Speaking with Spark, about what they’re running for this year, and how they can keep it fresh after four years at the helm
What do you stand for?
Simple: Students First, Real Change.
In everything SPARK does UWA students are our first and only stakeholder, their success, ambition and wellbeing is what we strive to improve and strengthen. SPARK is a progressive, independent team who tackle the big issues and deliver real results.
The core driver behind the success of our party is to consistently refresh and renew our team but maintain the institutional knowledge and fighting spirit that has gotten so much done for UWA students these past four years. SPARK isn’t beholden to political interests or parties, and our ticket isn’t full of PPE students, instead we have a diverse array of people, from the business school and zoology, to the music conservatorium and med campus. We have 9 club presidents, various club execs, and people of all different backgrounds and creeds. All of this to say our team is fresh, experienced, qualified and ready to serve UWA students next year on the Guild.
SPARK is a team full of fighters who focus relentlessly on building campus culture, delivering academic reforms, and listening to students about the issues that concern them. Not talking at them, but rather taking action. When we build a new ticket we give everyone a seat and voice at the table to bring their perspectives and backgrounds to inform the policies we take into the following year, regardless of what position you’re running for or what experience you’ve had in the past.
SPARK is a team but more importantly, SPARK is a family. It’s a community that has sprouted life-long friendships, connections and remarkable experiences. We lean on each other for support and guidance, and back our family in tough times. Everyone in SPARK holds the value of putting UWA students first, whether you vote for us or not.
Ultimately, we stand for putting students first, delivering real change and not just talking about what we want to do but actually doing it. Other parties are all talk, SPARK is the only party with both a vision for the future and a track record of success.
What have you achieved this year that you’re proud of? What would you do differently? (Nikhi Talluri, Current Guild President and NUS Candidate)
This is a great question! As Guild President this year there is so much we’ve done that I’m immensely proud of. Working with this SPARK team has been a complete honour and I feel so proud of everything we’ve accomplished (but there’s still more work to be done).
This year we secured 2-day simple extensions through the EVA to alleviate study pressures for students and we are receiving really great feedback about it! On cost of living we have expanded the food pantry, provided over 4000 free exam dinners, distributed over 1000 essential product packs, introduced $5 meals (sound familiar…), free period product dispensers in all the libraries, free pregnancy tests for students and free nappies in parents’ rooms.
We’ve also focused on continuing to improve our campus culture, with Guild events being sold out, running the first ever O-Day 2 for Semester 2 freshers, first Guild Battle of the Bands in years, and introducing the Golden Ticket which gave over 3000 freshers a free club membership! And this isn’t even an exhaustive list (I must say $6 house wine at the Tav is a personal favourite of mine).
Despite all this, there are still some issues we’ve faced. Parking of course remains a major issue for students and although the Guild has no direct control over parking we have continuously advocated for better parking solutions for students and have secured some wins like $1.50 postgraduate parking and a shuttle bus from Claremont station. We wish the University would take more action to address parking and will continue to push for them to do so. Additionally, this year we’ve seen UWA attack freedom of speech on campus with the lecture bashing and postering bans, as a Guild we’ve stood firmly against this, organised the Club Freedom Festival, and gotten some minor wins like securing Faculty Society and degree-specific clubs speaking at lectures. This isn’t good enough however. We are extremely disappointed and concerned about the university’s policy and will continue to fight against it.
Which of your policies are central to your platform?
(Annabelle Brennan, General Secretary Candidate)
This is perhaps one of the most exciting things about SPARK and why I’m so proud to be a part of this extraordinary team. When Ollie approached me about running he really pitched the vision of SPARK and one of the key aspects of that vision was that every candidate got to contribute to the policies we’d implement were we to be elected. We had multiple policy sessions where everyone got their say on all core campus areas which then shaped the policies we are now running on.
There are so many great ones which I will break into some groups to name the key ones:
- Academic: 24/7 Barry J Marshall, mandatory practice exam papers for units with an examination, supplementary exams guaranteed for those who score 45-49 on a unit, reforming the broken timetabling system at UWA, and advocating for UWA to make WIL units paid to name a few.
- Campus Culture: running a jug night at the tavern (like varsity), running semester 2 sundowners to engage more students and promote more clubs, introducing a platinum ticket to give freshers a $15 credit to ANY club event, and running multiple club night markets throughout the year.
- Cost of Living: Creating a bursary for students on unpaid placements, adding a financial counsellor to student assist, expanding period products to gender-neutral bathrooms and college row, providing Smartrider credits to those facing financial difficulty, creating a cost-of-living special consideration, and distributing hygiene packs from an expanded student assist.
These are just a few of our core policies and are by no means an exhaustive list. If people want to learn more or read more policies, I encourage them to head to sparkuwa.net or message us on Instagram (or even just come up and chat with one of us, we’d be happy to talk)!
This SPARK team is ambitious and driven and the ONLY team running in this election with both the track record of success, and the drive and ambition to get these policies and more done.
Why should people get out and vote for you?
(Zen Hately, Sports Officer Candidate)
A majority of students don’t vote in Guild elections because they find student politics ‘cringe’ or think it doesn’t impact them, but the truth is that everything the Guild does is for the students and the work is crucial for UWA student experience and campus culture. Whether that be bolstering your education experience, improving campus life or the services and events you’ve come to rely on. Voting is the most important way to make your voices heard, and even if it’s not mandatory, I still encourage every student to vote!
SPARK exists to put students first and deliver real, tangible change. The past four years have seen unprecedented success because our diverse teams have always understood that academic pressure isn’t the only issue students face, they also face financial, social, and personal problems that we can help support them through. I’m running with SPARK because in my estimation we are the only team fighting to make UWA the absolute best place for students to study and prosper.
I will be totally honest however… I didn’t really ever see myself getting involved with the Guild until Ollie asked me to run, but now I’m so glad he did. The team he’s built is the right team for these roles, getting to know people such as Annabelle, AJ, Reana, and more has shown me what I think all people should know: SPARK is a diverse, dedicated team full off students from all areas of campus, whether it be STEM, Arts, Business and beyond. We’ve all put our brains together and come up with some really transformative policies that will benefit students from all walks of life. It doesn’t hurt that we are the biggest, most experienced team running in these elections either.
To boil it down to the basics, you should vote and vote for SPARK because your voice and experience matters. SPARK always has, and will continue to, centre the voice of students, not politics or factions. We’ve proven we can get things done and we’re ready to go even further. So I’m asking for you to vote SPARK because the Guild and what it does matters. Use your voice and your vote for a better, bolder Guild in 2026, a SPARK Guild.
How has Spark changed this year, to continue adapting to the electoral conditions?
(Aidan Kirby-Smith, Chair of Guild Council and NUS Candidate)
At SPARK we always know that no two elections are the same. We always look for ways to adapt, refresh and reinvigorate our team and our campaign to ensure we continue to earn the mandate of the students to keep doing good work.
This year we’ve done just that. Only 2 people on our ticket are running for Council for a second time, with over 20 of our candidates never having run or been involved in the Guild before (more than any other party in this election)! We’ve refreshed our marketing as well to a more modern, sleek design and have been much more intentional and organised on this front. A huge labour of love goes into running a campaign and the fresh voices we’ve brought in by nature make this a completely different campaign to the last or any other for that matter.
SPARK this year is putting a real emphasis on the experience of our team, the policies they’ve come up with, and the track record of our party. We believe we’ve proven ourselves to be credible agents of change within the Guild and the University, and although our team is almost completely new and fresh, the institutional knowledge passed throughout SPARK ensures we will stay the most agile and effective team to run the Guild.
We are focusing relentlessly on student experience and good, vetted policies we know can work. Other parties run on broad ideas and mission statements with no tangible action points, we on the other hand run on realistic policies we know we can get done. There are of course big issues facing students that the Guild can’t directly change, whether that be from parking to the University divesting from fossil fuels, but we have and will continue to advocate and fight on all fronts to deliver as much for the student body as possible.
Is Spark capable of significant adaption, or does continuous incumbency slow it down?
(Ollie Barrett, SPARK Presidential Candidate)
Absolutely. Every year the issues facing students shift and change, and we as a party evolve as well. Some stay constant like the cost of living and academic reforms, whilst challenges like the restrictions on speech and the genocide in Gaza emerge.
SPARK brings fresh, new voices into our party that come with different ideas. SPARK isn’t a tired political organisation that rinses and repeats our candidates like parties of the past. Instead it’s a grassroots community, rather family, that is driven by a shared goal of improving the student experience, that’s consistent. The teams and policies shift but the goal and mission never do.
I don’t think incumbency slows us down, instead I think it invigorates us and each year continues to be better than the last. REVIVE have just as many OGCs on Council as us this year and they have almost nothing to show for it. Instead of grandstanding, SPARK gets to work.
The Guild term is only 1 year, which is an extremely tight timeline to implement sweeping changes. Due to our ‘continuous incumbency’ as you call it, we’ve been able to start and sustain fresh events and programs whilst also ushering in major academic reforms like the 2-day simple extension and universal 11.59pm submission times (which took years to get across the line). To get things done you have to be able to fight, advocate and build relationships. SPARK is the only team running in this election that has the institutional knowledge and track record to get things done in both the Guild and the University. This handover of knowledge from year to year ensures one thing: we never go stale but always stay effective.
Every party running that isn’t us can talk and prognosticate, but SPARK? We can show what we’ve done and highlight what we’re going to do. We have the track record and the credibility students deserve when they’re making such an important decision like voting for their student representatives. Put simply, we know how to get shit done.
Your statement claims you’ve restored Campus culture; how do you back that?
(Nikhi Talluri, Current Guild President and NUS Candidate)
How do we back that? Just look at the facts.
Every Guild event has been sold out this year, we ran O-Day 2 for Semester 2 freshers which has never been done before and saw unprecedented engagement. For the first time in years we ran a Guild Battle of the Bands which had over 500 people attend and 6 different UWA student-led bands perform. We also held O-Day Afters with more than 800 students attending, distributed more than 3000 ‘Golden Ticket’ club memberships to freshers, gave more club grants out than ever before, and held various successful sundowners.
Club events are selling out and dozens of new clubs have been affiliated under SPARK. Libraries are at record pre-COVID capacity, and even though its a major issue vexing students, you only have to look at the parking situation to know campus is booming and busy. We’ve renovated the Tavern, begun and executed multiple stages of the Guild masterplan, and installed more seating which are consistently fully occupied.
Beyond that we’ve introduced $7 Tav Lager, $6 House Wine and started to build a real spectator culture over at UWA Sport, especially with the current uni basketball season.
This was a slightly loaded question but I very much appreciate getting to talk about all the incredible things SPARK has delivered to restore and build on campus culture. With Ollie Barrett as your Guild President that will only continue.
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