I’m Hester Fung, running with Socialist Action for Guild Councillor and ISC President.
The candidates running with Socialist Action are all Socialist Alternative members. We’re the biggest, most experienced group to lead mass student actions on this continent and – lucky for you – at Curtin University.
Our track record goes pretty hard. Nearly all the biggest grassroots movements seen in recent history were organised by our group. We’re revolutionary socialists who believe the world doesn’t have to suck. Every time we’ve held Guild positions, we’ve pushed the union to put students’ lives, needs and futures ahead of the university’s profits and image; often, we’ve wanted to push much further than what the Guild leadership was ready for.
Beyond handing out mini discounts, the Guild can actually be a fighting body. Student unions are political groups with political power – maybe among the last few tokens of democracy in our lifetimes. Not just because true freedom can’t be found under capitalism, but because a genuinely terrifying rise of fascism is growing cosy in our society. Look at what just happened hours ago.
As of writing, nationalist parades held by neo-Nazi networks rallied in major cities across Australia today, marking one year since 50,000 people marched to oppose immigration. In Melbourne, after a couple rounds of hate speech and Nazi salutes, a minstrel came on stage – basically, a white actor in blackface – to act out an ultra-racist mockery of an Aboriginal Welcome to Country ceremony.
Racism and genocide are so normalised these days that it makes me sick to my stomach – and so does every time I hand over 80% of my take-home pay to my landlord, just for that rich bastard to gobble up more investment properties around here and leech off more college students and young people.
New students should know that we used to pay $710 for the Australian student visa back in 2024. Now it costs $2,500. There are no pearl-clutching statistics about mass immigration: it’s just not a real problem. Yet the Labor Party punishes migrants and international students for a housing crisis they created.
Yeah, everything is politics; you either pick a side or it’s chosen for you. There’s no such thing as an apolitical person in society. Blame politicians. Blame capitalism. Things can be fixed. Have audacity. Move over to our side, the other sides all lead to dead-ends.
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