By Dylan Voyles and Madeleine Crabtree
On 5 August, ANUSA held their fifth Student Representative Council (SRC) meeting of 2026.
This meeting saw 15 motions pass, ranging from solidarity statements for students abroad to a push for the return of the union bar.
The meeting started, as usual, with reports from members of the ANUSA Executive, followed by Department and Committee Reports. In his report, ANUSA President Charley Ellwood highlighted the issues faced by students with the ANU’s new ‘Student Hubs’.
This issue was readdressed in Motion 5.10, moved by Education Officer Aurora Neumann, calling out the failures in ‘Student Hub’ centralisation. A pillar of the Renew ANU strategy, this process has involved replacing individual, college-based enquiries and support teams across the university with centralised ‘Hubs’ to increase administrative efficiency.
However, Motion 5.10 claims that “students have already reported receiving incorrect advice about their degree plans, contradictory information, and being redirected from office to office only to discover that the team they were sent to no longer exists”. The motion was passed unanimously.
Motion 5.11, also moved by Neumann, addressed improving assessment flexibility, specifically through automatic short extensions, with the ANU often requiring students to obtain evidence for circumstances which are often impossible to document.
This can be particularly damaging in the context of the cost-of-living crisis, as life can be incredibly hard for students who often need to work one or more jobs. The ANU stands out unfavourably among the other Group of Eight universities, which already provide automatic short extensions or low-barrier grace periods without requiring medical documentation.
With the motion being passed, ANUSA now calls on the ANU to “implement an automatic three-calendar-day short extension for all coursework assessments” without the need for medical documentation. It was reported in the meeting that this was trialled with success last semester.
Motions 5.1 and 5.2 were passed as a block without much debate. Motion 5.1 approved a $1,500 honoraria pool for Probity Officers overseeing the 2026 ANUSA General election.
Meanwhile, motion 5.2 endorsed the appointment of Richelle Hilton, ANU’s Chief Data, Planning, and Analytics Officer, as Returning Officer for the 2026 Annual General Election.
Motion 5.9 was moved by General Secretary Malakai King in response to the recently-changed happy hour timings at ANU’s on-campus pub, Badger and Co. The timing has shifted from 7 to 9pm every night to 4 to 6pm Friday to Wednesday, and 4 to 5pm and 8 to 9pm on Thursday. King stated that the new hours do not reflect the hours students choose to attend the pub, arguing that “people deserve to have a good social life at university”.
The motion was passed, though contention arose over the third part of the motion, that ANUSA “supports the establishment of a student union-owned and operated bar on campus”.
Ellwood reminded everyone to be “realistic about this,” and that it would be incredibly difficult and expensive to run a union bar. He was backed by Treasurer Eloisa Belmar Osborn, who stated that though she supported the fundamental principle of a union bar on campus, it would be an inappropriate use of the reserves at this time.
“It’s good to aspire to greater things,” King replied, reasserting that Motion 5.9 is primarily focused on acknowledging the change in happy hour at Badger rather than considering the feasibility of a union bar.
Motion 5.6 addressed what Welfare Officer Leila Clarke, as mover, described as a significant gap in legislative protection for more than half of ANU undergraduate students living under occupancy agreements. Unlike other ACT renters, students on occupancy agreements aren’t covered by standard tenancy protections.
This leaves on-campus residents with little power to exit contracts outside the year-long term, as well as unresolved maintenance issues and reliance on residential leaders to handle complex tenancy and welfare issues. The motion called on ANUSA to advocate for legislative reform, covering transparency and standardisation of agreements, stronger security of tenure, minimum housing standards, regulation of financial terms, and protection from labour exploitation.
Clarke argued that ANUSA should push for legislative reform to protect students from unsafe living conditions under ACT occupancy agreements. Clarke then extended the concern specifically to residential leaders, noting that residential halls are not held to the same standards as other landlords and that scholarship arrangements put student leaders in a dilemma and unsuitable position. Eventually the motion was passed with the reforms, potentially setting a precedent for universities across the country.
Motion 5.3, moved by Deputy Officer for the ANU Queer* Department, Juen Song Lee, addressed the treatment of LGBTQ+ students at Indonesian universities, with the preamble mentioning the drafting of an Indonesian bill which seeks to criminalise “same-sex activity, gender deviance, and LGBT ideology”, and President Prabowo’s October 2025 declaration of LGBT culture as a national security threat.
It also drew a direct line to the Australian government, pointing to the 2026 Australian-Indonesian Treaty on Common Security signed by Prime Minister Albanese and President Prabowo, committing both countries to broader military and economic cooperation in the name of regional stability. Lee argued this was not incidental and stated that Australia’s willingness to partner with a government that had declared LGBT culture a security threat is consistent with Australia’s broader strategic interests in the region.
A debate then sparked over item 5 within motion 5.3, which stated:
“The ANUSA SRC condemns the Australian government’s imperialist push in the Indo-Pacific, which has led it to support and train the very Indonesian military which is a major source of repression of Indonesian workers and students”.
ANUSA Welfare Officer Leila Clarke argued that Australia needed to maintain its international alliances and pushed to strike action item 5 and replace it with:
“ANUSA calls on the Australian Government to adopt a more proactive approach in recognising and responding to the Indonesian Government’s treatment of workers and students, including through the clear and unequivocal condemnation of human rights abuses.”
Resistance to the amendment rose, with Neumann arguing that it “sheds any responsibility from the government” and that the original wording was more explicit rather than vague. However, despite the resistance, the amendment and motion were passed, with the original mover, Juen Song Lee, maintaining it remained “a good motion” despite the amendment.
Motions 5.5 and 5.13 purposes were also similar, urging that ANUSA stands in solidarity with students across the world. The former sought ANUSA’s endorsement of the recent movement across India orchestrated by young people and students in light of the leak of the 2026 National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) exam paper.
Ellwood called for ANUSA to stand in solidarity with the University of Queensland Union (UQU). He stated that UQU has been the “latest victim” of Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU), introduced by the Howard Government in 2006, with University of Queensland management now threatening the union’s role in campus activism and advocacy. This was passed without debate.
On the topic of student advocacy, Motion 5.7 commended the ANUSA Women’s* Department’s recent “Time is Now” Protest, calling for the university to take harder action against all sexual harassment and sexual assault on campus. Motion 5.8 called for the endorsement of the National Day of Action “Students Say No to Hanson” protest. Both of these passed.
In addition, Motion 5.4 called for the endorsement of the Refugee Action Campaign’s (RAC) “Rock Against Racism Festival”, which advocates for multiculturalism and refugee rights in Australia. Again, this motion was passed without debate.
Motion 5.12 adopted a new investment policy to replace ANUSA’s existing Reserves and Investment policy, establishing a framework for how the association’s reserves are managed. It noted the policy is purposefully flexible in areas to preserve executive discretion, while also formalising governance around investment decisions, including a committee of trustees and staff responsible for oversight. The motion framed the policy as balancing profitability with ANUSA’s values, wanting to shift towards investments it can actively review and control. It was stated this would ensure student money is managed responsibly and in line with ANUSA’s objectives. ANUSA Treasurer Eloisa Osborn, moving the motion, noted ANUSA holds substantial reserves and said the new policy would ensure the funds are responsible while also preserving enough flexibility for ANUSA to profit. The motion ultimately passed without much debate.
The meeting ended with the passing of Motions 5.14 and 5.15. The former, which passed, stood against recent visa fee increases implemented by the Federal Government, with the Subclass 485 Temporary Graduate visa fee increased for the second time this year and the Subclass 500 Student visa fee raised by 25%. Motion 5.15, passed without debate, simply approved a list of clubs for affiliation with ANUSA, ranging from the International Law Society to the ANU Nuclear Society.
More to come.
Graphics by Ella Kwak
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