Mystified by what the different groups stand for? Hear from them directly in Pelican‘s “meet the ticket” series.
AI Party – AMITY – GLOBAL – LIFT – REVIVE – Social Justice (did not respond) – SPARK – THUNDER – Independent candidates
In plain terms, what does your group stand for?
Luke Alderslade (Presidential candidate): REVIVE’s values are simple and direct, and they’re contained and explained in our party’s Constitution – which is publicly available on our website. Our priorities are resilience, supportiveness, innovation, independent thought and, ultimately, success. We believe that by setting these goals as the foundational principles for our party and using them as the basis for our campaigning and our governance, we can and will unlock the full potential of the Guild, ensuring it prioritises students’ real concerns over individuals’ political gain.
What’s unique about your group?
Hannah Bygrave (General Secretary candidate): Well, the obvious thing is that we’re brand new! REVIVE was formed by a group of grassroots candidates who aren’t affiliated with any ‘real’ political party and aren’t running to benefit some faction of one. Our goal is simply to bring a fresh and honest perspective to Guild Council.
The unique strength of our team very much lies in the breadth and depth of our candidates’ individual and shared experience. REVIVE’s team of candidates includes 18 current club executives, eight current or former club presidents, a current faculty society president and three Club Award winners. Eight of our nine office bearer candidates are in their third year, and across our entire ticket we represent a vast cross section of areas of study, including liberal and fine arts, all sorts of engineering, medicine, finance, marketing, law, physics, music, mathematics, philosophy and more. In addition of all of this, REVIVE is the only group whose candidates have a concrete record of contributing to and passing policy at the National Union of Students.
Put simply, our candidates have the necessary experience, and the fresh perspective required to maximise the potential of the Guild for students’ benefit.
Although you haven’t had a majority, several REVIVE candidates have been representatives on Guild Council. What’s been their best achievements?
Parham Bahrami, (OGC candidate and group agent): Three of REVIVE’s candidates currently sit on Guild Council – Parham Bahrami and Rama Sugiartha (2024 Ethnocultural Department Co-Officers) and Luke Alderslade (2023 and 2024 Ordinary Guild Councillor).
In 2023 Luke implemented the Duke of Edinburgh Award program at UWA and brought the World’s Greatest Shave right to our own Oak Lawn. Both of these projects required extensive coordination with the University, as well as with Guild staff and student representatives, and both have had tangible outcomes. Any student at UWA can now register to undertake the Duke of Edinburgh while at uni, thus providing opportunities to develop invaluable life skills and receive recognition for those accomplishment. To date, the University has invested $40,000 into this program, seeing the value it provides for students’ employment prospects during university and beyond. Also, over 2023 and 2024 the Guild raised over $9,000 for the Leukemia Foundation by participating in the World’s Greatest Shave (Luke also shaved his head and looked super cute by the way).
The Ethnocultural Department has also flourished this year under Parham (myself!) and Rama’s leadership and is well set up to continue to thrive into the future, with a comprehensive report currently being finalised which identifies the manifestations and tangible impacts of racism at UWA. During the Department’s inaugural theme week in March this year, it raised just under $1000 for UNRWA, supporting refugee children in Gaza, and in July we REVIVEd (hehe) the “You Can’t Ask That” video series, which identifies points of cultural sensitivity and encourages students to engage with multicultural issues respectfully and empathetically. Under our leadership the Ethnocultural Department now has a dedicated room in Guild Hall, and is lobbying the University to dedicate spaces around campus to multifaith prayer rooms. The Department fought to secure the Guild’s ongoing support for Bangladeshi and Palestinian students, it fought to ensure that students of faith can receive special consideration for religious commitments, and it fought to introduce a cultural diversity module into the Student Leadership Training program. At the same time, it ran highly successful events such as a Soccer World Cup and collaborative events including a quiz night, a movie fundraiser and a Harmony Day festival.
These policies have all been achieved by independent candidates, often working without the apparatus of an established party to support them. Imagine what REVIVE as a team could do with this much passion and drive in 2025.
If you had been in control of the Guild this year, what would your group have done differently?
Luke Alderslade (Presidential candidate): I feel very confident in saying that a Guild Council led by REVIVE in 2024 would have been extremely positive, and I absolutely believe that we will lead a positive Guild in 2025. We certainly would have taken a more public stance in response to the University Accords and changes to our education. We certainly would have taken stronger action to support Palestinian students who have been affected by the genocide in Gaza.
We certainly would have ensured that the candidates voted for by students would, unless absolutely necessary, see out the terms they signed up for. We certainly wouldn’t have waited until semester two to begin work on the policies we ran on, and we certainly wouldn’t have only let students know what their representatives have been up to a week before elections.
There’s a lot we would have done differently this year, but we wish to focus on what we CAN and WILL do for the students come next year – that’s what we are all about.
Which of your policies would you be most excited to implement?
Ben Negus (Education Council President candidate): There’s no single item that we are most excited to implement. The way that we’ve come up with our policy is by consulting with a vast array of different students to see what they really want. We have then balanced that out with what the Guild can realistically do as an organisation. That’s not to say we haven’t been ambitious. Just a few of our team’s policies that we’re really excited about are:
- Re-establishing partnerships with local businesses to provide discounts for UWA students at restaurants and retail outlets. The Guild used to do this; we’re going to bring it back.
- Advocating to make the 950 bus free from UWA to the city. This is a simple and direct way to help alleviate the parking problem on campus and to help reduce the effects of the cost-of-living crisis. The purple CAT bus, while an amazing Guild achievement from 2021, is slow and doesn’t operate late at night or on weekends. We believe this is a genuinely achievable policy (besides, it’s just two stops after all!) which would have a positive impact on students’ lives.
- Establishing standardised assessment turnaround times for all schools, so students actually know when to expect their marks.
- Providing “KickStart” grants to clubs so they receive money up front to run an orientation event in the first few weeks of the year. This alleviates the financial pressure of waiting for a semester grant to come through three months later.
- Running employment initiatives such as a job pool for students, a student leadership conference and lobbying the University for increased career counsellors and employability services on campus.
- Lobbying the University to provide adequate – increased – mental health support services, including more clinical psychiatrists on campus.
- Live-streaming and publicising Guild Council, so students can know what their representatives do throughout the whole year – not just in the weeks before an election. [Editors’ note: Guild Council meets monthly, with minutes and reports from Councillors available on its website.]
All of these policies are achievable in a one-year term. We’re not bringing ideas to the table that will take three or four years to implement. Our candidates have realistic and achievable goals for 2025, and we will be delivering on them.
Most students don’t vote in Guild elections – what’s the best reason they should vote for you this year?
Izzy Hughes (Societies Council President candidate): We believe that most students don’t vote in Guild elections because they don’t see a reason to do so, or they get turned off by the types of students who typically run. Students should vote for REVIVE because our candidates don’t fit that mould. Many of us were in the same position, choosing not to vote because we didn’t see the outcome of that vote, and we felt a bit uncomfortable being yelled at while we tried to walk to class. Our team is grounded by the fact that we come from a diverse range of walks of life and areas of campus – we don’t live in a Guild bubble, and we know very well how jarring it is to see a bunch of young politicians taking themselves so seriously.
We aren’t the status quo. We’re something different, someone different.
Our goal is to REVIVE the Guild, and at the end of 2025 to have students feel proud of who they voted for, and we can only do that with your support.