Page 1438 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 April 2005
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The University of Sydney Union does not provide any political representation. That is done by the Students Representative Council. The sports unions are also involved in this. It varies from university to university as to how these representations, these different roles, are fulfilled. Some universities have a guild structure that incorporates all three different roles. The university that I was involved with, the University of Sydney, had the sports union. It also had the women’s sports association when I was there, but they have now combined into one. It had the SRC, the Students Representative Council, which provided political representation.
In most cases, I did not agree with what most of the representatives on the SRC were saying, but they were duly elected representatives of the students. The students had every right to go and vote in those elections—vote them in, vote them out, do what they wanted to. The union also provided services such as catering outlets at the University of Sydney. These are just some of the many services that the University of Sydney Union provided. It provided a contact information service desk, which provided answers to questions such as how to get to such and such a room in the main quadrangle, because of course it was always impossible to find where you were going when you were a first-year student.
That is what these students needed and that is what we provided. We provided the ability to give this service. It was staffed by students but they were trained by people who worked for the union. They would answer questions like that. They would answer questions such as what was the time, how to get to such and such, what funding is available through the union for a club—to the point that I ended up being a contact volunteer because it was a good thing to do. I have to say that, unfortunately, one day a young man came to the contact student desk when I was on there and said, “I have a very good friend. She was raped and I don’t think she’s handling it well. Can you tell me how I can help her?”
Other services that the University of Sydney Union provides include clubs and societies funding, a welfare officer, subsidised childcare for students, activities and cultural affairs, a band competition and publications. When I was there they had the Union Recorder, which came out monthly, the Daily Bull, which came out on a daily basis, as the name would imply, and Honi Soit, which was an SRC publication. I should say that the editors of that were, and I am pretty sure still are, elected. We also provided on an annual basis a poetry/prose publication, which is still being put out and is a very good publication. We provided three buildings for catering services, a newsagency and all sorts of other facilities—and those things cost money.
Mr Mulcahy talked about the amount in dollars that the University of Sydney takes in. Certainly, the University of Sydney student organisations take a lot of money in from the students in terms of that up-front fee. But what the Liberal Party would do is have a user-pays basis. I know that is their ideological bent, but the fact is that these services would not be provided if it were done on a user-pays basis, because there are overheads in place for these organisations.
Ms Porter made the argument about student organisations being democratically accountable to students. I think that is a very good point. I might say that it is my recollection that one year the University of Sydney Students Representative Council—
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