Danica Scott
Hey, I’m Danica. I’m a socialist, activist, and PhD student running with Left Action for Guild president.
Life for students and workers is getting tougher by the day. The cost of living is climbing rapidly, rents are skyrocketing as landlords do everything they can to extort tenants, and nothing is being done about any of it. The state and federal Labor governments are more concerned with handing out tax cuts to the rich and approving giant fossil fuel projects than they are with helping ordinary people get by. Left Action sees this as something the Guild, as our student union, should take up the fight around. It should be using its resources to build serious grassroots campaigns for rent freezes, welfare increases, and real wage rises.
The Guild should also campaign for social justice. This year myself and other Left Action activists were involved in organising the Perth protest against the far right transphobe Posie Parker, which was part of a National Union of Students campaign that successfully stopped her attempts to bring her anti-trans movement to Australia and New Zealand. We also organised the defence of a Drag Queen Storytime event in Maylands, and are staunch supporters of the campaign to shut down the Banksia Hill Detention Centre, where Indigenous children are beaten, tortured, and held in solitary confinement.
Left Action are experienced activists, and we think the Guild could be doing a lot more to help with these campaigns. This is all the more urgent, as the systemic racism against Indigenous people (including Banksia Hill) shows no sign of stopping any time soon, and trans rights are coming under attack all around the world.
To stand up for students and against bigotry and oppression, the Guild and National Union of Students must act like activist bodies, as they have in the past. Left Action will always take up this fight, and push the Guild to do so too.