when attempting to study in a library “packed full of high school students and people yapping,” a recent and contentious issue in the current SRC, as well as the maintenance of bathroom hygiene, more access for cheaper meals, and other “practical things that students care about.” Like the weather on main walkway, of course! A proposal I’m engaging with in completely transparent bad faith, but one I am also utterly perplexed by. If “students recognise that the university can’t do everything,” then I truly do not know what changes EDGE expects UNSW to make, given our current infrastructure, so that students can “walk up from lower campus to upper campus and not get wet during the rain.” However, if EDGE “recognises that we can fight the university to improve their facilities,” then they must have some sort of plan to use our SSAF funding “much more better than any other ticket can afford to.” … Right?

Jumping off from the concerns Doan had expressed surrounding the lack of student interest in and engagement with the UNSW SRC, Richter-Weinstein proceeded to ask the ticket representatives what plans they had to increase students’ knowledge of who the SRC is, what they do, and how it can benefit them. Chen began by praising this year’s SRC for being “the most active and present [it] has ever been here at UNSW, because this body has been fighting for the key issue [that students care about] that is Palestine.” She presented Left Action’s “orientation” in a far more positive light than any I’ve heard before, going so far as to criticise some of her fellow candidates for not standing outside the main library handing leaflets out to students — a practice I would charitably call ‘irritating’, but which Chen affirms is “how you actually engage with students about issues they care about … That’s what Left Action has been doing all year around.” Believe me when I assure you that no one has been doubting that fact.

“I think the reason why students aren’t aware that the SRC exists, and what the SRC does, is [because] the SRC doesn’t go and talk to students.” Though Doan’s sentiment shared similarities with Chen’s previous response, EDGE’s approach to bridging that gap between the SRC and the greater student body had some differences. “We are planning on implementing surveys [and] reach-out campaigns … We have actually [stood outside the library] before. We [hosted] a barbecue for Gaza, donating money to Gaza for every single sausage we sold,” Doan explained, before adding, “Left Action didn’t buy a sausage at that barbecue, so they must be against Gaza, as far as I’m aware.” Beyond direct campaigns reaching out to students for their thoughts, EDGE is also wanting to make the SRC “more relevant and relatable” by “[fixing] our campus … [focusing] on student issues instead.”

Ma began his answer by addressing Chen’s previous implication that he was “a wealthy billionaire, or a shill, or whatnot. Don’t go making up these things about me,” Ma told Chen, explaining, “My parents were both refugees from the communist Vietnamese dictatorship. They were rural peasants who came in with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and we live in Fairfield, a working-class Western Sydney suburb. I know what it’s like when the cost of living pinches,” he asserted, before taking a swing at 365’s “small-fry” Clothing Hub project, which, apparently, just 0.1% of the student population has made use of — because if Ma’s “mark-one eyeballs” have never seen the clothing donation bins around campus, then they must be pretty damn hidden, right? What won’t be hidden, Ma states, is “a big beautiful fried chicken outlet on the main walkway, with a line running out the door, straight into Anzac Parade.” A beautiful picture of our potential future under a KFC caucus (though I’m not sure Doan would be particularly pleased with all those students trapped in the constant rain of main walkway).

Riggs also began by biting back at Chen’s previous statement, telling her that, while he agrees that free education is a “noble goal,” it “does not preclude us from giving students short term relief … you know, we can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he repeated, “Unlike what SAlt’s been doing to the Environment Collective … We want to have fortnightly [Environment Collective] meetings, where students can come in, and vote, and have their say … Organising rallies that aren’t centred around political factions, and are instead promoting what the SRC can do for you.” The main thing the SRC can do to encourage students to take notice of the SRC, Riggs affirmed, is to do things for the students. 

Though on the surface it seems as though all of our tickets are, in some way or another, in agreement with each other on how to get more students interested in the SRC, the issue of what the students actually want from their representatives remains contentious. Sengupta added that focus should be put on giving students things “from the SRC, by the SRC — not talking to management, and convincing management to do something, which is what two of these tickets have been boasting about.” A dig presumably at KFC and EDGE’s policies, despite the fact that the campaigns of every ticket in this year’s election, 365 included, focus primarily on lobbying the university. “If [students] don’t know about the SRC, they’re not going to know we had anything to do with it. And frankly, a lot of the time, we don’t … I do not claim wins for things that I did not actively have meetings with the university about, I did not actively have projects about … I think it’s very disingenuous to say that when people find campus becoming better, they’ll think the SRC is doing better.” Given this new perspective, I would be genuinely interested to hear what discussions Sengupta herself had with the university executive that led Billy Moran to claim UNSW’s decision to abolish trimesters as a win of 365’s 2025 Presidency. 

“Actually identifying how to fix an issue … and then put[ting] in solutions by yourself instead of relying on other people, instead of trying to make up for your incompetence by pushing it on somebody else … is how you make the SRC matter.” Sengupta continued, informing Ma that: “We have had three clothing bins on campus. They are becoming full to the brim, every single week … The supply and demand for Clothes Hub is absolutely insane, and the reason we don’t have more clothing bins is because of estate management,” While I wish she had elaborated on 365’s plans to expand the Clothes Hub, apparently without engaging with estate management, Sengupta instead concluded by accusing Ma’s ticket of being “too busy thinking about how you’re going to convince estate management to hang out with you and build your little KFC … [because the students see you as] somebody who’s gonna yap to them, and then go talk to the uni, and get nothing done.”

With the clarification that they had not personally written them, Richter-Weinstein moved on to individual questions specific to each ticket, starting off by asking Ma whether KFC were aware that UNSW is required by law to collect the SSAF, and what their tickets plans were for funding clubs, Food Hub, Arc, and the university’s legal and health clinics, without the fee. Peddling back from his previously proud stance of “axing the tax,” Ma answered that “of course the KFC — I mean, the SRC — doesn’t have the unilateral ability to abolish the SSAF,” before apparently suggesting a nationwide KFC university take-over, because: “if we control the SRC and [other university’s SRCs], we can lobby the government and we can demand that the SSAF is returned and refunded to students who deserve to know how to spend that money.” 

“It’s a very simple principle, that we believe, that you should not spend money on services which you do not use. You should not spend money on services to subsidise other people.” Because I’m sure, in this cost-of-living crisis, that extra $365 a year will make so much more of a difference in students’ lives than free food and doctors' appointments from UNSW’s Food Hub and Health Service. In fact, why should we stop at axing just this tax? Australia should go totally tax-free! Who needs JobSeeker or Student Youth Allowance? Our employment rate couldn’t be better, and if you can’t afford to live out of home to study, you probably shouldn’t be going to university to begin with. Screw the NDIS, it’s not as though literally anyone could become disabled at literally any point in their life. And why on earth would I want access to an Aged Pension when AI is going to take over my job in a few years anyway? There'll be no such thing as retirement in our bright new world! You’ll be slaving over that deep fryer until Colonel Sanders comes to take you to the big KFC in the sky!

…

Anyway.

The next ticket-specific question was put to 365, asking why, “despite holding the presidency, and despite [the Arc AGM on divestment], we as a student body somehow lost the ability to bring about EGMs more easily.” Sengupta answered that, because the first of these EGMs was supported by pro-Palestine activists, students rallied behind and “actually showed up” to vote, whereas later EGMs saw a lack of attendance because people did not “explicitly see this issue as something that can affect their future activism.” She spoke to her challenging position as the SRC President and member of the Arc Board, which forces her to abstain “from absolutely everything, or else ASIC is going to get me … having Arc Board and the SRC Presidency be connected means that it’s more difficult to hold EGMs.” She further encouraged students to vote for the Arc Board, because “when you don’t have the voices on Arc Board who care about these activists, then they’re going to do things to actively suppress activism, and your SRC President only has one vote.”

Sengupta’s explanation as to why the student body had heard no updates on weapons divestment in the past 11 months was that there “was nothing to say,” reframing the vote as a “safeguard for the future” to prevent Arc from investing in any weapons companies, as opposed to withdrawing from non-existent weapons investments. “It was more so that the policy allowed them to withhold investments from certain things … I’m obviously not able to talk about a lot of the changes made [in regards to the Arc Board], but I can say that Arc [is] bound to whatever was passed in the EGM. Nothing sketchy there.”

Riggs then stepped forward to elaborate on SHOUTOUT!’s plans to navigate the notorious difficulty of working with estate management to implement their proposed policies of putting coffee, tea and hot water in kitchenettes, and planting more native flora on campus. “We plan [on] building bridges inside of the SRC to build momentum. For example, the Native Plants proposal [is] a collaboration between [SHOUTOUT!’s] Indigenous Officer and Environment Officer [candidates].” Beyond this internal collaboration, SHOUTOUT! also intends to work with clubs on campus to get “a mass movement around any given policy … because at the end of the day, activism always [plays] a role in actually pressuring the university to do what we want.” They also plan to work with discretionary funds and partner with health agencies to lobby the university for free pill testing kits, with a “we’ve done the first steps” argument to higher-ups. Estate Management’s involvement in any of this? Riggs didn’t say.

EDGE’s goal to “fight for better transport links” by advocating for increased bus frequencies and safe cycling infrastructure was put under the microscope next, with questions posed as to how exactly they plan to make changes that are completely outside the university’s scope of power, especially given the fact that the SRC has been campaigning for Opal cards for international students for many unsuccessful years. Doan responded by explaining that the university “was actually considering trailing bus services from Parramatta all the way to UNSW, with free Wi-Fi, and tables to study at.” I’d love to know a bit more about these magical buses, especially since Doan believes that this consideration “indicates that the university actually does have some sort of power, or they are actually willing to negotiate with, for example, Transport NSW.” Addressing Sengupta’s previous comments on the scope of the SRC, Doan emphasised the benefits EDGE’s policies would provide the local community, asserting that “students also vote in Local Council elections” and that students’ “active [participation] within their democracy” could somehow empower the SRC, and UNSW for that matter, to “fight for those government institutions [to] provide those better transport links.”

The final question of the evening was for Chen: “Many of your policies have been the same over the years, with little progress being made to achieve them,” Richter-Weinstein asked, providing Left Action’s policies for university accommodation rent caps and free education as examples, “What do you think will be different this year?” Chen proceeded to immediately change the topic, saying that, “actually, our ticket has been campaigning for Palestine for the past year or so. I think we’ve achieved a lot with the Palestine movement,” and attributing the Harbour Bridge March for Palestine and the nationwide shift in popular consciousness towards Palestine to the work of Left Action in mobilising UNSW student protests. “[Palestine] is now this thing that is shaping Australian politics, and people are picking a side … over 70% of Australians side more with Palestine than they do with Israel,” Chen stated, “Our tickets and our activists have played a key role in making Palestine the key issue we should be fighting around.” 

“We want to set our expectations and actually fight for meaningful change,” She continued, speaking now to Left Action’s campaign for UNSW to divest from weapons companies, “We don’t want the university to just settle on something symbolic, or cover up their crimes, and say ‘Oh, you now, we’ve divested from our ties without actually concretely cutting the research ties [that] are helping to fund research for weapons companies [like Lockheed Martin] that are sent to Israel.” According to Chen, raising students’ expectations is “what this whole ticket is about … We’re never going to win any of these things if we lower our expectations [and] settle for something less.” Free education isn’t impossible, she argues, because politicians like Anthony Albanese benefited from the free education we did have in the 70s and 80s, and… history repeats itself, I guess? Let’s just hope Left Action won’t be repeating their own history this year, and that they’ll actually make some meaningful progress towards the policies they’ve been promising students for over a decade now. 

Thank you so much for joining us for this mammoth coverage of Noise@UNSW’s inaugural Election Debate! Remember kids, voting closes at 9:00 pm tomorrow night. Don’t miss out!