Student Council Safari One fine evening, editors Tahlia and Jess decided to put on their safari hats and enter the jungle that is student politics. They anticipated what they thought would be a ‘wild’ adventure, but what they were met with was a herd bound by passivity - a gathering with no sudden movements. We met at the waterhole to observe the rare beings that are our student council office-bearers - some stayed reserved with tired eyes after a busy day of getting familiar with their new roles, others giggled and small-talked their way through the awkward pre-meeting interactions. What we assumed was an awkwardness that would only stay during the foreplay, lingered throughout the entire mating ritual. Out of all the creatures at this waterhole, it was easy to spot the rainbow fish. The one office-bearer who is not part of the Activate faction, is hard to miss, not because of any kind of opposition, but his bold accessory choices of a briefcase and cap. Let’s hope that our Unite member’s assertive presentation assists him in balancing out an all-Activate council. In order not to disturb the office-bearers in their natural habitat, Jess goes into mum-mode and reminds Tahlia to put her phone on silent. But not even all the fretting and pandering from Jess could stop a certain office-bearer from scrolling on Instagram throughout the entirety of the meeting. Looks like this jungle isn’t interesting enough for some restless officers, despite how many times the unfamiliarity of the processes were highlighted throughout the meeting, they’d rather be up in the canopies. Perhaps they’re looking to see how full the water holes are over in UniSA territory. Tahlia and Jess were very surprised, and even a little coy when they found out that this was to be an interactive safari experience. Invited to introduce ourselves and our pronouns, we were happy to finally make ourselves known to the council, putting some faces to the excessive emails looming in their inboxes. ET thanks the office-bearer who swung us the vine. It was, afterall, a rather underwhelming sightseeing adventure, a few motions were passed to move motions to confirm the moving of motions to ratify said motions. We don’t mean to make a commotion, and clearly neither do our student council, who voted unanimously on every decision without much discussion. A smart move from Unite’s brief-case-bearer as he nominated himself into an antler-butting battle with numerous other councilors, for the chance to be on a panel to select a new member after a recent resignation. But no matter how big the antlers of a brief-case-bearing boy, 20 antlers are stronger than 2, and there will be no Unite member on the panel. The progress of one election promise was so briefly mentioned we needed our tacky zebra-print binoculars to see. We are talking about autonomous voting, the slow progress towards which ET hopes to cover and recount in issue 2 (assuming the piece doesn’t get held up any longer). The President’s vague report has left us no clearer on an actionable plan to make it happen. It was explained that the council are in correspondence with the NUS First Nations Officer to discuss “how to go about” implementing autonomous voting. We hope that these discussions lead to results by the next election. Some news that ET was happy to hear about as a publication was that a new media assistant will be hired by FUSA. This will support our mission in increasing the transparency of the Student Council and help us become bigger and better as a magazine. A sprout of hope in an overworked herd at FUSA. With new regulations that were moved in this very meeting regarding attendance, we hope that we can continue to observe our student council through a range of different lenses. For now, we’ll put our binoculars away, take off our safari hats, and start setting up camp in the FUSA office as we await our next adventure. Words by Jessica Rowe
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