Welcome to the Jungle: SRC Tickets Give Their Opening Statements

Welcome back to our coverage of Noise@UNSW’s election debate! I hope you came back from our little break even thirstier than before for that sweet, sweet SRC content, because this watering hole is even deeper than the last. Drink up!

Milo Riggs began with an opening statement introducing SHOUTOUT!, which aimed, right off the bat, to address the confusion that has surrounded the ticket’s external party allegiances since the newcomers were announced. “To be transparent,” Riggs explained, “we are a coalition ticket of the Greens, the [National Labor Students], and Independents.” Riggs, who himself ran as a member of the NSW Greens in the Lane Cove council elections last year, used the bulk of his time to speak to his policies as SHOUTOUT!’s candidate for Environment Officer. As SHOUTOUT! is primarily running Councillor and National Union of Students candidates, and only three Office Bearers, these policies seem to constitute almost all of the ticket’s public campaign. One of Riggs’ “main priorities,” should he be elected, “is to advocate for the beautification on campus, which will involve community gardens filled with native plants [and] supporting bins on campus, including more recycling and compost.”

Alongside promises to “revive the neglected environment campaigns to fight for our uni to be emissions-free,” Riggs criticised Left Action’s previous Office Bearers for their lack of action across their last two years in the position. Further criticism was levelled at the “greenwashing” Labor government and Environment Minister Murray Watt, as well as the Labor-affiliated SRC ticket, Together. Having paid a quick “shoutout … no pun intended” to his fellow Office Bearer candidates, Conroy Blood (Current and prospective Students with Disabilities Officer) and Lorenzo Nimmett (Indigenous Students Officer candidate), Riggs continued censuring his opposition, calling Kensington Fried Chicken (KFC) a “Liberal front.” In the final seconds of his speaking time, Riggs drew comparisons with the USYD Liberals and Conservative Club, whose members infamously ripped up and mocked a report on sexual violence in residential colleges during a USyd SRC meeting last year.

Councillor A candidate Andrew Doan re-introduced EDGE for this portion of the evening’s debates, describing the ticket as “a collective bunch of independent, non-politically-aligned students … based on achieving more practical outcomes for students.” Such policies include “improving study areas in the library, banning high school students from the library, increasing the amount of computer monitors … stuff that students care about a lot.” Because, as Doan asserts, “Students don’t care about activism — that doesn’t practically impact their lives.” 

KFC’s Presidential candidate, Anthony Ma, returned, not to “rehash” his previous opening statement, but to address some of the ticket’s “non-fried-chicken policies” which had “interested” attendees — a bit of an understatement of people’s reactions, if I must say so. The first of these, apparently secondary, policies was to call for the UNSW SRC’s “immediate disaffiliation” from the “radical activists” of the NUS, which Ma described as “notorious for physical and verbal abuse at its conferences … a terrible organisation … because of its corruption and its uselessness.” The SRC “[dumping] $100,000 to pay for free flights, accommodation and food” for attendees of NUS’ yearly “gatherings” was labelled as a “waste of money” which Ma says students deserve to be given back. 

Despite claiming that “all we want is some cheap fried chicken,” Ma continued to explain that what their ticket actually wanted was to “axe the tax” of the Student Services Amenities Fee (SSAF) because, according to Ma, this money is spent on services the “vast majority of students don’t use” — services such as UNSW’s Psychology and Wellness Team, the Village Green, and Arc’s Grant Programs for Ma’s much-loved clubs. Perhaps, if the Food Hub sold fried chicken, KFC wouldn’t be so upset by the prospect of “paying for other people’s services.” Either way, I’d hate to hear their thoughts on universal healthcare. 

Ma concluded his re-introduction, which may be more accurately described as a rebrand, by “absolutely and categorically” rejecting Rigg’s previous “allegation of politicisation” in describing KFC as a Liberal Party ticket. Despite all similarities to similar parties across the country, KFC’s policies are “nonpartisan” and “aren’t bound by the policies of any political party.” Perhaps hoping to divert the attention of the countless candidates who were surely pulling up the now infamous picture of Ma and his fellow KFC candidates, Sid Chandra (General Secretary candidate) and Dennis Suro (Ethnocultural Officer candidate), posing with former Opposition Leader, and my forever opp, Peter Dutton, Ma directed a poorly thought-through callout to Left Action. Specifically naming their Environment Officer candidate, Louisa Chen, Ma called their decision not to allow themselves to be “scrutinised” and “held accountable” in the debate “a shame” and “undemocratic” — apparently, blissfully unaware that Chen was scheduled to give an opening statement for Left Action in less than five minutes.

Like You Wei Chung, Billy Moran also decided to pass the speaking role to another member of his ticket, 365’s current SRC President, and their 2026 General Secretary candidate, Diya Sengupta. The change in speakers still did not provide any perspective on 365’s future policies, though, as Sengupta instead spent the majority of her time calling out the “issues with the other candidates running”, which she characterised as them simply “[telling] you what they want to do, [but not] how they want to do it, besides, ‘We’ll talk to the university about it’.” Speaking to her experience over the past year, she pointed out that “the university will say no to you more times than you can count. And then, what do you do? You become somebody who’s achieved absolutely nothing in your entire time [in office] … all you’re gonna do is be a rubber stamp so the university can say they consulted students on a policy that benefits absolutely nobody.” Sengupta sarcastically referred back to Ma’s criticisms of “radical activist” SRC members during the president’s debate, responding “clearly this is not resume stacking for you” and telling KFC that they “don’t care enough to do the research … if you know even one thing about the university, you know that estate management is [going] to say no to you hardest of all, and nobody can head-kick estate management when they say no.”

“I was the first independent President, because I cared more about policies than my party.” Sengupta continued, shifting focus to her ticket, “We started Clothes Hub because we realised this gap of mutual aid and community building [in the] cost of living crisis.” In response to Rigg’s previous claim that appointing a Students with Disabilities Officer other than SHOUTOUT!’s Blood, the current holder of the seat, would be “honestly a tragedy”, Sengupta backed 365’s newcomer candidate, Ana Dougenis, “I don’t think not having SRC experience makes somebody not a good or strong activist or candidate in any regard … people founded their own club this year because they realised there was a gap in accessibility … and those people did not have a seat as Disabilities Officer or within the Disabilities Collective.” 365’s opening statement concluded with a declaration that “365 is a party that can tell you how we’re gonna do it … by asking the uni. If they say no, we do it ourselves, or we yell at the uni and we engage in activism [to] make the university realise there’s an issue.” Unfortunately, what “it” exactly is, neither 365’s current nor potential President deigned to share thus far.

To what I can only imagine was Ma’s utter shock, Chen then came forward to give the opening statement for Left Action, proudly introducing the ticket as “the people day in, day out, organising protests against our university.” “Education should not be run for profit,” Chen continued — though she spent little time addressing her concerns about paid education before moving on to the ticket’s newest focus: “I think it’s really revealing that a lot of tickets here have not mentioned that one of the biggest issues for students this year has actually been Palestine … this has been the key thing that has mobilised students across Australia … the issue that has dominated Australian politics, and student unions have a role to play.” Chen then called back to the legacy of student activism in international politics, comparing the efforts of Left Action today with the historic student protests against the Vietnam War. These efforts include the campaign to demand that UNSW divest from the weapons companies it currently invests $2.97 million in: “Our education should not be used to make weapons of war [and] destruction … We’re going to use the student union to fight for [the university to cut ties with all weapons companies].”

So ended the opening statements… But rest assured, the tickets debate was just beginning. While I wish I could tell you I hate to leave on such a cliffhanger, it really is quite fun. Join me tonight for part three of Noise@UNSW’s election debate coverage — question time!