Glass invited all Guild election candidates to submit a statement explaining why they are running and why they deserve your vote. This is your chance to hear directly from those who want to represent you—so take a moment to get to know their priorities and visions for the future.
Voting opens on Monday, 21st October 2024. You can check out the rest of the candidate statements here.
My name’s Isabella, and I’m running with Left Action Free Palestine to be elected as CIESJ councillor and NUS delegate. We are running to elect pro-Palestine and left-wing activists to the QUT Guild and use its resources to fight for progressive causes.
I’m a member of Socialist Alternative, Students for Palestine, and I was last year’s Education Officer. I organised the Guild’s Special General Meeting for Palestine: over 600 students attended to call on QUT to cut all ties with weapons companies and Israel. This was the largest turnout for Palestine in all of QUT’s history!
Student unions have always stood up against injustice. In the past, they organised campaigns to end the Vietnam War and South African apartheid. Now it’s our turn: we need to keep up the fight for a free Palestine!
As the oppressed around the world continue to come under attack, our universities and the government are complicit. Australian universities do research for an apartheid state, and both the Liberal and Labor parties refuse to cut ties with Israel. It’s these same universities and governments supporting the slaughter in Gaza who are attacking our education and driving down students’ living standards – all for the sake of increasing profits.
Other groups running in the Guild elections are organised by students in the Liberal and Labor parties. Students in these pro-genocide parties want to make excuses for our government and university administration. But Left Action Free Palestine thinks the Guild should be a fighting, activist body that stands up for student rights and left-wing issues that students care about.
University students in Gaza and the West Bank have been systematically silenced, targeted, and bombed. There are no more universities left in Gaza. So, it’s up to students around the world to take up their fight.
