On Dit Magazine: Volume 78, Issue 8

78 8V: N:

ADELAIDE STUDENT LIFE, OPINION, POLITICS, AND CULTURE.

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Editorial

Architecture is all around us. And while few of us can begin to design ’em, we’ve all been around enough buildings to know what we like and what we detest. In this issue, Danny Brookes explores the freshly-unveiled Innova 21 building. On Dit regular of yore Jiminy Krikkitt returns to allow us to at least relish the fact that our buildings are better than those at Flinders (ah, unavoidable Group

of 8 snobbery, how we’ve neglected you). Yours truly takes a closer look at some of the more contro-versial aspects of the Learning Hub currently being built in the most inconvenient location possible,

and newcomer Harry Laughland writes about an entirely different kind of student space.

There’s also a Federal election coming up, and despite most commentators dismissing this as a thor-oughly uninspiring campaign, we’ve taken the opportunity to look at the issues behind the spin. Paris Dean gives his Tory-bashing take on the history of Australian industrial relations. Michael Norris re-turns to beg for some rationality to be injected into the asylum seeker debate. And Dominic Mugavin asks whether youth-based interest groups are the best way to influence our political decision-makers. Finally, it’s worth noting that this issue was compiled with one man down. Mateo is on the run from PETA after killing no less than three pet fish. If you see him, call the authorities, and try to keep him

away from any type of waterway or aquarium.

Forever yours,Myriam (& Connor & Mateo)

editors: Connor O'Brien, Myriam Robin, Mateo Szlapek-Sewillocover image: Margaret Lloyd

On Dit is an Adelaide University Union publication. The opinions expressed within are not necessarily those of the editors, the University of Adelaide, or the Adelaide University Union.

want to contribute?

email: [email protected]

Phone: 08 8303 5404

web: ondiT.com.AU

new kidson theblocknew kidson theblocknew kidson theblock

Words, Sarah Bown

making education accessible.

What did you want to be when

you grew up? A ballerina? A veterinarian? Or

perhaps you were like me and wanted to do it all? My

dream came crashing down when I realised there wasn’t

much of a market for pirouetting animal healers. The av-

erage child will have a long and decorated list of dream

jobs, but it’s not until they grow up that they learn that

they might just need a university degree. It is at this point

that the dreams of so many potential doctors, accoun-

tants and psychologists are never realised.

For some students the goal of attending university is

a no brainer: their parents did it before them, whose par-

ents did it before them. But for a significant proportion

of students in this country, university is not the obvi-

ous option and is perhaps even a terrifying one. They

are brought up in families that perceive uni as an alien

ground, guarded by pearly gates that only accept the

descendants of Albert Einstein or Roland Barthes.

Generally these students are from low socio-econom-

ic, indigenous or rural backgrounds. The reasons behind

their choice not to enter into tertiary education are var-

ied. The financial burden of university, misconceptions

about tertiary education, and a lack of support from

their family and school environment are often noted as

the biggest obstacles.

Interestingly, these attitudes can also be influenced by

a more illusive source, namely, broader society itself. Ms

Jen Hill, the Prospective Students Officer at the Universi-

ty of Adelaide, believes that a lot of the negative percep-

tions of higher education can be attributed to entrenched

social patterns. She notes that “for some students, uni-

versity is never spoken about in their environment and

this reveals a bigger ingrained social issue.”

Nonetheless, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard prom-

ising that the proportion of students from low socioeco-

nomic backgrounds enrolled in Higher Education will be

raised from 15% to 20% by 2020, the pressure is now

on, more than ever, to deliver.

In 2009 the South Australian Department of Educa-

tion and Child Services initiated their ‘School to Work’

program with three goals in mind. Firstly, to encourage

more students to undertake further education. Secondly,

to promote science and mathematics degrees, and lastly,

to assist students in entering the work place after High

School. Part of this three year state funded project is the

First Generation Program. The program is rumoured

to be the brainchild of former Education Minister Jane

Lomax-Smith, who attended a disadvantaged southern

suburbs High School and was aware of the preconceived

ideas some students have regarding University.

All three South Australian universities were invited to

participate in the execution of this program, an offer the

University of Adelaide happily took on. Adelaide’s ‘Myth

Busters’ program was created to inform students and

encourage enthusiasm about tertiary education.

Ms Hill has been at the helm of the program since its

inception in 2009 and is very proud of its success, com-

menting on the “great feedback from the schools and

students, especially those who did not have a previous

relationship with the university" that the program has

received.

Students are selected for the program at the discre-

tion of their schools, which must meet certain criteria in

order to participate. The schools are selected in accor-

dance with the University’s Fairway Scheme that aims to

provide special access to University education to stu-

dents from a country or under represented metropolitan

on diT mAGAZineAugust 9, 2010

3

schools.

2010, however, saw the program take a different ap-

proach, accepting only students of Aboriginal and Torres

Straight Islander descent. The University believes that

this movie will aid their commitment to Reconciliation

and social justice.

"The First Generation Program for Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islander students was designed to help to

reduce the educational disadvantage faced by Aboriginal

and Torres Strait Islander peoples by increasing their

participation in higher education," Ms Hill said.

The Myth Busters program runs for four days and

endeavours to provide students with the most accurate

and informative view of campus life. The students are

invited to sit in on lectures and tutorials and to attend

special seminars that target the problem areas of finance,

career development, time management and study skills.

Each participant in the program is paired with a trained

mentor who can share his or her experience as a First

Generation student.

The students are asked to participate in a survey-

ing process, before and after the program. This, Ms

Hill says, is one of the most important indicators of the

program’s success, as the University can “use the surveys

to gauge if the program is having effect, helping [the

University] to better design [the program] to cater to the

specific needs of the students.”

So far the feedback has been very healthy. Across the

board, teachers, universities and students alike appear to

have embraced the program as a positive addition to the

Australian government’s fight to address equal opportu-

nity issues in university enrolment.

The Australian Technology Network of Universities

lists first generation students as a high proportion of

current enrolments in tertiary institutions. So apparently

University is the new black. First generation and third

year Psychology student Joanne O’Connor acknowl-

edges the difficulties some students face when attempting

tread the unknown path to University. She says it was

the support from her family that drove her to make the

big step. "My family were really encouraging and under-

stood the value of education".

Joanne moved from rural NSW to an Adelaide High

School where she found the school support services

remarkably different. "University was very much part of

the culture of my] High School, I found it more nurtur-

ing than the country [school] which just didn’t give me

the support I needed".

Joanne was a student mentor for the Aboriginal and

Torres Straight Islander participants this year. Joanne

speaks very highly of the program, observing that “it

is really important to expose [the students to tertiary

education] while they’re still in school – it makes it more

than just an abstract idea.”

Perhaps the most common obstacle faced by First

Generation students is the cost of a university educa-

tion. The 2008 Bradley Review of Higher Education

found Australian undergraduates are paying “amongst

the highest levels of tuition fees in the world.” Whilst

the payment of fees are themselves often deferrable,

many other financial burdens associated with

university are not. The ever-increasing costs

of accommodation and relocation (in the

case of rural or interstate students, or

those for whom living at home is not an

option) are often the straw that breaks

the metaphorical bank for first genera-

tion students.

Third year Viticulture student Huon

Fechner listed the financial cost of uni-

versity and accommodation as his biggest

barrier to tertiary study. Hailing from

the Barossa Valley, a complete relocation

was the only option for Huon and this

bought with it an enormous financial

burden."I took a year off to work

in order to qualify for Youth Al-

lowance – it wasn’t so much a

choice as a given; money is a

big deciding factor for rural

students".

Huon also highlight-

ed another factor that

often restricts the

choice of courses

for a country

student.

"Choosing

viticul-

ture


4

was fine as I was able to defer my offer and take a year

off in order to become independent. However, there are

many courses you can’t defer, and without the opportu-

nity to work and [therefore] get Youth Allowance it is

much more difficult".

So what does it mean to be a First Generation Stu-

dent? Is it about realising you’ll have a better chance in

the dog eat dog world of employment or about conform-

ing to today’s status quo of ‘going to uni’?

In his experience, Mr Fechner believes its part of

the reality of the current job market. "After Year 11, I

decided I was going to go to University, simply because I

felt it could help to get me a better job".

This is a sentiment shared by many High School par-

ticipants in the Myth Busters Program, with one student

commenting in the Annual

Report produced by the

University that “it has made

me realise that I will need to

complete some kind of Univer-

sity studies to be able to follow

my career goals.”

Opposition to this opinion

is, however, readily available.

In 2008, an Australian National

University poll was held, with 1200

people surveyed on their attitudes to

higher education. The poll, featured

in The Age, found that only 46% of

participants believed High School

students should enter into tertiary

education because it will improve

their job prospects. This is compared

to a whopping 87% in the USA.

Are first generation students just

the newest in the line up of lambs

being lead to the, albeit gilded,

slaughterhouse? With many other

options for entering the job mar-

ket such as TAFE courses, appren-

ticeships and on the job training,

is the assumption ‘no uni degree

= crappy job’ all an elaborate

money making scheme?

Of course a university edu-

cation is essential for many professions. But as the Aus-

tralian government encourages training for more skilled

workers to achieve long term economic stability, is the

understanding that tertiary education leads to vocational

success justified? Could the education university offers

be becoming, dare I say it, obsolete?

The rebuttal to this argument is that of course there

are other reasons why a first generation student might

decide to go to university. Personal fulfillment and the

development of life skills are both admirable and accept-

able reasons.

But let’s face it. The hallowed halls of university have

become today’s new trendy rite of passage for 17-25

year olds. It’s like the Vanuatu tradition of land diving

– but less painful and life threatening. Do prospective

students now value society’s perception of a university

degree as much, if not more, than the actual education it

offers? It would seem today’s graduate diploma is now

more than just a piece of paper – it is one’s membership

to the ‘tertiary educated’ club. And, whether it is fair or

not, society has taught us that this a club to which we

should want to belong.

The last question remains: does any of this matter?

If first generation students continue to aspire to attend

University, and the government and universities are

promising to do everything in their power to help them

to do so, who are we to complain? If they want cake, let

them eat cake.

They say old habits die hard. It would be difficult to

tear Matt Preston from his ever-lovable cravat collection

or stop Ellen DeGeneres’ impromptu dancing. However,

what the Government and universities are attempting to

do has been described as a feat that reaches beyond the

likes of both. They are working to change the percep-

tions of University education that are present in many

parts of our country’s education system and culture. The

First Generation Program can only be viewed as a posi-

tive catalyst for the beginning of such change.

After the success of the program over the last two

years, Ms Hill hopes the University of Adelaide can

continue the MythBusters program into the future. “We

are currently lobbying for the University to take over the

funding,” she says, “and we hope this will be success-

ful as we feel the program really works and there are so

many who can benefit from it.”


5

What does the innova21 development say about Adelaide?

Building Personality.Building Personality.Building Personality.Words, Danny BrookesPhotograph, Connor O'Brien

I’m walking up Bourke Street to meet a friend of mine at RMIT’s Swanston Street campus. I’m not great with directions, I am quite happy to admit, but there is no way I could ever miss this meeting point. In a bustling part of the Melbourne business district, RMIT screams for attention, with a provoca-tive fluorescent green architectural ensemble that is

both loved and hated, and little in between. This is an institution that is not afraid to stand out.

Whether you like it or not, architecture says a lot about who we are and what we value.

As a more local example, take the SA Arts Build-ing on Light Square. Externally, the building has a confident sculptural quality, with raw, uncompromis-

ing industrial materials on the interior – much like a studio space. Compare this to the new ANZ Bank headquarters on Waymouth Street. Through its shear mass, the building evokes power, wealth, and a glossy newness, but to some eyes it may also represent anonymity and a certain corporate blandness.

So then, what does the latest addition to our University campus, the new Innova21 building, say about Adelaide as an institution? As a uni-versity, what is it we value most, and is this new facility an accurate representation of this?

Ask any student what they like about Ad-elaide University and no doubt there will be mention of the campus environment. The old sandstone icons, the Barr Smith Lawns, and the proximity to the CBD are defining features of our North Terrace grounds. The architecture is a critical contributor to our experiences of the campus, and Adelaide has a history of high qual-ity building design (although admittedly some are in need of better maintenance).The Mitchell Building and Elder Hall along North Terrace, the Barr Smith Library and Bonython Hall by Walter Bagot, Louis Laybourne Smith’s Union Hall, Robert Dickson’s Union House, and the more recent North Terrace landscape upgrades by Taylor Cullity Lethlean are all excellent examples in their own right.

The university certainly knows this. In the lead up to its Open Day, Adelaide

released a short video online, taking advantage of the design of the North Terrace campus as a drawcard for future students. In the video, cur-rent undergraduates are interviewed about their experiences of Adelaide University. “I always wanted to go here [Adelaide] because of the campus… it’s aesthetically pleasing”, one stu-dent notes. Another student comments on the “beautiful grounds… [and] beautiful historical architecture”.

But with the need for new facilities, the uni-versity has change demanded of it.

Our university is currently being transformed at a record pace. As well as the Innova21 Build-ing, there is the major new Learning Hub (cur-

rently being constructed on Hughes Plaza), the Professions upgrades on Pulteney Street, the School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, a new Plant Accelerator and a recently announced sci-ence precinct intended to replace Union Hall.

The Innova21 facility is important because it is the first new building to open as part of this round of major upgrades. It brings much needed facilities for the Faculty of Engineering, Comput-er and Mathematical Sciences, adding 14,000m2 of gross floor area over eight levels, including a basement level.

New teaching suites are integrated on the ground and basement floors, as well as 24-hour access computer rooms and a permanent café, to be serviced by Aroma. Upper floors contain staff offices and study areas, with a number of ‘break-out’ spaces for informal group work and socialising.

Certainly, Innova21 provides useful space for staff and students in the maths and engineering disciplines, but it also integrates a number of unusual features to improve its environmental performance.

In fact, Innova21 was awarded six stars in environmental ‘Green Star Design’ ratings – the highest rating currently achievable. This is the first building in any Australian university to score this well. The building was featured on the cover of The Adelaidean (‘Our star Attraction’) and was also published in the South Australian architecture journal, Place.

‘Green’ building design is a contentious is-sue in construction industries. In the case of Innova21, many of the ‘green’ features reduce the need for ongoing consumption of electricity whilst the building is in operation. Using glass on the exterior maximises daylight penetration, re-ducing dependence on electrical lighting – which itself is computer programmable for maximum efficiency. In case you’re wondering about the glass in summer, the architects specified a low-emissivity double glazed product, which provides more effective resistance to heat transfer.

The rather stocky columns along the north façade are ‘thermal chimneys’, which, through


8

certainly, this is a piece of architecture with a highly functional agenda. it's a machine. but while innova 21 has all the latesttechnological features, it lacks in personality.

“convection, naturally draw hot air out of the building to help keep it cool. Other technolo-gies include hydronic cooling pipes within the concrete floor slabs – in which water is chilled underground and pumped through the concrete floors – as well as an in-floor fresh air ventila-tion system to provide naturally cooled, fresh air, year-round.

There is also a tri-generation plant on the roof, 500,000 litres of underground rainwater tanks, new bicycle storage facilities, a digital Building Management System to reduce energy expenditure, a number of recycling bins, (soon to be) indoor plants for air filtration, and sus-tainably sourced timbers and low VOC (volatile organic compound) paints have been specified throughout the interior.

There are some nice details in the Innova21 building. “One of the design features was trans-parent services”, says Paul Duldig, referring to the sleek glass elevators in which users are able to see the lift mechanics. The winter courtyards – complete with glass floors – are also a nice touch.

Duldig is the Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice President of Services and Resources for the University. “We have a commitment to ensure that there is a teaching and learning approach to the building itself”, he tells me. “We’ll be using the building as a teaching tool”, with informa-tion such as the building “stresses, strains... and

energy usage” recorded and displayed for stu-dent interest.

Perhaps the most defining visual aspect of the building is the impressive cantilevered staircase which lightly wraps around the west façade. The new atrium is also surprisingly pleasant, with a large LCD screen display and potential to house small-medium sized events such as student exhi-bitions. Another screen, closer to the entrance, will display building data.

The university should be commended for taking on this approach to its building design. The consideration of connectivity and campus planning, the fact that priority has been given to central student spaces, and the introduction of a number of innovative, energy efficient technolo-gies is great to see.

Certainly, this is a piece of architecture with a highly functional agenda. It’s a machine, com-plete with working parts and tick-off-the-list ‘green’ features. In-slab cooling? Check. Low-e double glazing? Check. Sufficient rainwater tanks?... Check.

But while Innova21 has all the latest tech-nological features, it lacks in personality. Talk-ing with Paul Duldig makes me realise that the university has been so caught up in the prag-matic ‘measurables’ – connectivity, energy loads, efficiency – that it seems any ideas of form or spatial quality were thrown out the metaphorical window (Innova21 windows don’t open).

From just about every angle, the building has a particular awkwardness about it. The form is simply boring: rectangular in plan-view, and rect-angular in elevation. The thermal chimneys and window shades slice up the façade to produce even more rectangles. A whole ugly grid of rect-angles, in fact. In an article in Place journal, the architects justify this design in order to “provide a soft transition to its [Innova21’s] neighbours”. But do new buildings have to be in harmony with the old?

Perhaps one of the poorly executed features of the building is the façade detailing. Rather than expressing the glass in its true form, the architects chose a printed maroon finish to tie in


9

with the adjacent red-brick campus buildings. The pattern is boring and communicates very little, while the colour choice is conservative, to say the least. The architects claim “the materials are expressive while blending in with its overall context”, but I struggle to notice anything that’s “expressive” about this building.

Even the interior is boring. The ground floor foyer is single-storey height, and to be honest it lacks any kind of atmosphere. While I under-stand the southern atrium has provided a more cost-effective solution to a grander scale internal entrance, the overall effect seems slightly under-whelming.

The new offices upstairs feature a number of open ‘break out’ spaces – essentially informal lounge areas – which will no doubt be highly utilised, as will the new student lounges and computer suites. While these spaces are pleasant, with plentiful natural light, high quality air, and great views over Adelaide, they aren’t challeng-ing. There’s no sense of the building’s purpose. No visual cues that relate to engineering and maths. When I’m in Innova21, I could be in any new building, in any city, anywhere.

I’m not alone in thinking this. “It’s practical”, a friend of mine currently studying engineering tells me. “I don’t really look at it much”, says another friend, also from engineering. Neither friends knew I was writing this article at the time of our conversation. I try to ask some staff in the architecture school to comment. One senior figure simply shrugs, clearly frustrated at the development his office window now looks out onto.

But this article is not to say that we should build like RMIT, or that Innova21 is a failure. Just as RMIT have unusual, contemporary build-ings on their Swanston street campus, many of their classrooms are stuffy, poorly lit, and with few too many windows.

As you can see, the complexity of architecture

lies in the intersection between building form and function. Getting this balance right is where the challenge lies.

Adelaide University has a reputation for its high quality campus design, and it has many beautiful buildings that contribute to this. The challenge the university faces in future develop-ments is in more effectively marrying the ‘beau-tiful’ with the more ‘functional’ aspects - the things Innova21 does particularly well. Because those beautiful, intangible qualities are the very things that define our campus and our experienc-es of university. And we need those to advertise at Open Day.

A sidenote:The university has set the national benchmark for ‘green’ building designs with Innova21 receiving a 6-star rating. However, other cur-rent university developments will apparently not be assessed by the GreenStar rating tool. In an email to the writer, Paul Duldig explained that the “Plant Accelerator, Vet School and Learning Hub are each unique developments and as such our [the University’s] view is that they don’t fit into the GreenStar rating tool. However, we are building green features into these developments where we think this makes good sense”.

Danny Brookes is a 3rd year architecture student and freelance designer. Recent projects include FIX Student Kitchen Lounge and the 2010 O’Ball campaign.


10

once you take the politics out of it, the issue really becomes one of what you want the campus to be. is it part of the city, blending into and shaping the broader adelaide culture, or is it a self-contained unit, with a unique and in-dependent society that needs its own space (and, crucially, it’s own retail outlets)?“

do food outlets have a place on the north Terrace campus?

the battle over retailthe battle over retailthe battle over retailWords, Myriam RobinMockup images, Hassell


11

Above: Proposed fourth floor student hub floor plan

If you walk for long enough through the

multitude of sandstone and open spaces that

comprise the University of Melbourne, you even-

tually reach a cross-shaped building housing MUSU,

the Melbourne University Student Union. Otherwise

known as Union House, you’re greeted by a help-desk

staffed by students, who can point you in the direc-

tion of what you’re looking for. A food court, as well

as several other retail outlets (pharmacy, newsagency,

hairdresser, bike repairs) can be found on the first floor.

The Basement is a lounge, suitable for, well, lounging.

And the second floor houses the student union offices.

This is the closest thing Melbourne University has to

a general ‘student hub’, and it is difficult to ignore the

obvious commercial and retail aspects of it. Nonethe-

less, the hub is inviting, the food options are varied,

and the help desk students are friendly. Although it

closes at 5pm every day, Union House is clearly a well-

utilized indoor student space.

Adelaide University also has a Union House. The

redbrick building which houses the Mayo, Cinema

and Unibar was at one point the centre of campus so-

cial life, but hasn’t been for some years. Many of its

rooms are empty most of the day, and since the union

sold off its commercial assets, its food and beverage

outlets have undergone a period of upheaval. Further-

more, as the campus expands onto North Terrace and

into the city, fewer and fewer students find themselves

on diT mAGAZine12August 9, 2010

at the North end of the university, and Union Houses’

lack of a central location means it isn’t much of a thor-

oughfare.

Indeed, it is this that led to the development of the

former Hughes Plaza. No one ever much liked the Si-

berian expanse of it. And few question the desirability

of more student space on campus (even the university,

which needs to improve its retention rates), meaning

the project has a large base level of support. The Learn-

ing Hub Project, partly funded directly by a Govern-

ment grant and partly through the university’s own re-

serves, will cost $41.8 million. It is intended to provide

a new learning and cultural space for the students of

the university.

In an effort to make sure they get it right, as well as

sell the idea, the University of Adelaide embarked on a

wide-ranging and comprehensive student consultation

process. This has been, for the most part, successful.

Kendra Backstrom, one of the senior project officers in

the learning hub project, says the “interest and the en-

gagement we’ve got from students has been fantastic,

and perhaps has surpassed what we actually thought.”

David Collucio, the Adelaide University Union’s Gen-

eral Manager, sings similar, albeit more caged, praises.

“The student consultation process has been compre-

hensive, well organized, and it’s been, in terms of its

breadth, probably one of the better consultation pro-

cesses that the university has implemented. Hopefully

that type of model will be used continually.”

There have, of course, been criticisms. I sit on the

Student Reference Group (SRG – trust me, with so

many different groups, its acronyms galore), one of

several committees designed to provide feedback into

the hub development. Such committees, as well as the

use of many surveys, provide most of the student input.

Other consultation committees, such as the Services for

Students group, contain mainly support staff. In SRG,

we’ve spent much time discussing interior design, and

looking at pretty pictures. Which frankly, isn’t what I

signed up for. The contentious issues were always going

to be the allocation of space and what kinds of services

are provided within the hub. It’s not that these aspects

have been ignored, simply that we’ve spent far too long

on design features. At the end of the day, I trust the re-

spected architectural firm overseeing the project, Has-

sell, to get it right aesthetically. Apparently, I’m not the

only one which feels like this. David mentioned that

“some of the feedback [he has] received from students

involved in the process is that while there are lots of

meetings and lots of information, the consultation fo-

cuses on some of the small issues, and issues around

particular design features and so forth rather than some

of the big issues around what the space will be used for.

And I’ve gradually been sensing a feeling of frustration

in some of the students involved”.

Admittedly, I haven’t attended many SRG meetings

recently. So the latest consultation, regarding food out-

lets in the hub, caught me by surprise. Slavka Kovacev-

ic, the communications manager for the Learning Hub

Project, explained that food options, and dissatisfac-

tion with the current providers, were some of the things

students consistently nominated as needing fixing in the

hub. In response to this, a survey was sent out asking if

students would rather a sit-down café-style selection of

outlets or a food court (options 1 and 2, respectively).

This survey had over 800 responses, a small majority of

whom said they preferred option 1. Fifteen to twenty

students responded saying they did not want food out-

lets, as they believed the hub should be a learning space.

Slavka suggested that maybe some of them didn’t un-

derstand that the food outlets were to be only a corner

of the hub (less than 10% of the floor space on level

four according to Slavka and Kendra).

Perhaps it is this misunderstanding that saw the

rapid growth of a facebook group begun in early July

by former AUU President Lavinia Emmett-Grey. The

group, ‘I want a Learning Hub, not a carvery’ stated:

“The original plans looked like a food court, which

considering they're spending OUR HECS fees on build-

ing, lots of student reps said NO, we'd actually like

student space and services. We thought we'd won. But

oh no. Now I get an email that tells me I can choose

between a licensed food court OR a food court with

sliced meat (aka carvery).”

The group, although it certainly rallied many in

the SRC and union, appeared to highlight more than

ever the different views regarding retail. Some students

didn’t seem to understand that a carvery wasn’t actual-

ly what the university planned to do, only one of many

examples offered for discussion as to the type of food

outlets. Others didn’t realize that the proposed retail

only took up a fraction of the fourth floor. Some were


13

perfectly informed and spoke out either in favor of re-

tail, saying it was what students had said they wanted,

or voiced concerns about the proximity of North Ter-

race and the fact that food on campus would always

be overpriced and frankly of poorer quality than that

found in more competitive parts of the city.

This thread of argument is easily picked up by Da-

vid. “I actually think the university has missed a golden

opportunity… [One] that is particular to the Univer-

sity of Adelaide North Terrace campus and not many

others in the country. We’re adjacent to the Adelaide

CBD… to a whole raft of food precincts, many of them

offering real good quality food at an affordable price.

So the question from many people, not just myself, is

why the need to replicate such retail options on cam-

pus, especially given that the university is already spill-

ing out onto North Terrace and into Grenfell St. The

university is already spreading into the city anyway.

Why not take the Rundle Mall precincts, and almost

market them as part of the university campus. And that

way save yourself the trouble of having to provide retail

infrastructure on campus, and utilize that very valuable

space on teaching and learning needs.”

“People are moving off campus anyway, and you’d

do better to embrace the realities,” he concludes.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that

food services on campus aren’t the easiest thing to run.

Students, rather than being a captive market, often

leave campus, and eat on their way in or out through

the city. There’s no morning, after-hours or weekend

trade possible. And any food outlets would only be

operational less than 40 weeks a year. Overall, these

conditions meant both the AUU and the National Wine

Centre were unable to make a profit on campus food

and beverage. Currently, the not-for-profit University

Club manages the Mayo and Unibar, and didn’t reopen

all outlets when it took over at the start of this year. All

this begs the question, given the university would be

charging commercial rents to external operators, what

hope do they have of finding willing retailers? It’s these

factors that lead David to describe the rush towards the

commercialization of campus as “a bit of a fool’s gold”.

The other bone of contention is that when the hub

was first announced, many within the union felt that

it was being marketed primarily as a retail hub. In re-

sponse to the ensuing dissent, a consultation process

was set up to hear a range of views. This ensured a

period of calm and cooperation between student rep-

resentatives and the university. Old suspicions were

aroused however by the minimal space that appears

to have been allocated for student services. Plans for a

one-stop-shop to amalgamate the myriad access points

of services such as counseling, accommodation and

academic advice have given way to something resem-

bling more of a first-stop-shop. The university claims

that it is simply unreasonable to put all services in the

hub, as some, such as counseling, may need to be more

discretely placed for students to feel comfortable using

them. This isn’t disputed by the AUU, but when the

student services space is compared to the space that is

allocated in the draft to commercial services, no won-

der they feel cheated. Kendra maintains that no final

decision has been made on how student services will

be provided. I suspect that the ruckus caused by the

facebook group means the university would now be re-

luctant to shaft student services too much, for fear of

adding fuel to the fire.

Ultimately, things seem to have come to a head.

People like David and Lavinia are concerned that the

final drawings look far too similar to the original con-

cept they thought had been rejected, and so question

whether the university has really been listening to the

student consultation. On the other hand, the groups in

charge of the consultation and planning say they are

merely following student feedback which said going

over North Terrace took a lot of time, and that food is

only a small aspect of the hub. Both views clearly have

their supporters and detractors within the student body.

Identifying the relative proportions is nigh impossible

with any scientific accuracy, as those who approve of

the whole consultation process are more likely to re-

spond to questionnaires or attend meetings, and those

who disapprove of recent events are likely to shout the

loudest. Once you take the politics out of it however,

the issue really becomes one of what you want the cam-

pus to be. Is it part of the city, blending into and shap-

ing broader Adelaide culture, or is it a self-contained

unit, with a unique and independent society that needs

its own space (and, crucially, it’s own retail outlets)?

When it comes to commercial services, there is no obvi-

ous answer.


14

Some things in politics never change.

Words, Paris Dean

In 1822 James Straighter was sentenced to 500 lashes, a month of solitary confinement and five years prison for "inciting his Masters' ser-vants to combine for the purposes of obliging him to raise the wages and increase their rations". At the time, he was regarded as a criminal, but in to-day’s age he would be labelled an “organizer” by his relevant trade union. That kind of labour cartel-ling – which seemed to occur almost as soon as Eu-ropeans had invaded and decided to set up shop - is now, once again, the cornerstone of the great social and economic pact between labour and capital in our country.

I was originally asked to write something about

a (very short) history of the

australian class war





Above: 15 November 2005 industrial relations protest, La Trobe Street, Melbourne. Courtesy Takver.


15

the issue of Industrial Relations as it might play out in the next federal election. The truth is there are a lot of issues that are going to play out over the next few weeks, from who will stop the lat-est incarnation of the coloured hordes from un-dermining our way of life, to the price of bread. Most of these are momentary political fireworks, designed to be forgotten as soon as they have had their intended effect. Industrial relations, on the other hand, has remained an enduring subject of political debate, from the above-mentioned flog-ging of Australia’s first organized labourers to the most recent legislative reforms. The debate has at times been so furious that it has spawned whole political parties. Firstly and most obviously the Labor Party, the product of mass strikes of shear-ers and other pastoral workers in the late 1800’s, determined to organize a political union to prose-cute their cause in the parliament. Much later, op-position to the Labor party was enough to unite the dichotomous Free Trade (briefly named the Anti-Socialist) and Protectionist parties into the forerunner to the “modern” Liberal party.

The tension between the two parties, and the constituencies they represent seem so great that you might expect a bi-polar industrial relations system, forever lurching to left and right depend-ing on who could cobble together the numbers in Canberra. In reality, Australia engaged in an ambitious and novel socio-economic experiment: arbitration. Over time, it was clear that there was no question that labour and capital must be al-lowed to fight each other - as is their nature - but their seemed no reason that this couldn’t be done in a fair and reasonably dignified manner.

The deal was, labour and capital could contin-ue to fight and chant - the labourer asking for an extra ration – or, in 1912, strike over the entitle-ment to wear a union badge – and the capitalist could continue to quibble and cackle, but where an agreement could not be reached it would be determined by a tribunal.

And so something of a peace reigned over the legislative arrangements governing industrial rela-tions. The Unions continued to fight for a living

wage and whatever else they could take, and the bosses continued to fight back to ensure the ongo-ing viability of their business, yachts et al. Criti-cally where the claim could not be resolved by civil conversation (and the more than occasional strike and lockout) the claim would go before the sober judgement of a tribunal and hopefully be swiftly resolved often to nobodies absolute satis-faction.

The election of the Hawke-Keating Labor governments saw more Labor reform of the sys-tem, with capital and labour invited to briefly lay down their cudgels and come back into the tent. As part of a deal to fix structural problems in the economy, the industrial relations system was radi-cally altered. Rather than centralized wage fixing, the labour-capital fight would now be played out at a local level; the advent of Enterprise Bargain-ing Agreements meant that the standing labour armies no longer fought pitched battles against their bosses together but instead would trend to-wards striking deals applying only to their work-place or employer.

But then the unthinkable happened: the How-ard government was elected. I had initially as-sumed that the Howard government would be remembered for its racism, backwards looking social policies or perhaps more fondly for it’s cooky front bench. Instead it has become the gov-ernment of WorkChoices. It is hard to overstate how radical the Howard government’s changes really was. The Howard government ripped up the longstanding contract between labour and capital, and put very little in its place.

Employers and employees were now encour-aged to sit down and have a chat about what pay and conditions they might like. There was to be no collectivism, Joe Hockey openly stated there were probably not going to be any unions and there definitely wasn’t going to be any arbitration.

But the destruction didn’t end there. The “un-fair dismissal” laws, which prevented arbitrary dismissal and ensured basic principles of natural justice were applied in the workplace were all but torn up by a bogus “small business exemption”,


16

which applied to businesses “with less than 100 employees”. With the EBA and Award pay gone, a universally applicable basic minimum wage was pegged by a handpicked committee. Massive fines were introduced for unions who attempted to or-ganize workers within the new system.

Julie Bishop described it as “Australian”, Tony Abbott said the most important workplace right was being able to get another job and Kevin An-drews said anything and everything he had to. The labour movement was livid. The desecration of the socio-economic pact had robbed it of its main tools in it’s fight, and therefore of much of its work and ultimately, relevance.

As we now know, the Tories had massively miscalculated the union’s strength. They may not have been quite what they were but their ability to bring people out onto the streets, blitz the airways and garner public sympathy was still considerable and the government was promptly dumped.

Labor had won. The new government swept to power on a mandate of Industrial Relations re-reform and quickly set about restoring the in-dependent arbitrator, unfair dismissal laws and recognizing the role of Unions in the workplace. Labor threw out the old act and, in a classic swing of the “liberal freedom vs fairness” pendulum in-troduced its “Fair Work Act”.

This truncated and selective stroll through the past 200 years of industrial relations takes us to the present day. Hawke-Keating-Labor may have started fiddling with the IR system again - to the outrage of many Unions at the time - but that was different. WorkChoices set a modern precedent of parliament making substantive changes to the IR system to benefit a government’s own constituen-cy, in the face of vocal opposition from the other side.

What changes can we expect going forward? The Labor party will probably rest on its laurels: transitioning from the libertarian dystopia of in-dividual contracts back to a collective approach to wage and conditions setting, restoring the inde-pendent umpire and moving to a national awards system is no mean feat, and probably enough re-

form for one government. The Tories have been burned once, and aren’t likely to leap back into the fire immediately. Before Abbott ruled out any changes to the new legislation he was talk-ing about throwing a bone to his small business constituency, suggesting that taking the “unfair dismissal monkey” off the back of small business would be his priority. In plain-speak that proba-bly means abolishing the right to contest your po-tentially arbitrary dismissal, but only if you work for a business with a genuinely small number of employees. Other “reforms” could be prosecuted through existing structures - a particular stick-ing point for the Lib’s at the moment seems to be “minimum engagement rules” in many industries that require people to be given 3 hr shifts.

IR is an issue this election because the parlia-mentary class war is potentially on again; sud-denly everyone is allowed to have and opinion again on how much who should get, and what they should have to do to get it. Until a political agreement is begrudgingly reached, and a mecha-nism for taking the labour-capital struggle out of parliament is determined, the issue will not disap-pear. For the Labor party, arbitration is a sacred ten-ant of the faith. It is viewed as integral to allow them to raise the living standards and conditions of working Australians, the raison d’être of the party. For the Liberal party - a marriage of conve-nience between the Anti-Labor conservative and libertarian movements - deregulating the labour market is probably one of the few areas of abso-lute internal consensus and for the first time in a long while they’ve convinced themselves it’s now acceptable to talk about it.


17

Why single-issue lobbies aren’t the answer.

elections &

Brightly-Coloured Band-Aids

elections &


elections &


Words, Dominic MugavinPhotograph, Australian Youth Climate Coalition

while we can’t blame every-thing on social networking websites, i fail to see how you can effectively articulate a reform agenda in education in 140 characters. “

In 2010, some of you will vote four times, covering every layer of representation. In chronological order state, federal, student and then local council representatives will be asking for your vote. But what issues determine the way you vote? This year, there are more groups asking for your vote than ever, and just I’m not taking about political par-ties. What I am referring to are single issue interest groups.

Over the past few years we have the rise of vari-ous groups, especially focused on young people, who use a variety of media but mainly focusing on online action and mass actions like flashjams. You know who I’m talking about. The ‘Power Shift’s, the ‘GetUp!’s the ‘Vote 4 Students’ and the ‘MakePover-

tyHistory’s.In a discussion paper put out by the Whitlam

Institute at the University of Western Sydney titled Putting the politics back into Politics: Young people and democracy in Australia, it was put this way “Young people, for diverse reasons, are participating in activities that deliver short-term, visible and effica-cious outcomes, that eschew traditional hierarchies, operate through transparent processes and afford agency. These activities are often issues-based or have a local/community focus.”

Although the goals of many of these groups are to be applauded, this does not render them above cri-tique. On its website the, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, organisers of the various Power Shift con-ferences, include “media profile” and “partnerships” as key achievements. Like other similar groups, there is a clear focus on numbers, and a distinct lack of tangible outcomes resulting directly from political lobbying.

These groups are an obvious reaction to the grow-ing mistrust of politician and the political systems that exist in Australia. In this case, those under 25 are a lead indicator. Once again quoting from the Whitlam Institute’s paper, “there is a belief that for-mal structures and decision-makers do not take ac-count of or encourage involvement of young people.” It goes on to say that many of the opportunities for input that do exist “are seen as mere ‘tokenism’ and part of a broader process of political and media spin”.

Senator John Faulkner attributes the problems we see to too high expectations of politicians. In a speech given to the Henry Parkes Memorial School of Arts in 2005, he said “Australians go to the ballot box with hopes too high, and fears too great…By

all means, let us be idealistic in what we hope to achieve. But let us be realistic in what we will be satisfied to get done. Let us be realistic in our ex-pectations of our colleagues and our opponents. Let us be realistic about the distribution of altru-ism and selfishness in our fellow citizens.”

Some might argue that whatever the cause of the disengagement with organised politics, if it is being replaced with these single issue, community-based lobbying bodies, there is no problem. I disagree. In my opinion, these groups are merely bright and colourful band-aids over wide problems in Australia’s democracy. Just like when you insisted your mother used Wiggles band-aids when you fell off your bike and tore your knee half open. The response seems like fun, but the results are questionable. Without a clear understanding of political structures and their inputs and outputs, real and lasting change is not achieved. To quote again that authority on all that is good and pure, Senator Faulkner, “without both an understanding of the practi-calities of political change, and the confidence that the citizen can shape the state, Australians will drift further and further into disengagement and resentment”.

What definitely hasn’t helped is the way political campaigns take place. Faulkner again: “Low-content, high-colour campaigning, slogans as vague as they are reassuring and the deliber-ate downplaying of ideals, vision and hopes for the country leave Australians with the impres-sion that there's little politicians can do, and less they’d try”.

While we can’t blame everything on the twen-ty-four hour media cycle and social networking websites, I fail to see how you can effectively articulate a reform agenda in education in 140 characters. These communication techniques only encourage a grave simplification on both the giving and receiving sides of the information conversation. As seen by various campaigns, community organisers are forced to conform to the quick messages of their opponents, whether it’s the Vote 4 Students pledges, or the voting cards of the given out by the AYCC. There is

demand for simplistic summaries of complex is-sues. Both tertiary education and climate change are issues I am passionate about, but I question whether reducing them to little more that dot points diminishes their perceived importance.

Phillip Coorey in the Sydney Morning Herald has written “The election contest is starting to resemble Seinfeld, the show about nothing. It is hard to recall a time this close to an election when both major parties had no defined agenda, or anything else that could be remotely described as a vision.”

It is hypocritical to criticise the leaders of our major political parties for simply putting for-ward a horde of policies without any clear vision for the future of Australia, while we do nothing but encourage them in this. By trying to turn students and young people into single-issue vot-ers, whether it is on education or climate change, the advance of these policies may be marginally helped, but this outweighs the cost to democracy.

When considering who to vote for on August 21st, don’t let anyone turn you into a single issue voter. The issues facing Australia and the world as a whole are large and complex, and should not be shied away from. So this election, don’t vote for students, don’t vote for climate change. Rather, vote for yourself, vote those around you, and vote for your democracy.

Single-issue lobbying seems like fun, but the results are questionable. without a clear understanding of political structures and their inputs and outputs, real and lasting change is not achieved.

“on diT mAGAZineAugust 9, 2010

20

Words, Gemma Parker

I often worry that in my old age, my memories will

merge with what I’ve read and I will spend long af-

ternoons telling my grandchildren how hard it was to

fight in Vietnam, what life was like after the Apoca-

lypse and how exciting it was to be educated at Hog-

warts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For me, the

fact that “afterwards it all belongs to you”, is part of

the magic, and danger, of reading.

Great novels will leave their imprint on you, wheth-

er you like it or not. This can be a wonderful thing.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance might ig-

nite an interest in Zen Buddhism, just as Midnight’s

Children may encourage an interest in the history of

India. But some readers are more impressionable, and

some books more dangerous, than others.

The following is a list of books that impression-

able people should never read. Some have been chosen

for the danger they pose to your physical and mental

health, others because of the danger they pose to your

reputation/personality and thus your relationships

with others. Their appropriate literary antidotes have

also been compiled, just in case.

If you know anyone who read A Clockwork Or-

ange and started wearing a bowler hat and getting

misty-eyed about violence, this list is for them.

Junkie by William Burroughs has been left off this

list as there is no antidote known to humanity. Omit-

ted for similar reasons were On The Road by Jack

Kerouac, Delta of Venus by Anais Nin, Crime and

Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Beloved by Toni

Morrison, as well as anything by Arthur Rimbaud,

Dorothy Parker, Charles Bukowski or Virginia Woolf.

On second thoughts, forget it. Impressionable peo-

ple have to learn somehow.

Books impressionable people should never read


21

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

by Hunter S. Thompson

Danger Rating : 9/10

As a novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is

a savage, intoxicating and often hilarious trip.

This is because Hunter S. Thompson was a rare

kind of genius, not because he took a lot of

drugs. However, I know too many people who

finished it believing that if they filled their body

with every substance known to man, they too

would be as fascinating as Hunter S. It quickly

became apparent that this was not true, and

now they’re dime-a-dozen ice addicts who can

barely remember the plot.

Antidote:

Trainspotting

by Irvine Welsh

This is what happens

when ordinary people

take drugs. Irvine Welsh

is a master at his craft,

but this book is almost

unbearable to read.

The Dice Man

by Luke Rheinhart

Danger Rating: 9/10

This book was initially published with the subheader

‘This Book Can Change Your Life.' The plot follows the

adventures of a man who decides to let the roll of a dice

dictate his actions and decisions. Rheinhart is the pseud-

onym of George Cockcroft, whose theory was that the

ultimate freedom was to “get away from habit and cau-

sality and make all your decisions by casting dice.” This

has spawned a society of ‘dice people’ who religiously live

their lives by the philosophy outlined in this book (includ-

ing a friend of the bookseller who sold it to me, who felt

it her duty to warn me). I stopped reading it somewhere

around page six when he rolls the dice and it dictates that

he head downstairs and rape his neighbour. Of course it

turns out that he doesn’t rape her because she’s willing,

which still made my skin crawl.

Antidote:

Any recent interview

with George Cockcroft,

who now says that the

dice were probably just

a gimmick to have fun

with, or to get from

one place in your life to

another place, “but once

you got somewhere you

were happy, you'd be

stupid to shake it up any

further...”

Fiesta (a.k.a. The Sun Also Rises)

by Ernest Hemingway

Danger Rating: 8/10

No other book will make you want to drink

cheap red wine in the hot streets of Spain, date

prostitutes, get passionate about bullfighting and

break hearts like this one. Don’t read this unless

you like to get terribly and frequently drunk,

speak with a pretentious English accent and use

a lot of 1930s slang. This novel makes the most

torrid nights of drinking, heartbreak and drama

seem desperately romantic so long as you stay on

your feet. Dreadful business.

Antidote:

Cannery Row

by John Steinbeck

You’ll still want to drink

yourself into a stupor, but

you’ll be filled with an al-

truistic love for humanity

as opposed to a nihilistic

sense of hopelessness.

Mick and the boys at

the Palace Flophouse are

much better for you than

any of the characters in

Fiesta.

The Bell Jar

by Sylvia Plath

Danger Rating: 10/10

The Bell Jar is the autobiograph-

ical account of Sylvia Plath’s

emotional breakdown and at-

tempts to kill herself. Plath killed

herself a month after its UK pub-

lication. This book should come

with a health warning.

The Big Sleep

by Raymond Chandler

Danger Rating 7/10

Wise-cracking, dame-chasing,

fast-talking, whisky-drinking,

straight-shooting private de-

tectives are almost criminally

attractive. We all know that.

But there have been count-

less Philip Marlowe copycats

since Raymond Chandler first

introduced him in 1939, and

the world sure doesn’t need

another one.

Antidote:

Dreaming of Babylon: A Private-Eye Novel

1942

by Richard Brautigan

Possibly my favourite novel of all time,

Dreaming of Babylon follows the misad-

ventures of a private detective who can’t get

his shit together because he too often lapses

into daydreaming about his imaginary life in

Babylon. In Babylon, he is a famous detec-

tive named Smith Smith with a sexy secre-

tary. In real life, he can’t pay the rent, spends

most of his time at the morgue with a man

named Peg Leg, is out of bullets and can’t

quite work out what to do with the corpse

in the boot of his car.

Antidote: Franny and Zooey

by J. D. Salinger

Franny & Zooey is the funniest and sweet-

est account of an emotional collapse ever

written. Franny suffers an existential break-

down in her parents’ lounge room in No-

vember, 1955. Her slightly older brother

Zooey criticises her, upsets her and eventu-

ally goes to great lengths to share with her

a piece of advice their older brother once

gave him. The novel has been described as

resembling a Zen koan and never ceases to

make my heart soar. If Sylvia Plath had a

Zooey, she never would’ve stuck her head

in an oven.

“All good books are alike in that they

are truer than if they really happened

and after you are finished reading

one you will feel that it all happened

to you and afterwards it all belongs

to you: the good and the bad, the

ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the

people and the places and how the

weather was.”

- Ernest Hemingway


23

thinking throughthe gapsin the world



Words, Brendan De Paor-MooreIllustration, Chloe Langford

Slavoj Zizek, philosophy's mick Jagger?


24

Slavoj Zizek, love or hate him, has

earned the dubious and paradoxical title of ‘aca-

demic rock star’. The persona and style the Slovenian

philosopher has established is vital to understanding the

position he’s opened up in the public intellectual space.

Zizek’s oratory is a headlong rush of trenchant observa-

tion and exclamation, wrapped in a garland of ceaseless

nervous tics (and a thick Slavic accent). His writings are

similarly peripatetic and restless, driven by a commit-

ment to Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxist revo-

lutionary politics. He’s easily intellectually distracted

– the subject of each of his books is all and everything.

(According to Terry Eagleton in the Times Literary

Supplement, Zizek’s “forty or so books …are dishev-

eled collages of ideas, ranging from Kant to computer

science, St Augustine to Agatha Christie.”). Zizek’s wide

range and rapid movement bizarrely replicates the hy-

pertext ‘mode of consciousness’ – but his work is not so

much a celebration of this multiplex mode of conscious-

ness as it is an effort to show the way that truths are

scattered and dispersed through this fragmented space of

representation. Zizek shows a way to use the distracted-

ness of popular culture to create an active and critical

consciousness, as opposed to the atomised form usually

created by such fragmentation.

One of Zizek’s typically counterintuitive readings of

culture is his off-hand reading of the Gap: Gap sells blue

jeans to both upper class and working class people, and

this coincidence of fashionable objects of consumption

could easily be seen as evocative of the end of class antag-

onism in the so-called ‘post-industrial age’, but when you

look at the attitudes taken by the different subjects we

see that even in this tiny phenomena we find the formal

basics of an antagonism remain. For the lower-class con-

sumer, the jeans represent the emulation of the wealthy,

the attainment of enviable status, and so on, but for the

upper-class patron, the same jeans represent their infor-

mal attitude – the fact that even though they are wealthy

they are comfortable in the same clothes as everyone else.

Consumers buy the same item to purchase different kinds

of social identity. We can allow Zizek his satisfaction at

the irony that the very name ‘the Gap’ is strangely suit-

able to this state of affairs.

It would hardly be laudable if Zizek’s work was mere-

ly a reduction of political issues of class and identity to

this kind of cultural analysis of signs in consumerdom.

My feeling is that it’s the other way ’round – Zizek works

to reconnect severed images and signs to fundamental po-

litical structures. If Jean Baudrillard was the theorist who

declared that culture had unhinged itself from any funda-

mental symbolic features, and become dictated only by

the drive to infinite and accelerating self-expansion, Zizek

is the theorist who gambles on it being still dictated by

the basic co-ordinates of capitalist society. These co-ordi-

nates are defined by a basic antagonism between the drive

of profit to infinitely maximise itself and the interests of

other social structures and agents to both derive benefits

and protect themselves from the damage that is often a

consequence of the unburdened capitalist will to power.

Hence, the seemingly flippant use of ‘the Gap’ actually

indicates something far more significant: the fact that our

society does not fit together into a harmonious whole, but

is riven with cracks and fissures which are the domains

of struggle. The basic identifying feature of ideology at

its purest is the attempt to paint over these cracks with a

harmonious portrait.

Zizek is the first public intellectual whose mode of

address corresponds fully with the globalised world.

Because he himself is a media entity (the subject of two

films – Zizek! and A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema – a com-

mentator in several papers and reviews, and a constantly

updated presence on YouTube) his very occupation of

this specific domain enables him to appropriate it for a

use against its own grain. Working in an absolutely post-

modern style, Zizek insists on modern themes of funda-

mental social dynamics, struggles for emancipation and

a fundamental ground of human freedom. In this way,

he exposes the superficiality of the post-modern – able to

sustain itself only as a style.


25

SCRAPBOOKSCRAPBOOKSCRAPBOOK- contemporary and/or local culture, high and/or low -

Adelaide'sOnline miscellanea

Yeah, we get it. The internet has been around for a while. But the fact that Facebook has essentially taken over the whole fucking place suggests that it should once again be pointed out that a wide number of web pages do exist that can and should be visited

and, indeed, cherished, as one may cherish a tiny baby seaturtle.

The web has launched two local 'personalities': humorist and all-round troublemaker David Thorne, of www.27bslash6.com (above left), and the ubiquitous Spoz, of

spoz.blogspot.com (above right). It is rumored that Spoz has seen every local band in existence at least once. In fact, if you play in a local band and haven't been viewed by Spoz, it's safe to say that your band doesn't really exist, in the strictest sense of the

term. Thorne, meanwhile, is responsible for the grade-A prank that was Kate's Party. If you see either of these characters, we advise extreme caution. Back away slowly.

Also, because we're totally comfortable in our position as the preeminent magazine-of-choice for discerning Adelaide students, we're totally cool with throwing a bone to our

online rivals over at fivethousand.com.au (below right). Part of the Thousands net-work, these guys not only know how to party (and art fag it up around the wine-and-cheese-platter traps), but how to write coherently about said partying and art fagging,

every freaking week.


26

Deerhunter's Revival [single]

America’s best psych-garage-kraut-shoegaze revivalists

return with a slice of airy pop unlike anything they’ve ever done, save their Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP. It is

riveting... and just wait for the album, Halcyon Digest.

Pachow!

Friends' Friends

Ben Quici and his other friends have crafted the most engaging Adelaide punk album for some time. The simplicity of the songs belies a sophistica-

tion that calls on Shellac and The Jesus Lizard to devastating effect.

Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma

LA beatmaker Steven Ellison returns with his best release yet. Cosmogramma is the

smoothest instrumental hip-hop you’ll hear all year, and

listen out for the free jazz and dubstep influences. Mateo rec-

ommends!

Also on the decks:

• The National's High Violet (You know an album starting out with the

line "it's a terrible love and i'm walking with

spiders" is going to be a bit depressing. But

also smart and funny and warm and beautiful.

listen alone with a glass of wine in one hand

and J.d. Salinger's Nine Stories in the other.)

Splendour in the Grass

Mateo ended up snagging a media pass to Splendour this year, leaving the other two

editors in the office, miserable and utterly resentful. We

would like it be made known here that revenge will be

exacted... Hmph.

Students make space.

the fixthe fixthe fixWords, Harry LaughlandPhotographs, Danny Brookes

the fixthe fixthe fix A beautiful heritage-listed building in the heart of Adelaide University is being given a new life by an ambitious and driven duo. Ashleigh Lustica, presi-dent of the SRC and Danny Brookes, an architecture student at the University, have taken on the challenge of turning what was once UniBooks and, this year, an un-used Café, into a fresh, vibrant, multifunctional student

space. Battling building contractors, health and safety issues, dealing with the Building’s heritage status, as well as continuing their studies and trying to enjoy the holidays they were undoubtedly left with an unenviable task.

It is clear when talking to Danny and Ash-leigh that this project really means a lot to them. Danny’s purpose was to “create a sense of community with a shared, free facility for all students” and the passion that he has put into this project is infectious. Fix really does feel like a space for students created by students, and one that will have a fantastic atmosphere when in full swing. By utilising the two levels to create a cooking and dining

Left: Fix architectural mockup.

Right: Photographs of Fix planning and development.

area downstairs, Danny and Ashleigh have been able to ensure that upstairs is focussed on study. In terms of inte-rior design, Fix is markedly different from the other university-built student spaces at uni. The interior is an eclec-tic mix of salvaged sofas and tables. Blackboards and a wall for advertising student events is likely to make this somewhere students can leave their mark. The installations and various wall graphics made by other students create a feeling that this really is a quirky, visually interesting place to study, eat and relax.

It really is testament to the pair, and their team, that when I visited Fix it wasn’t completed, yet I could see the potential and clearly see the result they were aiming for. They were originally given just $5000 to reno-vate, although this was increased a little later into the project, meaning the space is even more impressive for having been done on so little. Ashleigh and Danny both agree that they have been on “a very steep learning curve” but ultimately they have come through and the result is a great addition to the university.

The train pulled into Moscow station at 4am

amidst the unearthly mega-city calm. I was grate-

ful for the 10 minute nap I’d managed to squeeze into the

heavy excitement and anxiety now gripping me. Packing

the belongings still resting on the over-head compartment,

I woke my girlfriend and we exited the four-person train

carriage with the finish line only metres away. Thirty

seconds later we were out on the busy platform, breathing

in old Leningrad. We’d made it.

Our journey began two months and fifty packets of

noodles earlier, on the afternoon of May 6, in South

China’s dynamic Kunming. Kunming is the fast-devel-

oping capital of the Yunnan province, itself unique for

encompassing 25 of China’s 56 ethnic groups. We climbed

aboard our north-bound train and welcomed the only

option for late-notice ticket purchase – crowded seats...

for twenty-three non-stop hours. This, of course, proved

the epic marathon it promised to be. We knocked up a

healthy 20 minutes of light sleep between us, and my

girlfriend Jordan, a student of the Chinese language, tried

conversation with a skinny farm-boy who apparently

had an accent on steroids. We were ok, though, for the

raw garlic we shamelessly shoved down our throats. By

the time we’d travelled so far north as to be on Central

Siberia’s arresting Lake Baikal, I’m sure I’d finally con-

vinced Jordan that my mum’s recipe of raw garlic for the

prevention of the common cold was a sure thing. After

all, we were yet to become ill. I invite all keen students of

medicine to comment.

May 7 and we were off the train and in the Sichuan

Traversing the world's little-travelled expanses.

Overland across old redOverland across old redOverland across old red

Words and photographs, Peach Howey-Lenixxh Illustration, Alexandra Weiland


32

province. Sichuan claims fame for three things: Giant

Pandas, dialect and the most beautiful women in

China. Two of these claims proved to be true. Any-

way, soon we were on our way to the panda sanctu-

ary, after Jordan had successfully managed to com-

municate despite said dialect to a local taxi driver.

The Giant Pandas, record-breaking in their repro-

ductive apathy, were a barefaced thrill nonetheless.

The park provided, not very surprisingly considering

the economic incentive, ample space and maintenance

for animal life. Kangding, too, was magnificent. A

six hour bus-ride west of Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu,

through luscious green forest and along the one road

leading to Tibet from China proper, Kangding is like

a Vegas but in a world Tinker Bell might inhabit—if

she were also a rogue. This was my first taste of the

splendour of—what is for all practical purposes—

West China and, more importantly, Central Asia.

But it wouldn’t be long before we were in the Far

East and atop the nation’s Great Wall. Its name, a

grand attempt at translation, is in fact a heroic under-

estimate. The Great Wall, built two millennia ago as

a fortress against invading southbound Xiongnus and

later Mongols, is really a pantomimic masterpiece—a

giant lizard lying sprawled across Northern China

and laying claim to be the nation’s true dragon. With

the wall being so breathtakingly long at over 8000

kilometres, and snaking through private as well as

government land, it fails wonderfully fails bureau-

cratic interference. We thus not only saw, but even

pitched a tent on the wall for the equivalent of fifty

Australian cents. Needless to say, if you’re ever in

China ignore those trying to sell ridiculously over-

priced tours to see the wall. Actually, don’t ever

take an organized tour full stop. Anyway, we were

wrapped. It was now the 25th of May, and the China

leg was almost complete.

Back at the hostel in neighbouring Beijing, we had

fun chatting to a young music festival organizer from

New York, then an awkwardly fun time chatting to

a group of adolescent Mormons who, all said, sure

knew how to bust out Beyonce on guitar. And so it

goes, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote.

Hostels, however, weren’t our chief means of

accommodation. That fell to the auspices of couch-

surfing.com, a network connecting travellers and

on diT mAGAZine34August 9, 2010

locals happy to provide free accommodation for good

company. And it works, in every conceivable way. It’s

not only on the house and a great kick, it’s perfect

for getting a feel for the local way and meeting those

with like-minds who you may maintain a close bond

with. You might even snag yourself a free tour guide!

And so it goes! A big thank you, here, must go out

to the Muscovite Alexander, who’s scrumptious

home-made Russian Borsch soup and warmest of all

demeanours (and showers!) left us in raptures and

sad to fly out of Moscow.

What will remain our most memorable ‘couch-

surfing’ experience, however, was one never pre-

arranged in the first place. This occurred before we

limped into Beijing, when we were still gallivanting

back West—this time in a magical Tibetan village

called Sangke that lies hidden in the geographical

centre of China. We push-biked in from a nearby

mountainside town, and were unlucky in our at-

tempts to find a spot to pitch a tent for the night.

Enter Lamasama, a 10-year extraordinarily percep-

tive Tibetan girl who whisked us off to her parents’

house for a night of the most selfless hospitality and

mind-blowing cultural exchange. To make matters

bittersweet, the Tibetan regions continue and will

continue to become the dumping grounds of the

rapidly growing ‘greater’ China, areas to the East

populated by the ethnic Han majority. This should

remain an adventure log; but I invite all Politics ma-

jors to comment.

We left Beijing and headed north-East toward

Mongolia in early June, blown away and with more

questions than answers. Despite the stares we had

to put up with, and the groping of what must have

seemed my extraterrestrial dreadlocks, we were al-

ready making plans for a return some day.

Taking the train through the Mongolian Gobi

desert, we were stunned at not only the incredible ex-

panse of it, but how much the barren earth reminded

us of the vastness of central Australia. Mongolia

regained its independence when the Soviet failure col-

lapsed in the early 1990s, and waltzing through the

streets of the only large city, Ulaanbaatar, we were

reminded of its red past: old, imposing soviet build-

ings muscled up against us in the city centre, making

sure we knew just how far from home we were. The

on diT mAGAZine 35August 9, 2010

more modern National History Museum proved to be a

must-stop, explaining in part how under the 13th and

14th century Chingis & Sons enterprise the Mongol

Empire expanded so far as modern-day Poland. Poor

Poles.

Once we left Ulaanbaatar, we were comprehensively

taken by the enormous hand of the vast Mongolian

landscape, where plains show-off such breathable open

space you feel you’ve been given an extra lung. With

our non-English speaking horse-guide Otka—comi-

cal in his bitching about the weather he must’ve been

so familiar with—we horse-backed through the Terelj

area, occasionally being greeted by a dreamy warm

drizzle that shone if we passed sparkling waterways

or whittled rocky outcrops. It was overwhelmingly

refreshing spending these five days with nothing but

packed food, a tent, and a silver bowl we applied to

cooking whatever was pulled out the potato sacks

after a day on the horses. These were honestly the best

meals I’d ever tasted; though major credit must go to

Jordan, whose genius cooking stood up to the oft-testy

outdoors. Occasionally we relaxed with local farmers,

who would open the door of their single-roomed gers

(yerts) at the smallest request from a stranger. Mon-

golians, tough and raw like their Russian neighbours,

are also traditionally nomadic and thus extraordinarily

convivial to wanderers looking for a place to rest their

wearisome parts.

We pushed on further north, now, and so finally

came upon Old Mother Red, the great Russian bear

state. Siberia, covering almost 10% of the earth’s land

surface, was our first stop. In the city of Ulan-Ude,

our kind host Vladimir promptly took us to a Russian

barbeque by a local river which flows into nearby Lake

Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake on the planet. Be-

fore we ourselves impatiently ventured there, Vladimir

had told us to “expect rain three times a day at Bai-

kal”; we had ten straight days of blue sky. Unbelievable

as our luck was, the Baikal water always remained,

for all practical purposes, fucking freezing. Our baths

were, well, quite quick.

Everything in Siberia is big, from the military

personalities to the Tran-Siberian to the everlasting

forest upon woodland upon forest. But Lake Baikal

is something else entirely, more like a silent ocean of

possibilities for the traveller hoping to grasp anonym-

ity deep inside a Northern Hemisphere summer. Thick,

honeyed sunsets and sunrises were 10.30pm and 4am

respectively, and we yearned to catch most all of them,

making inspired love on the side of what seemed a

timequake. For the entire length of our stay we camped

on the shore, occasionally hiking out for supplies or for

the pleasure of meeting some amicable Siberians: such

as Yura, the mining engineer / amateur connoisseur

who introduced us to delicious endemic Baikal fish.

“Just a little salt” was always important. But it’d be

two weeks spent in Russia, we well on the way to the

more European parts, before we’d be sleeping in proper

beds—and this in the village of Chemal, where the

dreamy Altai Mountains cradled our tired bones like

mamas. Days we’ll never wish to forget.

And suddenly, there we were, walking the 4am

streets of a Moscow so serenely quiet it seemed to be

extending a warm handshake of congratulation. We’d

managed the now dead communist ideal by land, from

South China to European Russia, with only the Krem-

lin to see—where Lenin’s embalmed corpse appeared

dead as cold rock; there was no going back now as

tourists queued for Soviet memorabilia on what used to

be a much more, for better and undeniably worse, Red

Square. Such are the times.

Such are the times, too, that the old red states are

opening up. There is a wealth of natural and cultural

experiences to be garnered and new perspectives to be

gained that will stay with one forever, particularly be-

cause they remain unobstructed by the touristy scene. I

urge you to go. And I urge you to enter with a mind for

anything: I wanted to keep this an adventure log and

not divert too much, for we both came out from the

lesson with far more questions than answers; but we

know enough now to always keep it that way.

...suddenly, we were there, walk-ing the 4am streets of a moscow so serenely quiet it seemed to be extending a warm handshake of congratulation...“


36

on the trail of the feral university.

u.g.l.y.u.g.l.y.u.g.l.y.Words, Jiminy Krikkitt

You can track a feral animal by the traces it

leaves—footprints, broken branches, dung. I’m

still not sure where in that list the new Flinders University

campus in the C.B.D. would fit, metaphorically speaking,

but I’m certain it’s in there somewhere. Most “educa-

tion providers” (a grotesque phrase, but then language is

the least of the industry’s problems) in this country have

a wild, desperate streak in their drive to attract more

students; Flinders isn’t by any means the worst. But their

new rooms manage to illustrate the nasty side-effects of

this approach in a space you can walk through in two

minutes.

Now, anyone who's been to the main Flinders campus

knows that no building there is going to be winning any

beauty contests anytime soon. They haven’t quite outdone

themselves in choosing a place in town, but height not-

withstanding 181 Victoria Square wouldn’t took too far

out of place in the brutalist village at Bedford Park. (181

is the tower on the northeastern corner of the Square, the

old Reserve Bank building. Flinders takes up part of the

ground and all of the first floor.)

The first hint that something is wrong comes as you

walk past. The ground floor, brightly lit through the

street-facing windows, is entirely devoted to selling the

university, as opposed to the university itself. There’s a

large, friendly, open-plan office for helping out with poten-

tial student inquiries, four touchscreen displays for work-

ing out which of the lucrative courses available you want

to ask at the counter about, an old-school scrolling LED

sign for straight-out advertising of university events, and a

dozen computers ostensibly for student use. No expense

or trouble has been spared to make this place look good

to what I’m sure the marketing department responsible

for the place at least has the decency to call “prospective”

students rather than “future” ones.

In other words, everything else, besides looking good,

is secondary. If a genuinely useful feature happens to be

pretty, then great, if not it’s likely to fall by the wayside.

This approach is only tenable to start with because the

inside of the building cannot be seen from the outside. For

example, there are twice as many computers downstairs,

visible to the passing public, than there are upstairs where

students actually study and use them—computers which

themselves are an afterthought if the plans the University

uses to advertise the campus on its website are anything

to go by. Only two were present the first time I came

through, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon during the holi-

days, and both were in use. A note above the lone student

printer there explained that it cannot be accessed from

the downstairs machines, and invited students to print

from their own laptops instead. Never mind, it was out

of toner anyway. You shudder to think what it's like come

assignment submission time.

The study rooms themselves—a mere four, all up-

stairs—are uniformly well-equipped, with the projectors

and flat-screens for the de rigueur PowerPoint presenta-

tions all shiny and too new to have broken down yet; the

campus’s real test will come when bits start failing, since

it’s plain that no other lecturing methods besides Power-

Point have been taken into account. (The courses taught

include public policy, law, business, and not much else, so

this is probably a safe bet, more’s the pity.) Rooms three

and four are rather cramped—better hope they don’t over-

enrol—and the round rotating desks on the lecture seats

prettier than they are functional.

The problem isn’t that the “campus” is soulless. If it

were, it would be utterly inoffensive, a bland background

against which lecturers’ content could stand or fall on its

own merits. Like the Napier Building. No, the campus

has a soul, but it’s the soul of Frankenstein’s monster, or

perhaps the one from a Thank God You’re Here parody

skit set in a plastic surgery. It's a grotesque, ill-conceived


37

the problem isn’t that the “cam-pus” is soulless. if it were, it would be utterly inoffensive, a bland background against which lecturers’ content could stand or fall on its own merits. like the na-pier building. no, the campus has a soul, but it’s the soul of Frankenstein’s monster...

“

horror, where the relentless pursuit of attractiveness is the

very thing that made it ugly. And it knows it.

Take the interior design. Rather like the tricoloured

exteriors at UniSA City West, it’s hard to tell if this is the

fault of genuine aesthetic bankruptcy on the designer’s

part or, on the contrary, a heroic effort to make an ap-

palling brief workable. The frosted glass room dividers

are pretty standard nowadays, though trying the echo

the interlocking-capital-I pattern from the suicide grille

outside was misguided. As attempts to work with the

existing building go, however, it’s still better than the lifts,

in which modern controls and voice announcements sit

awkwardly next to wall tiles apparently recycled from

an early-seventies nightclub toilet. Faux-wood patterned

particle board in a matching shade in the student kitchen

is forgivable, and might have even qualified as pleasant if

they’d left it there.

But the worst is the paint and the carpeting, which

blends harmless greys with wide stripes of colour; corpo-

rate blue, astroturf green, a tan and a yellow most readily

described in terms of bodily excretions, and a headache-

inducing shade of red. The latter two are the nadir; any

of the others would be tolerable on their own, though

the (literal) broad-strokes combination makes things

needlessly worse. The yellow is inexcusable because the

marketing department would have known better than

anyone that Flinders has a far more serviceable shade in

its coat of arms, not to mention most of its advertising

material. Looking at the red, on the other hand, gives the

impression of being trapped inside a fire extinguisher. Or

a Westpac branch. It looks good in digital photos. In real

life, though, getting a seat near the window is advisable.

“Headache-inducing” wasn’t a metaphor. Just make sure

you can’t see another seat, because at no small expense

they’ve carried over the tan and red motifs to the furni-

ture, as if the visual cacophony wasn’t bad enough already.

The campus has its good points, of course; no real

disaster is unmitigated. As with many real disasters, most

of the good points have to do with getting away. Bus

stops are close by, the tram a short walk; the nearest bar

(The Treasury) is a tad posh for the average student, but

any port (or beer, or vodka) will do in a storm. A liquor

licence application notice in the vacant half of the ground

floor offers further hope for the future. Best of all, once

you finally can’t take any more of the strange corporate

training centre, and need an actual academic environment,

the Barr Smith Library is a mere fifteen minutes’ walk

away at a leisurely pace, and your Flinders ID card is good

to borrow. The walk there can be cut to a little as five

minutes if you put traffic lights at a lower priority than a

timely escape. Nobody would blame you if you did.

Just like nobody could blame Flinders for doing this,

no matter what the crimes against taste. The funding

model of the Australian university system depends on

ever-increasing numbers of students, preferably interna-

tional students coughing up the big bucks to study in sun-

drenched comfort, and it’s understood that international

students want to study in the city centre. Flinders can

now say they have a city centre location, and the concen-

trated marketability of the place ensures it pays, both for

itself, and for their more livable main campus in the foot-

hills. Restricting the courses offered to postgrad students,

mostly fee-paying and fulfilling at least one definition of

the word “mature”, ensures the facilities stay in decent

condition; six months after opening, the student kitchen

(sorry, “hub”) still has a full complement of coffee mugs.

(This may not seem remarkable, until you talk to someone

old enough to remember when the Mayo provided real

cutlery and crockery. They switched to disposables about

ten years ago for one reason and only one: the theft rate.)

The photos on the web site will look good, and they’ll

even be up-to-date. And the enrolments will roll in.

And I’m one of them, still going to go even if I have

to wear sunglasses in class to not see that awful red paint

everywhere. The university can hardly charge for courses

the students themselves don’t expect to make money from,

and my B.A. pays no bills.


38

A team of competitive cheerlead-ers from Adelaide walk into the stadium where the annual National Championship competi-tions in Melbourne are being held. Another team from their club is warming up to go on stage, and so the boys and girls, dressed in their green club tracksuits start to cheer them on, "Feel the beat, who are we, we are Visual Energy!" Another club from Adelaide walks past in purple tracksuits and the team members exchange friendly greetings. The teams then go backstage and remove their jackets and track pants to reveal their competing uniform consisting

deconstructing cheerleading.

Bring iton?Bring iton?Bring iton?Words, Sarah Borg

"We're wanted, we're hot We're everything you're not

We're prettyWe're cool

We dominate this school!"


39

of a long-sleeved, midriff-covering top and pleated skirt (and pants and a top for the boys). One of the girls' stomachs then grumbles loudly and she asks their coach, "Why does everyone have to go on a diet?" who replies, "Because! In cheerleading we throw people into the air. And fat people don't go as high."

No, just kidding. This is real life, not a movie, and I just quoted Bring It On. Cheerleaders don't really speak in rhyme, use words like 'cheerocracy', or constantly act like they think they are the greatest thing to grace the Earth's presence - well none of the ones I've met do anyway. When people think of the word cheerleader they usually imagine the movie Bring it On or a group of scantily-clad "popular" blonde American girls in a cheesy high school TV show. I'm a cheerleader and what I have discovered is that while this stereotype is obviously exag-gerated and fairly ridiculous, it's really not that far from what people actually imagine ‘cheerleaders’ to be like.

Unfortunately the thing I can best compare competitive cheerleading to (because no one really seems to be sure what exactly it is) is, Bring it On. There are cheerleading teams that cheer for sporting teams like gridiron, basketball and Aussie rules football. These teams perform dance routines at games with or without pom poms. Competitive cheerleading is much more of... a sport, similar to aerobics, dancing, and gymnas-tics. In fact, AUS Cheer, the association that organises all of the cheerleading competitions in the state is a branch of GymSA, as cheerleading has such a close association with gymnastics. However, our teams come from clubs and not high schools, with team members ranging from school students to full-time mums, law students, engineering students, and carpenters. We don't have a school to "dominate", and being "hot" and "pretty" aren't prerequisite requirements.

Just in case you were wondering, competitive cheerleading teams perform routines at competitions against other teams in their division. Points are given to each team for things like ex-ecution of dance technique, synchronisation and timing, spac-ing, difficulty and creativity of choreography, jumps, tumbling, and so on, and the team whose routine receives the highest score wins their division. There are two main divisions: pom (dance) and cheer. In pom the routine involves predominately dancing and jumps (like toe touch jumps and pike jumps) whilst holding pom poms. Cheer is probably more what people imagine when they think of cheerleading. The routine is based

Left:Vintage cheerleading postcard


40

Aussie blokes are keen to be labelled as a 'cheer-leader'. In America, people know that guys who do cheerleading generally need to be quite strong and get to spend their time lifting and throwing up pretty girls into the air, before doing a few awesome back flips. So I assume it is a bit more acceptable for guys to say they do cheerleading over there than over here.

Recently, our team, two teams from Brisbane, and one from Perth got to travel to Hawaii to compete in the International Aloha Spirit Cham-pionships. I'm not going to lie, a huge part of the attraction to compete in this was the chance to get to holiday in Hawaii. After a billion training ses-sions and pleading to the university to let me take some time off, we went to compete. The competi-tion went over two days and had teams from many different countries from around the world. The American ‘division six’ cheer teams (in Australia, the highest division we have is five, in America it can go up to seven) amazed us as they performed routines even better than the showcases in Bring It On itself. We of course, having had nowhere near as much experience or opportunity cheerleading-wise, competed in a lower division. Our team had mem-bers competing in Open Pom and Cheer Division three (the highest cheer division in South Australia). It was an amazing experience to be immersed in the American cheer culture and get to compete at a competition attended by what I would describe as elite cheer athletes. We even came away with first place in both of our divisions! It was a huge moral boost to get to say that we received gold at an inter-national American cheerleading competition.

Cheerleading is definitely a lot harder than most people would think. It requires fitness, flexibility, strength, endurance, and more often than not you end up getting kicked in the nose or punched in the eye by a falling flyer. Not to worry, no one's ever been seriously hurt (I think) and you get to meet some wonderful people of all ages from all walks of life (our team consists of girls and boy of ages 14-36), and if you’re lucky, you even get to go to Hawaii!

around stunts which involve a group of team mem-bers lifting up one or more team members into the air (flyers) and sometimes throwing the flyer up in a 'cradle' or 'basket toss'. In between different stunts there is a routine much like pom but also with added tumbling. Tumbling is the gymnastics side of cheerleading involving cartwheels, handstands and all kinds of flips. There are a few other divisions including partner or group stuntwhich involves just stunting and no actual routine between stunts.

"So do you actually cheer?" Some teams do actually yell things out during

their routine, but especially in Australia, this is a bit outdated. After running around on stage for 2 minutes the last thing you feel like doing is shout-ing, and it's not like we're cheering for a sporting team to win. We do have a few of our own club cheers that we use to promote team spirit, usually when we are waiting for results to be announced or when supporting other teams in different divisions from our club.

Cheerleading is, of course, nowhere near as big in Australia as it is in America. The club I am part of was the first competitive cheerleading team formed in South Australia and it was only formed in 2005. A lot of schools here aren't eager to have cheerleading teams because of some of the associ-ated stereotypes. In America, most cheerleaders start very young and are also experienced gymnasts. They join a team in school and can get college and university scholarships if they make it into college teams. They take cheerleading as seriously as other well-known sports like basketball and baseball.

"Do you have any boys on your team?" Yes we do have boys on our team. One boy to

be more specific. That's one of the major differences we noted at the international competitions between American and Australian teams. The American teams had an equal gender balance whereas most of the Australian teams were all girls or only had a few male team members. Having guys in your team just makes life easier for everyone. A strong tall guy lift-ing a girl above his shoulders is always going to find it easier than another girl who is only slightly bigger than the girl she is lifting. However, not too many


41

Federal election: Sorting fact from fiction.Federal election:

Words, Michael NorrisPrimer : Your Guide to the Modern World

Another federal election, another gaggle of vote-hungry politi-cians looking to appease the masses.

Sounds harsh? Perhaps, but in the case of the perpetual asylum seeker/refu-gee debate, appeasement often translates into fuelling the fires of irrationality and xenophobia. Never fear, Primer is here, to sort the fact from the fiction.


42

Hysteria item #1: “They’re arriving in droves!”Before 1989, Australia received fewer than 500 refugee applications annually. After the Tianan-men Square incident, this substantially increased to 16,248 during 1990-91. Since that time, there has been a general decrease in the number of visa applications, falling to 3200 in 2004-2005. Com-paratively, Australia receives a very low propor-tion of refugees. In 2003, Australia received a total of 4,295 applications for asylum. Canada, in the same year, received 31, 937 applications, Germany received 50,563 applications, and the UK received 60,047 applications. In sum, Australia receives few-er asylum applications than the majority of industri-alized countries. In fact, in absolute terms, Australia receives roughly 0.0001% of the world’s refugees (i.e. not a lot). In March 2010, the total number of asylum seekers under the Rudd government reached 4386, which was claimed to be indicative of a soft stance from the Government. At that rate, accord-ing to Julian Burnside AO QC, it would take 20 years for the number of asylum seekers to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Hysteria item #2: “Weak refuge policy = more boats”The increase, or decrease, in numbers of asylum seekers generally mimics worldwide trends. Dr. Mark Thomson, author of a report by the Austra-lian Strategic Policy Institute entitled ‘The Human Tide’, states that “the principal cause of people seeking refuge is events which cause them to seek refuge.” Conflict, famine and drought act as instiga-tors for the desperate and persecuted to flee their country, rather than news of a revised immigration policy in Australia. Recent conflicts in Afghani-stan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Iraq have resulted in large-scale upheavals. The UNHCR’s global trends report (2008) estimated that 42 million people had been uprooted by conflict. It is only natural that a proportion of those will arrive on Australian shores. The contention that “pull factors” such as domestic policies outweigh the effects of conflict is just not backed up by evidence.

Hysteria item #3: “Turning the boats around is the best option”The debate regarding boat arrivals misses two crucial points. Firstly, 98 per cent of illegal arrivals into this country do so by plane, overstay their visa, applying for asylum later. The policies deliberated over by the Government and Opposition therefore simply kowtow to the xenophobic inclinations of the Australian people, whilst simultaneously failing to tackle the real issues, such as plane arrivals and people smuggling rackets. Secondly, humanitarian aspects are simply dismissed in the contest to attract votes. As their respective pre-election proposals unfurl, it becomes a race to the bottom in terms of accommodating those genuinely persecuted by the harshest regimes on the planet. Andrew Bartlett, a Migration Law Research Associate at Australian National University, states that, “[t]he worst ex-cesses of the Howard era are now being surpassed by countries like Italy.” Australia has an obligation as a global citizen to ease the pressure on develop-ing countries, who host 80 per cent of the world’s refugees. As they prolong the pain of the persecut-ed, through detention or refusal, these policies are a sad indictment on Australian society.

Time for principled discussionIt is worth quoting Andrew Bartlett at length here: “[t]he policy dilemmas thrown up by this issue are huge. In one sense, there is no full solution, short of world peace and an end to poverty globally. But the least we could do is stop pretending we can just block them out.” It is genuinely saddening to see the absence of a principled discussion on asylum seekers in this federal election. How Australia and the developed world will be able to cope with an increased number of migrants due to climate change (projected to be 200 million by 2050) is depen-dent upon the accuracy and openness of domestic debate. Unsustainable solutions are being paraded in front of the Australian public. I don’t not ad-vocate an “open door” policy; rather, I campaign for a debate with less misinformation and hysteria. The marginalized deserve far better than what both major parties offer.


43

The in-between, the home of the boatman, and the place where Achilles didn’t cool his heels…is a library?

To my left, a small boy was playing a beloved computer game I have not seen for at least seven years. Moments earlier, I had passed a display dedicated to that book I felt guilty about never finishing. Sorry Garth Nix – all I remember about your ‘Abhorsen’ series is something to do with bells, icebergs, and some kind of uncomfortable sexual tension.

With this many past blasts, which could totally only mean something to me, my natural conclusion was, of course that clearly I must have died in the night. However, before I could get ful-ly stuck into the philosophical, personal and psy-chiatric implications of my ‘place between’ being a library (for instance, what about my subcon-scious was manifesting itself as a similarly dressed couple excitedly thumbing through ‘magazines for sale!’? Does everyone have a serene gentleman quietly reading the newspaper somewhere in their mind?), a wave of logic struck me.

It was damp, and full of SuDoku.If this was the void, then it wasn’t reality,

making it all some kind of dream-state. Dream-state opens up the floodgates to using ‘Inception’ reasoning. Thus, the fact that I could remember how I came to be at the library meant that this was NOT a dream state…possibly meaning that I now cannot use ‘Inception’ reasoning…landing us back at square one. Or maybe negative square

With your host, Elizabeth Tien An Flux

one. Or possibly the square root of negative one? Then we’re dealing with a lower case “I”, so maybe the non-existant thing in this scenario is me. MY BRAIN JUST HIT THRESHOLD

But no, seriously, on the walk to the library, my dress was seduced by the wild, wily wind and threatened to retroactively audition for the role of the house in “Up”. The painfully awkward (and strangely boring) attempt to weigh it down coupled with the lack of both Jensen Ackles and pirates served to convince me that I was, in fact, living in reality.

Furthermore, at no stage in my memory did I have a big flashback montage about the impor-tant things in life. Thanks to mass media, I now picture that phenomenon as a series of videos playing on the side of the train. In this same scenario, I also picture myself as a man. Cheers, road safety commercial.

However, with reality as firmly established as it can be without the aid of a perpetually spinning thing, my Saturday morning experience did raise some interesting questions.

I don’t really think, if there is an in between, that it would be a library. Possibly a hallway lined with doors of all shapes and sizes, each opening onto a defining experience. Along with the obligatory graduation, first day of school, and broken bone doors (damn my enthusiasm to get into the investigator science centre as quickly as possible), there would probably the “smell the roses” type doors (i.e. that time you and your best friend simultaneously realised a transient but strong hatred of popcorn), and of course the awkward experience doors. In my case, the larg-est of these opens into the bra section of a depart-ment store, where a younger me fervently tries to remain invisible to all the people within a 50 metre radius. Because, you know, it’s awkward when people know you’ve hit puberty.

…though maybe not as awkward as zoning out in your local library. Seriously. By the time I was done thinking, the lights were out, the blinds were down, and a friendly cricket was chirping. Well not really, but the man with the newspaper had moved on to the crossword.

(un)pop culture

Columnist illustrations by Chloe Langfordon diT mAGAZineAugust 9, 2010

44

It all started with Free Willy. I was ten, and Jesse

was the most beautiful living creature I’d ever laid

eyes upon. I mean, come on. He was a lovable street

kid who freed a whale. Who wouldn’t pause the VCR

whenever his face came on and kiss the TV screen?

(Nobody? Oh… I totally didn’t do that… ever.)

Anyway, thanks to Jesse and his adorable combo

of orca and harmonica, I discovered the concept of

a crush pretty early in life. I went on to have a crush

on a number of unlikely figures throughout my nerdy

preteens, including Drop Dead Fred and the second

incarnation of Pete on Round The Twist. My high-

school years heralded crushes both on the slightly

more predictable (see: Seth Cohen) and forever nerdy

(see: Orlando Bloom in full Legolas regalia).

Let’s take a dictionary break to clarify the defini-

tion of the crush: an attraction, yes, but one with

no real intention to act. Admiration from afar. The

occasional far-fetched, lecture-length daydream in

which I accidentally run into Zach Braff on Rundle

Street and he instantaneously drops to one knee with

a tennis-ball sized diamond in hand. In short, a crush

is the perfect sentiment to harbour for a celebrity or

some other equally unreachable specimen of man-

meat. Which is why it’s unusual that in recent years,

my crushes have moved into a far more local arena.

Tertiary studenthood brought very little change

(see: Seth Cohen), but my passive passions have begun

to manifest on those less famous and less fictitious

(see: American Apparel Guy). It’s unexplainable, and

it’s also hugely inconvenient. It makes buying unisex

t-shirts super awkward. To make matters worse, these

fits of amour pop up everywhere—and I mean every-

where. I moved house and silently farewelled 11:08

Train Guy. Boost Juice Guy must have quit or got

fired, but damn, those All Berry Bangs were bangin’.

And of course, there’s the ever-present Lecture Guy.

He varies from semester to semester, but there’s always

one. As I write this, I’m yet to attend a Semester 2 lec-

ture, so the jury’s still out—but I’m sure someone will

eventually catch my eye. And I’ll sit behind him, week

in and week out, and learn more about the back of his

head than the subject in question.

Moving quickly past the fact that that last sentence

makes me sound like a stalker, and hoping that no

consequent assumptions are made about my vacant

in-class expression, let’s delve into the reason behind

this little shift. A lengthy psychoanalytical discussion

with my housemate has led us both to the realisation

that—shock, horror—we’re growing up. And with the

passing of each decade comes a big dose of unwelcome

realism. No longer am I content to lose myself in day-

dreams in which I happily run a killer whale sanctuary

with my husband Jesse from Free Willy. This is be-

cause, ten years later, I have (however unwillingly) ac-

cepted that there is, in fact, no Jesse. His name is Jason

James Richter, and his most recent acting accomplish-

ment to date was a cameo in an episode of Sabrina the

Teenage Witch. Not so enticing anymore, is he?

Let’s look to Mr. Richter as a personification of my

childhood dreams: they were freaking awesome at the

time. Whale-freeing, harmonica-toting, denim-wearing

awesome. But as I grew older, my childhood dreams

grew, well, shittier. Depressingly enough, they often

do. But it’s okay. With every poor, unsuspecting boy

who is unlucky enough to be attractive to me, my tired

childhood dreams become replaced, brick by skinny-

leg-wearing brick, with shiny new twentysomething

dreams. And what dreamy dreams they are.

From the amorous dreams of Emma Marie Jones

me & my crushing realisation


45

What’s been happening?First week back we had Clubsfest, which turned out to be a fun filled three days. The Clubs Association did a great job with the event.

In late July, members of the Student Affairs committee held a meeting with some of the University bigwigs about get-ting some commitment on the recording of lectures, providing course materials online (as an alternative to expensive and en-vironmentally damaging reading bricks), and providing electronic submission of assessment pieces (instead of having to print it off and physically submit it). The good news is that all of these are possible for the University to do. The bad news is that they won’t agree to mandate anything – yet. We’re going to be having some follow up meetings and make formal submissions to some of the University’s committees to at least get the debate rolling. It is bizarre and archaic for the

University to not be using the technology that it has on hand to actually provide flexibility to students.

Things coming upAs always, you can check out the AUU events calendar at auu.org.au On this calendar you can check out all of the things hap-pening on campus.

The Student Representa-tive Council is having a student meeting on August 12, on the Barr Smith Lawns. This hasn’t been attempted before, so come along and contribute ideas and opinions to the organisation that represents you to the University and to the community.

Student elections are also coming up the week beginning August 30. This is something of a soul crushing experience for anyone who is running or campaigning during the week – it’s kind of like getting dumped three hundred times. Per day. For five days. So please be

gentle. Also, please get involved – talk to candidates, see why they want to get involved. Ask questions.

And also vote. It matters.

The Federal Election gets up the DUFFWhile education policy hasn’t been getting much of an air-ing in the election campaign so far, there have been a couple of clangers.

The two most ridiculous policy announcements go to the Liberals – with Tony Abbott and Chris Pyne declaring that a Lib-eral government will reintroduce domestic up front fee places (‘DUFFs’) and will play politics with the lives of international students by targeting interna-tional students to cut immigra-tion numbers.

If you are worried about queue jumpers, then you need not bother whipping out your binoculars and head for the West Australian coast line look-

State of the Union.Words, Fletcher O'Leary: AUU President


46

ing for leaky boats. Just look at DUFFs – if you don’t get a high enough score to be eligible for a HECS place in the course you want to do at university, you can simply buy your way in.

When the Howard govern-ment introduced DUFFs, John Howard scoffed at claims that there would ever be such a thing as $100 000 degrees in Australia. By the end of the last government it was worse - you could buy your way into a de-gree in Medicine for $200 000 at some universities, if you were not able to get into a course by your own merits.

Full fee places can be seen as one of two things: either the Liberals announcing that they will shirk their responsibilities to adequately fund higher educa-tion, or ideological pork bar-relling for the wealthy elite of Australia.

The Liberals have also come out with a plan to cut migra-

tion numbers – focusing on international student visas and family reunions. University and business groups have already publicly called on Tony Abbott to scrap this plan. It’s ridicu-lous and wrong. International students essentially prop up our higher education system – Universities Australia says that international students are worth $18 billion a year. International students also provide diversity and a culturally rich environ-ment for the whole of Australia.

In my four years at University I have had the pleasure of know-ing many international students. From Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, international students bring a breadth of per-sonal and cultural experiences to be shared. I know international students from the ancient capital of the Qin Dynasty, Xi’an – home of the terracotta warriors. I know international students from Kenya and Germany, united by a passion for football.

I know students who have come here, fleeing compulsory military service in their home countries, who look forward to a better life in Australia. These are but a few examples.

Each international student has a story to tell, and each international student contributes to our society. It is offensive and malignant to attack interna-tional students, or to create any policy in regards to international students, solely in terms of mi-gration and population.


47

My sister is halfway through a Gap place-ment at Christ’s Hospital School in East Sussex. As a result of this, my parent’s need to see her, and due to the potential for cries of favouritism had I not been brought along, I was lucky enough to visit the UK, Istanbul and Paris during the holidays that have just slipped too quickly by.

While it would be easy to wax lyrical about the amazing beauty of the cities, their quirks and eccentricities, and the general superiority of all things European over little old Adelaide, one of the most enlightening experiences of the trip oc-curred in a plane, somewhere over Germany.

On the London/Istanbul leg of the journey I was faced with something that is now permanent-ly stained into my memory. Flying EasyJet — an airline that eschews the apparently arduous task

Travelling with Rory Kennett-Lister

of seat allocation in favour of an all out stampede upon opening of the gates — I somehow found myself near in the third row of the plane, the closest I have ever come to First Class. While I tried to ignore the inability of the seat to recline, and imagine my self as part of the jetsetting elite, I was rudely blasted back from my reverie by the absolutely monumental, cheek-flapping fart of the man sitting in front of me. As my emotions ran from terror to uncontrollable hilarity I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt — perhaps it was just a fleeting lapse. But then I observed his position; with his back craned forward off the backrest to get the best angle for the expulsion of gas, rear end slightly lifted from the seat, this was no momentary loss of bodily control.

While I sat in shock, I comforted myself with the realisation that thankfully, it seemed to have been all bang and no tang. Unfortunately for me, and the other 400-odd passengers travelling in the hurtling gas canister, the gallant gasman decided it was time for round two and dutifully fired another one off. At the risk of descending further into vulgarity, this one certainly did more damage to the ozone.

The whole episode forced me to re-evaluate a number of things, not least of which being ac-ceptable decorum on transnational flights. While I (and I assume others) become more uptight, squeeze my cheeks together and pray for silent release, the bald-headed trailblazer evidently took a more ‘relaxed’ approach to the passing of wind in public.

And arguably, there are numerous benefits to such an approach. Firstly, it avoids the disapprov-ing growl of a stomach forced to deal with an aborted fart retreating back up the small intestine when fear of shame overrides the functions of the body. Secondly, there’s something to be said for the confidence to completely disregard the opin-ions of those outside one’s field of vision. But I think I’ll wait for evidence of broader acceptance before giving it a go myself. An hour later the plane touched down and I alighted, enlightened, frightened and gasping for air, having survived my first ‘travel experience’ of the trip.

don’t eat beef jerky when

you’re flying to turkey


48

the FunnieS:it ’s hard out here for a fish

i think i’ve stretched the adage ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ to its breaking

point. The badlands of the on dit office are a veritable graveyard for the tiny, gilled numpties. Three have now passed through the semi-circle of death (it’s like the circle of life, but involves only death) under my stewardship. And yet there’s no one reason for my Harold Shipman-like frenzy. i don’t hate fish, powerful as the offending evidence may be. i like them, and am amused by their fateful sojourns around the hilariously oversized brandy glass they call(ed) home.

The first one had no name. #1 lived out its final, painful days under the repressive yoke of Vonnegut, the bigger, faster fish. Vonnegut ate all of #1’s food, which promptly died. it provoked something of an internal conflict in me – just how sad do you feel about the

passing of possibly the world’s dumbest pet? A little sad, it turns out. i didn’t want to think about the pain of star-vation, slowly dying without understanding why the hand of God didn’t drop food from the sky like so much tied aid.

i did what any self-denying person does when faced with loss – got another one. The sleek, stately Kafka took #1’s place, and for a while, things were good. i imagined Kafka and Vonnegut swimming around in a sort of permanent ennui – endlessly figuring how the articulate the misery of the fish condition. Then Vonnegut died. Both of the Vonneguts dear to me are dead now. Perhaps the death of the gilled version provoked more surprise, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, i knew when it died, and secondly, unlike the author, it appeared per-fectly healthy right up until its death. When i saw it bobbing

belly-up on the water’s sur-face, i immediately though ‘insurance scam!’.

Kafka’s death prompted this article. Three lessons, none particularly well learnt, have led me to take a sabbati-cal from keeping fish. What little blood they have is on my hands. Kafka’s death per-haps frustrated me most – it seemed to taunt me, meekly and silently. it wanted me to burn it and its details, but i did what any friend would do. i flushed it down the toilet. Perhaps it is a mistake to ascribe to the fish the literary characteristics of their name-sakes.

They shall grow not old , as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them , nor the years condemn .At the going down of the sun and in the morning,We will remember them .

- Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo


49

NOW OPEN IN THE GEORGE

MURRAY BUILDING, JUST OFF

THE BARR SMITH LAWNS

‘FIX’ IS YOUR NEW STUDY SPACE,

DESIGNED AND CONSTRUCTED BY

STUDENTS OVER THE HOLIDAYS!

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LOUNGE AREAS, INDIVIDUAL/ GROUP DESKS, WHITEBOARDS, EVENT

NOTICEBOARDS & ART INSTALLATIONS.

NOW OPEN!

On Dit Magazine: Volume 78, Issue 8

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