THaRUnkA
COntents
2.........Letters
4.........News
5.........Hot Air
6.........UNSW FantAsia: Why The Students Didn’t Love Us
8.........UNSW FantAsia: What the Hell Happened
9........Life is a (Really) Gay Caberet
10......Office Bearer Reports
13......4 Adjectives in Search of Opposition
14......Short Staffed
15......12 Week Semesters: We’re Still Angry
18......Scavenger Hunt List
20......Chraynium: The Dalai Lama vs Regular Llamas
22.......Poetic Justice in a Kangaroo Court
23.......If Politicians Were Horses
24.......The Growth of the Animal Rights Movement
25.......Voiceless: Speaking Out About Animal Rights Abuses
28........Moby Dick or The Whale
29........Pass the Skippy Jerky, Luv
30........Experimenting on Aminals
32........The Normanhurst Boys Chaser Appreciation Society: Join or Decline?
34........UNSW Wildlife: A Pictorial Essay
35........Media, News and Events: The Snake That Students Built
36.......Finding Emo
38........Teeth: A Review
39.......A Bear By Any Other Name
40.......Tharunka If Edited By...
Managing Editors
Sophie Braham
Tom Bowes
Assistant Editor
Tim Phang
Assistant LOLditor
James Ross-Edwards
Cover Photograph
Rachel Burke
Graphic Design
Korshi Dosoo
korshi_dosoo@yahoo.co.uk
Publications Officer
Jude Whitfield
02 9385 7766
Thanks to our Contributors
Julia Mansour
Symmie Swil
Stephen Lloyd
Thomas McMullan
Zsofy Korosy
Zsofi Korosy
Szofy Korosi
Tom Bowes
Richie Kenzie
Alex Fattal
Matt Kwan
Rose Grey
Sophie Braham
Rebecca Zaman
Nick Orlic
Jesse Young
Tim Phang
Dayna Thompson
Phuong Au
Claire Nemorin
Ania Lucewicz
Chris Moore
The Animal Kingdom
Tharunka is published periodically by the Arc @ UNSW. The views expressed herein are not necessarily the
views of Arc, the Representative Council or the Tharunka editing team.
Printed by:
MPD- Printing the news Everyday; Unit E1, 46-62 Maddox Street, Alexandria NSW 2015 2007
them. Now that The Guild and Source have merged
into Arc, and although we’re all doing things a
little differently now, the tradition of reporting our
activities, achievements and goals to the student
community should live on.
So publish my reports. That’s all I’m asking for.
Cheers,
Phuong Au
Vice President UNSW Representatives Council
Education Officer
Editor,
What are the essential differences between alligators,
crocodiles, snakes, sharks and spiders ?
Alligators are Centrelink Officers.
Crocodiles are Government Housing Commission
Officers.
Snakes are Job Network Providers.
Spiders are Taxation Department Officers.
Sharks are money lenders.
Once bitten, twice shy !!
Dear Tharunka,
I thank Tom Bowes for his critique [issue 4] of my
Scott Yates Hicks article [issue 2] .
Tom believes “the War on Terror is not really a war”.
He gives no reasons for this. Presumably the shooting,
bombardments, military manoeuvres and casualties
are not real either. Perhaps Tom should explain to the
soldiers that the people shooting at them are not real
and that the war they’re fighting every day is, likewise,
not for real.
Dear Editors,
Good work on Tharunka, it’s looking great and has
interesting articles and concepts, but where are my
office bearer reports?
I know my reports can be rather boring. Nonetheless,
it is an important part of my role as an Office Bearer
in the Arc Representative Council. Students need to
know who we are and what we’re doing.
I suppose there is a bit of history in this. Back in the
day, (well, just last year actually) when all students
became members of The Student Guild, Office
Bearers had to do reports to remain transparent
and accountable to the student body that elected
A war is “a state or period of armed hostility or active
military operations.” (dictionary.com) The US-led
coalition is, quite certifiably, in a state of armed
hostility with well-known terrorist organisations and
conducting active military operations against them.
Ergo, we are at war with these terrorist organisations.
It’s one thing to oppose a war, it’s quite another to
pretend it’s not taking place.
Tom contends that my argument violates the Hague
Convention. But how? He failed to show how any
article of the Convention prescribes that combatants
in war must be tried in order to be detained – which
is the crux of the matter. This (second) failure to
substantiate a bold assertion is not surprising since
no such article exists. The word ‘trial’ doesn’t even
rate a mention in the part dealing with prisoners
(Sec 1, Chp II) and is only used once in the entire
Convention, in Article 30, which applies to spies.
To repeat my WW2 example, millions of German
soldiers were held in POW camps without trial until
the cessation of hostilities. That was after the signing
of, and in accordance with, the Hague Convention.
Tom’s statement that “the US does not argue that this
is a war” is patently false. It was the Administration
that coined the term War on Terror and they still use
it.
How does Tom dispute the underlying logic of my
argument? He says “it’s a good question.” What a
clincher!
Unable to actually refute my argument, he calls it
“uncivilised”. I don’t believe that the Allies in WW2
were uncivilised because they did not try every
German soldier they captured.
Dear Tharunka
I just wanted to say how much I’ve enjoyed the
last few issues of Tharunka. As a recent new south
graduate its great to hear about what’s happening
on-campus and that despite all of the changes that
have come into effect recently (VSU and otherwise),
student life at UNSW is determined to survive.
I particularly enjoyed your Time & Space issue
although I was shocked to hear about the shortening
of the UNSW semester from 14 to 12 weeks. At a
time when tertiary education institutions are getting
less and less external support, it’s sad to see the push
for cutting course lengths and content coming from
within the university itself.
Finally, kudos to Tom Bowes and Rosemary Grey for
their entertaining article on gender embodiment in
UNSW architecture. I can’t say I’d ever thought of the
main walkway as a phallic symbol (that title seemed
generally reserved for the old Law tower) but as for
female representation on campus, who needs pink
ribbons and a giant vagina when you have the Naked
Lady Lawn?
To summarise: my argument has not been refuted,
the Hague Convention is irrelevant and the war is not
fake.
Keep up the great work guys,
My favourite part of Tom’s letter is where I get
captured by terrorists. If I were a combatant, I would
indeed be liable, upon capture, to be detained until
the cessation of hostilities. But if you recall Daniel
Pearl’s fate – who wasn’t a combatant – I am unlikely
to be as fortunate as Hicks.
Katie Christou
Liron Schimovitz
For contributions or complaints contact us at tharunka@arc.unsw.edu.au
NEWS
GetUp!
Gets
Creative!
...........................
The GetUp! movement has
saved some much need
cash by cleverly replacing
the “ICKS” on their
billboards with “ANEEF”.
A GetUp! Spokeswoman
commented “H- being
a symmetrical letteris actually both time
consuming and expensive
to produce. We’ve saved
a lot of money that we
can now use to fund
the upkeep of Malcolm
Fraser’s African Rug
collection and paying his
smh letter-writing salary.”
GetUp! Has also finally
found a use for the “THE
LIBERAL PARTY HAVE
SMALL D” billboards that
had been gathering dust in
their storeroom.
of the axing of Channel
9’s Big Budget and starstudded Drama: Sea
Patrol. “Thank Allah that
Australian Television is
so incredibly shit, and
Jamie Packer only cares
about casinos now”, said
Dang Khalib Suyanto, as
he excitedly prepares to
resume illegal duties. It is
expected that Lisa McCune
will be found cleaning up
oil spills in aisle 3 at Coles.
J K “Moneybags”
Rowling
Normal
People
Thank JK
People
Smugglers Rowling
for Great
Holding
Night Out
Out for
...........................
Nine to
The release of the Harry
Cut Sea
Potter and The Deathly
Hallows was met with
Patrol
enthusiasm by readers
...........................
Indonesian People
Smugglers and Columbian
Drug Traffickers are
holding tight for the
imminent announcement
and non readers alike.
Avid fans of the series
spent the night locked up
trying to get to the end
before somebody spoilt it.
Meanwhile, Sydney was
awash with well-adjusted
The Swearing Bear: Now a Scientologist
and attractive people
Darryl Somers has lost
who have never seen or
out on the hosting gig this
read any Harry Potter.
time, with convicted ice“It’s great” said one nonaddict and bunny mutilator
aficionado. “I just met
Brendan Francis McMahon
someone who told me they stepping in to the role.
love their life and really
believe in their work. We
The show will continue
had a great discussion
to mine the rich tradition
about the latest Jonathon
of momentarily reviving
Safran-Foer novel.”
the fame of those who
no longer have careers,
“It’s nice to talk to people
featuring the likes of
and feel your age” said
Humphrey B. Bear, The
another. “It’s really
Swearing Bear, Shirty
liberating to be able to
The Slightly Aggressive
discuss things like culture, Bear and Super Ted,
or food and drink, or sport along with a supporting
without someone dropping cast of grizzlies donated
hackneyed medievalby Taronga Zoo, who
sounding terms that I don’t are also sponsoring the
understand.”
show. “They’re fucking
rowdy fucking cunts” said
A third reveller confessed
The Swearing Bear, in a
that she really wanted to
helpful contribution to the
make the most of the night. marketing of the show.
“Can you imagine how bad
it’s going to be for the next In a slight format change,
the couple which viewers
month?”
have voted to eliminate
will be placed into a bear
pit. The human contestant
will then be given a steel
pipe which they can use
to pummel the bear to
death, while the bear is
only permitted to maul
the human with its natural
abilities. The survivor gets
a second chance at the
........................... prize. The organisation
Voiceless (p.25) is said to
Channel 7 yesterday
be concerned about the
announced a new spin-off of program.
the successful ‘Dancing With
The Stars’ series, to be titled
‘Dancing With The Bears’.
New Seven
Venture:
Dancing
with The
Bears
HOT
One of the key debates
of this election is
certainly going to be that of climate
change policy. At least that seemed
self evident about three months
ago. In the intervening time the
debate appears to have deflated.
aIR
However both parties declare that they
are waiting for government inquiries
(there are two; one from the federal government and
one being undertaken jointly between the states) to
be released before they announce any details. Almost
certainly, both of these inquiries will make their final
report after the election. In other words, the election
will happen with both major parties not having
released the proposed setup of their scheme.
In terms of what is released, the differences between
the two major parties are pretty slim. The Coalition
To an extent this is to do with the media getting
bored and the news cycle moving onto something else wants nuclear power in the mix of greenhouse (as I write this, the topic of choice is the government’s reducing technologies and Labor doesn’t. Labor wants
a 60% emission reduction by 2050 (a target so far
intervention in indigenous communities). However
on another level it is symptomatic of the fact that the into the future as to be totally meaningless), while the
debate has reached a point where there is very little to Coalition thinks that’s too much of a reduction. That
is essentially the difference of the two parties going
discuss anymore.
into the election in terms of the carbon trading setup.
Both Labor and the Coalition have committed
themselves to setting up a national carbon trading
regime after the election. This is the idea that
polluters are allocated tradable limits on greenhouse
emissions, which are then gradually reduced. Polluters
have a choice of either reducing their emissions or
buying excess credits from someone else. This should
cause a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to
happen in the most economical way.
However, the fact is that these schemes are very easy
to set up in a way that does very little in terms of
actual carbon reduction. One only needs to look at
the farce that is the European Trading Scheme to
see that. Thus it is important that we know of the
structure of the schemes we’ll be seeing. Details like
what the quota level is going to be, what industries
are to be included, the allocation method of credits
and the penalty for emitting over limit need to be
discussed.
In essence we are really voting blind. It is impossible
to really discuss carbon trading policies in the bright
light of an election campaign, as there are no policies
to discuss. As a consequence, I’m pessimistic about
the structure of whatever scheme we’ll end up getting
at the beginning of the next electoral cycle. Whoever
wins, I feel that we’ll end up with a purposely flawed
and hollow trading scheme that will suit the polluters
and do little to reduce greenhouse emissions.
Alex Fattal
UNSw FantASia
renowned and respected
institution like the
National University
of Singapore literally
15 minutes away.
This placed UNSW
Asia in a competitive
marketplace, and severely
disadvantaged by the
fact it would cost up to
four times as much to
study at UNSW Asia.
How they thought they
could attract students
away from Singapore’s
universities is something
I still can’t rationalise.
You may ask, but
what about UNSW’s
international reputation,
wouldn’t that count
for something in the lucrative Asian market? From
my personal experience, the answer would be no.
Amongst all my family and friends overseas, it was
not the university name that mattered. In fact, this
was the least of their concerns. It was in which
country you went to university that mattered.
Why Students Didn’t Love Us
Many reasons have been cited
for the collapse of UNSW Asia.
These include a flawed business model, high costs,
and a competitive marketplace in Singapore.
Examining the issue on the surface, the location
of the campus would be regarded as ideal. Being
located in Singapore, UNSW Asia could have been
seen as an Australian standard education (only
Australia knows how bad our own universities
are) in the convenience of an Asian nation.
Being of a Chinese/Indonesian heritage, and with
several family members in Australia studying from
overseas, I’m in a unique position to examine
another reason that may have contributed to UNSW
Asia’s collapse. This is in no way representative
of the mentality of all overseas students.
One major mistake on UNSW Asia’s behalf was
thinking it could attract students to Singapore solely
on the basis of its reputation, with an internationally
Human beings are naturally predisposed to be
proud of their achievements and give their children
the best opportunities available. A combination of
these two factors results in financially secure parents
sending their kids overseas for what they hope to be
a top quality education. Of course in Australia our
universities are good enough to go to without having
to go somewhere else, and we do get government
loans so our parents are not required to be filthy rich.
But if you come from Indonesia where to be frank
the higher education institutions are nothing
compared to a Western nation, where those of a
Chinese heritage are still discriminated against
when applying for university, and where only
the reasonably wealthy can afford to go anyway,
coming overseas is usually a popular option.
modern world, not a World Vision advertisement.
Until recently, a sure-fire way of gaining a permanent
residency in Australia was to complete a Bachelor
degree in accounting, since you got bonus points
as compared to doing sociology. It’s pretty damn
hard to gain a PR in Australia when you’ve spent
the last three or four years in Singapore.
One way to make yourself feel important at a dinner
party is by telling people that you have kids studying
overseas. Back in Jakarta we have a special word
‘gengsi’, which, loosely translated, means ‘as long
as I look rich, nothing
else matters’. No one
No one cares if you go to an I don’t know how they
cares if you go to an
Australian university in Singapore, devised the initial student
Australian university
number projections
you’re still in Singapore.
in Singapore, you’re
for UNSW Asia,
still in Singapore. Singapore is a great place;
but it’s obvious that they grossly overestimated.
don’t get me wrong, but not when you want to
I believe that one factor in their error was their
tell people you have kids in a Western nation.
misidentification of the mentality of the region.
“
Prospective students in Asia also have a lot of
choice when it comes to choosing a place to study.
If you can pay for it, and if your marks are of
a reasonable standard, you can study anywhere
you like. With all due respect, Singapore doesn’t
carry the prestige of a Western nation.
”
This is in no way some authoritative piece on
why Asians prefer other places to Singapore,
but I hope this sheds some light on the
cultural reasons as to why UNSW Asia failed
– not that it needed any more reasons.
Tim Phang
It’s not just universities in Australia cashing in on
the glut of overseas students. Private colleges are
doing great business, and the majority of them
are reputable institutions that give their students
the academic experience they paid for. There are
a few however, that run courses with Mickey
Mouse diplomas that become meaningless and
ultimately useless. This is something I have personal
experience with. Nobody asks about where your
kids go, and if they do, any name sounds good
because it’s in English. This sounds highly cynical
and quite saddening, but keeping up appearance
is what matters. Going to Singapore is good, but
Australia is nicer (and cheaper if you happen to do
one of those diplomas, excluding living expenses).
In Indonesia, there are two magic letters – ‘P’ and
‘R’. They stand for permanent residency. Gaining
permanent residency in Australia is an all-important
goal, because in reality, as rich as you may be back
there, living in Australia equals security and life in the
UNSw
FantASia
What the Hell Happened?
The name UNSW Asia is
a clue: this was to be no
mere UNSW Singapore.
The idea was to launch
the good ship UNSW,
packed with all its fun
degrees like Science and
International Studies and
Strategic Business Whatevs, on to the rising tide of
China celebrated the ten year
Asian education.
anniversary of its resumption of
This was the start of the problem, as many
control over Hong Kong amidst
commentators pointed out upon the announcement
much lauding of the ‘one country of the collapse. Professor Cham Tao Soon has
been heavily involved in the management of other
two systems’ model. At the same
Singaporean universities. He told the Straits Times
time UNSW signalled the failure
last month that ‘most universities watching the
of its ‘two countries one university’ bottom line would steer clear of lab-based courses.
model with the closure of UNSW Just one lab would cost well over $1 million, if not
Asia. The borrowing of the propagandist Chinese $2 million,’ he said. It’s a sad reality, but the model
slogan in discussion and promotion of the Singapore of leasing the 13th floor of an inner-city building,
venture says a lot about the level of cultural sensitivity putting pictures of the Opera House on your website
and churning students through low-cost business
involved in the whole process.
basics courses is a more effective one for off-shore
It was such a shock! Students at the Singapore campus campuses.
weren’t to know that it was their dollars and not
their performance in exams that really counted. Staff Here is Chancellor David Gonski, responding to
the Sun Herald’s coverage of the collapse. “UNSW
presumably were not aware of the gamble they were
Asia was seen as a visionary venture that would build
taking by signing on and moving to the city state.
Marketing, busy writing a new chapter into the uni’s on this university’s longstanding relationship with
Singapore and the Asian region. Contrary to the
official party history of multiculturalism,
editorial’s claim, there was no profit motive involved:
must be busily at work on the revision.
the business plan was based on the project being cash
Everyone involved in the ‘pioneer
neutral. No profits were intended to be returned, or
year’ seemed to really believe that
indeed could be returned, to the Sydney campus.”
they were pioneers of something,
even if they weren’t quite sure what What?
“There was no profit motive involved.” OK
the finished product would look like. OK we get what he means. But maybe a little bit
of profit would have been nice, if only as a buffer.
And that was just it. So much
Infectious educationist enthusiasm collided with
vision, so little realism. The
the realities of running a private enterprise in a
UNSW Asia vision was as
seductive as Keating’s Engagement competitive market.
Singapore was hardly the best fit either, as
with Asia – judging by the fact that
Tim’s articles points out. Sure all the money their
everyone involved in the Australian
Economic Development Board was pushing our way
education sector went along with
was a plus, but most economists would agree this was
it - and just as vulnerable to pesky
a gift horse in need of a dental inspection.
financial and political realities.
Singaporeans are known for their thrift; from
So what were we doing in Singapore? personal experience it is a point of national pride.
They are the last people going to be convinced to pay
four times more to do a degree at UNSW Asia when a
better one is being offered down the road at a national
university. MPs on the EDB are facing the heat in
parliament now over the decision.
What about China’s teeming hordes? No doubt
their views are best expressed by their government, as
discovered by the Sun Herald:
“Warning on Overseas Study from the Department
of Education: University of New South Wales Asia
in Singapore Has Closed.” The pamphlet warns of
“low education quality and standards” “unstable
operations” and criticised UNSW Asia for spreading
“boastful, false information” to attract enrolments.
“UNSW Asia had falsely marketed itself as among the
“top 50 universities in the world”.
Despite furious protestations from chancellery here,
the analysis of the Chinese Government is spot-on.
How could we justify charging Australian prices in
Singapore unless we were trading on our Australian
reputation? And with all due respect to the excellent
staff assembled at the institution, the UNSW Asia
campus lacked a few of the elements that contribute
to that reputation, like the 50 year history, a student
body selected from top percentile UAIs, and
buildings.
As they are so keen to emphasise, though, Chancellor
Gonski and Vice Chancellor Hilmer cannot be held
responsible for the actions of their predecessors in
those positions. It brings to mind that classic criticism
levelled at Student Unions – that they never achieve
anything because there is no continuity of leadership.
Tharunka, despite our policy of sniping about
absolutely everything, applauds the decision taken by
the boss to close UNSW Asia. We don’t want to see
any more of our money wasted. We hope, though,
that this event does not signal a new era of cynicism
and economic rationalism in the management of
universities. We like being at a uni that does silly
things on the basis of high ideals. Well, maybe not
this silly.
Life is a
(really)
gay)
CabaRet
When I heard that this edition of Tharunka was
to be edited by the Queer Collective it seemed
serendipitously apt. No longer did I need to persist
in writing a thinly-veiled plug for the show I was
involved in, pretending that it was about “the
importance of activism” or “fighting the man”, or
whatever it is that appeals to the regular Tharunka
audience. Then I found out that the queer one
is actually next edition. But at least this one has
offensive queer jokes on the back cover.
So I am working on a production of Cabaret, and we
all know that Cabaret is known as one of the gayest
shows in the history of gay shows. It goes Rocky
Horror: 1, Cabaret: 2, says my housemate knowingly.
And you know what? I don’t really know why.
OK, so there’s the sexually confused hero. There are
the scantily clad burlesque dancers. The Liza Minnelli
connection. But it’s not a ‘gay’ show; it’s a show for
people who like singing and dancing and romances
and Nazis. It’s a show you’re pretty much assured to
enjoy unless you’re one of those joyless cynics who
hates musical theatre. So if you’re not a joyless cynic,
come and see Cabaret. And if you are a joyless cynic,
you should come anyway, just so you have something
to bitch about on the way home.
Cabaret is a NUTS production. It runs 14 – 25
August 2007, Tuesday to Saturday, 8pm.
Fig Tree Theatre, UNSW, Gate 4 High St
Kensington.
Tom Bowes Tickets: $10 NUTS Members, $12 Students, $15
Adults.
Bookings at www.nuts.org.au
Jess Bellamy
President’s Report
This year, a federal election year, is one
of immense importance to students
across Australia. For the first time in
nearly ten years we have the chance to
change the government of this country,
a chance to throw out John Howard and
his successive string of education ministers
who have delivered destructive blow after
destructive blow to students and the higher
education sector. Over the eleven years of
the Howard government we have seen
consistent underinvestment in the higher
education sector. Commonwealth funding has
decreased from 60% of university income to
40%. Tertiary education funding as a proportion of
GDP has decreased from 0.9% to 0.6%. This makes
Australia the only nation in the OECD to have
gone backwards on education funding. In addition
to this, students are being forced to starve on Youth
Allowance, an income support payment for which
continues to remain below the poverty line and is
nearly impossible to qualify for. For these and so
many other reasons, it is essential that we use our
votes to stop the destruction being caused by the
Howard government from continuing any further.
This year every UNSW student needs to ensure
that they can have their voice heard in the federal
election. In changes designed to disenfranchise
young voters, electoral rolls now close on the day the
election is called (when the writs are issued). This
essentially means that if you aren’t on the electoral
roll in advance, your right to vote will be taken away.
Because the election could be called pretty much at
any time within the next few months you need to
make sure that you are enrolled to vote NOW! If you
have changed your address or have turned 17 you
need to enrol. Check out www.aec.gov.au/ for more
info or drop by the Representative Council in the
Blockhouse and we’ll help you out.
In this federal election make sure your voice will be
heard and whatever you do, don’t vote Liberal!
Vice-President’s Report
Education
Please let this report be my first OB
report! The holidays is a good time to
rest and reflect on the events of the last
semester and to think about ways we can
prepare ourselves for the onslaught of second semester
activities, assessments and exams. I hope you all had
a good holiday and I’m looking forward to another
semester of student activism and cramming for exams!
While you were away, myself and a few other willing
participants got up to these activities:
Canberra Action
On the 13th June, 2007, a small group of UNSW
students traveled to Canberra to participate in a National
Union of Students (NUS) action against the removal
of the cap on domestic full fee places. We were joined
by students from Sydney University, University of
Technology, Sydney and NUS office bearers. Senators and
Members of Parliament stopped by to support us, speak
a few words and rip up giant cheques made out to pay for
rip-off-rates university fees.
National Education Conference.
The National Education Conference (Ed Con) is held
every year at different universities around Australia, this
year it was held at Adelaide University from the 27th to
29th of June, 2007. A total of eight students from UNSW
went, including three UNSW Arc Rep Council office
bearers: Jesse Young, Ania Lucewicz and myself.
Just to give you an idea of what Ed Con is like, the theme
was ‘Make a Difference’ and here are just a few of the
sessions I attended:
• Plenary: The role of Higher Education in Society
with guest speakers Paul Kniest (Research and Policy
Officer, NTEU National Officer) and Graham
Hastings (NUS Research Officer)
• Plenary: Women in Politics with guest speakers
Penny Wong (South Australian Senator), Janet Giles
(Secretary of SA Unions) and Ruth Russell (Human
Shield/Democrat Senate Candidate).
• Plenary: Activism in the 21st Century with guest
speakers Naomi Vaughan (Amnesty International),
Tim House (Get Up) and Tammy Jo (The
Wilderness Society).
• Workshop: Women and Education Activism
• Workshop: The Commercialisation of Higher
Education: Crisis in the Humanities
• Workshop: Strategic Campaign Planning: The Mid
West Academy Method.
If you would like to know more about Ed Con, feel free to
contact me on p.au@arc.unsw.edu.au
Jesse Young
President Cheers,
10
Phuong Au
Education/Welfare – Vice President
Women’s Report
The big news of the moment is the up-coming
Women’s Week. It’s happening in week 4 of this
semester! We’re currently planning, preparing,
getting excited, and if you’d like to get on board,
I’d always suspected that
please come along to one of our meetings, or
Canberra existed in some kind
email me on the address below. We’re putting
of other-dimensional time-warp. Liberal
together a zine, planning a cake stall, great
Senator Bill Heffernan confirmed my
feminist debate, picnics, badge making and more!
suspicions last month when he opined that
Look out for us in week 4 for more feminist fun!
Deputy Opposition Leader Julia Gillard’s
(Also, we’re about to get our annual t-shirts in
“deliberately barren’’ state makes her unfit
for leadership. Apparently it’s incomprehensible to – so if you’re interested in feminist fashion, please
Heffernan that a woman is an autonomous subject come by the women’s room to pick one up for
who has no ‘given’ place other than those that she free.)
chooses for herself.
The big job of this year is creating a new
Women’s Department! It’s exciting and we’re
Women’s autonomous organising challenges
looking for as much input as possible. If you’re
the idea that women are ‘naturally’ meant to be
interested in the concept of women’s organising,
sexually objectified, heterosexual, nurturing,
liberation or status, come along to our meetings at
supporting, happily spoken/acted on behalf
get involved!
of, etc. UNSW’s Women’s Collective provides
facilities, support and inspiration for women on
Kensington’s Women’s Collective meets Tuesday
campus. We’ve got women’s rooms on Level 1
1-2pm in the Women’s Room, Lvl 1, Blockhouse.
of the Blockhouse at Kensington and above the
COFA women meet Wednesday 1-2pm in the
Tuck Shop at COFA which are a safe spaces for
Women’s Room, above the Tuckshop.
women to connect to other women, get help with
women’s issues such as sexual assault, abortion,
contraception, plus more. Get involved by coming
Ania Lucewicz
to our meetings (details below) or adding yourself
Women’s Officer
to our e-list by emailing women@arc.unsw.edu.au.
a.lucewicz@arc.unsw.edu.au
This year we’ve organised an amazing number of
activities to inspire UNSW women. Last semester,
women across campus wrote, designed, drew
and edited submissions for Women’s Tharunka,
learnt to change a tyres, batteries and maintain
cars at a women’s car maintenance workshop, had
the privilege of listening to the youngest women
ever elected to Afghanistan’s parliament speak
about freedom, feminism and war at UNIFEM’s
International Women’s Day Breakfast, debated
liberation in our new Women’s Literature Group,
held women’s social networking night, established
links with women at other universities through a
Cross Campus Women’s Network, and more.
11
The Education Conference Report
In June, UNSW delegates attended the
Education Conference (EdCon) at the University
of Adelaide, alongside other delegates from
various Australian universities. At EdCon,
delegates were given the opportunity to learn about
different social and political issues, network, share
ideas and opinions, ask the speakers questions, run
workshops, caucus and pass resolutions for policy!
Bringing so many students together ensured much
socialising, dancing, copious amounts of drinking
and a little romance…
EdCon – the romantic and realistic ideals of student
activism
This year’s EdCon theme was “make a difference”. The
stories and information shared during the plenaries,
workshops and seminars reinforced this theme. Education
activism was momentous in key years such as the 1989
introduction of a flat and relatively cheap HECS fee
(Labor), the 1997 introduction of differential HECS
(Coalition), the 1997 – reduction of HECS places and
cuts to higher education funding, and blatant cuts to
student income support (Coalition). After the first plenary
I wondered in awe: what is happening in education
activism?
The answer is LOTS! During one seminar, most of the
campus presidents of student organisations spoke about
how his or her team helped to keep student organisations
alive after VSU. Creative methods were employed to
attract student membership. Some student organisations
managed to reach their targets. Many were working
towards independence from corporate or university
interference in the long term. This was for good reason, as
many universities have reneged on funding agreements,
slashed funding and forced a couple of student
organisations to run on their reserves. Taking advantage of
the possible reduction of student representation post-VSU,
a few universities have also attempted to curtail or remove
student representation on and from Councils, committees
and other bodies.
However VSU is only one concern, the ideological
restructuring of higher education has grave implications
for current and future students. Campus presidents Zoe
Edwards and Angus McFarland presented a balanced
view of the Group of 8’s (which UNSW belongs to)
policy paper on higher education funding in the future.
Campus presidents Julie-Ann Campbell, Daniel Doran
and student representatives Meghan Bourke, Alex Mercer,
Claire Stimpson, Daniel Wighton let the rest of us in on
how to get active around the closure of humanities and
social sciences faculties. Yes humanities faculties are under
threat, and activists can attempt to make a difference!
Claire Nemorin
Hello Tharunka readers. My name is
Miles Portek and I’m the Arc’s Membership
Coordinator, which means I’m one of the
people helping to put together the Arc
membership package for 2008 and into the
future. I have a few things to say, and hopefully
you’ll have a lot more to say back to me.
1. The student organisation is nothing
without its students and student
participation. Everything that we offer,
from the weekly entertainment at the
Roundhouse, to the computer labs, via the
free music rooms and dance studio, is offered because
at sometime, a student said that it’d be a good idea to
have those services. The services that are offered are
limited by only two things, your ideas, and financial
and spatial restrictions. Note that a willingness
to do what students want is not a limiting factor.
Therefore, if you have ideas of things that you’d like
to see at university, let us know; the Arc is here for its
members.
2. This session there is a new volunteer program
called Delta Force. This is a group of people
dedicated to finding out your opinions on what we
offer now, and what they find out will help create
membership for next year and beyond. You’ll see
them out and about, they wear black shirts that say
Delta Force. If you see one of them, and they are
asking you questions, please answer them, as you’re
helping to shape the Arc’s future.
3. In Week 3, there’ll be an online survey about the
Arc and what we can do for you. Please fill this out,
as it will give you another opportunity to have your
say on the way that the student organisation will be
run.
4. Send us your ideas and feedback on anything.
Whenever I talk to people they have stories (both
good and bad) about uni life. If you let someone
know, then you can fix it for someone else, or
make sure a service is developed to better suit more
students. The email is always open:
deltaforce@arc.unsw.edu.au, so use it.
Thanks for your time, talk soon,
Miles
12
4
Adjectives
in seaRCh Of
OppositiOn
As I’m sure you are all aware Sydney
is hosting the annual APEC (AsiaPacific Economic Conference)
this September. This involves the
meeting of 21 world leaders and
their entourages. Furthermore in support
of this event is what is sure to be a massive police
presence to stop protesters getting in the way of the
dignitaries. All that is very good, but what is it for?
APEC was founded in 1989 as the ultimate example
of ‘open regionalism.’ Indeed it was the brainchild
of the Hawke/Keating government. Its key goal
was to push for free trade reforms of its members,
in an effort to stimulate the growth of free trade
globally. Indeed, in the 1994 meeting, all the APEC
countries agreed to the Bogor Declaration. This was
an agreement for the member nations to help push
along multilateral trade negotiations by reducing their
tariffs to zero (the developed countries by 2010, the
developing ones by 2020).
on security and terrorism. In this meeting we are
told the focus is going to be on global warming. I’m
not arguing that these aren’t important issues, but is
APEC really the best body to deal with them?
Frankly it’s not. The key problem of APEC is the
diversity of the members. Included are a number of
countries that just don’t get along (US and Russia,
China and Taiwan). Furthermore, there are countries
with radically divergent views and concerns (what
common issues bind Indonesia, Chile and Canada?).
Honestly it’s very difficult to see this group come to
any sort of consensus that isn’t meaningless. Getting
acceptance of watered down consensus positions on
important issues should be the sole reserve of the UN.
APEC does little but muddy the water.
What I think is the biggest indictment of APEC
is the manifesto of groups like Resistance which
are organising the protests at the APEC meeting.
Personally I can’t understand why you’d want to
protest at APEC as it has done nothing to protest
against. It appears Resistance agrees with me,
its website is full of anti-Bush and anti-Howard
rhetoric but has absolutely nothing to say about the
However, since then the multilateral trade
institution of APEC itself. This is interesting as the
negotiations to lower global tariffs have become
fundamental tenant of APEC is to promote free trade
a bit of a joke. The Doha round of the WTO
negotiations has been stalled for a number of years. As and Resistance is inherently protectionist. If you can’t
a consequence, countries are beginning to look away get your enemies to hate you, you know you’re in
trouble.
from global multilateral trading schemes to either
regional or bilateral systems. Thus bodies like ASEAN
Thus it is quite clear that APEC at great expense does
and NAFTA are becoming more important while
little to promote free trade or anything else. Quite
APEC is going to the wayside.
simply, do we really need it? Furthermore, why am I
only capable of writing in rhetorical questions?
The fact is that since Bogor APEC has done really
very little in promoting multilateral free trade. This
Alex Fattal
can be seen in the agendas of the last few meetings.
Since 2001 the APEC meetings have been focussed
13
shORt StAFFEd
One would think the idea of twelve-week semesters
to be most appealing. Why, it’s an extra month of
holidays across the year. This is further improved by
shortening the exam period. Brilliant! More time to do
other, non-academic, activities.
However, the foreseeable future is not quite as rosy. During future semesters, the
reality is that more work will be crammed into each week, exams will be closer
together and there will be less time to study for them. Alternatively, courses will
be redesigned so as to keep learning to a bare minimum, cutting out two weeks of
knowledge and skills. Either way, good education is the loser.
The University claims that shortened semesters will bring us in line with other
universities, never mind the fact that most actually have thirteen weeks. In any
case, this is hardly a reason at all. However, the University does claim benefits.
Well, one benefit, and that is the increased attractiveness of twelve-week semesters
for academics.
This in itself is not illogical. With less teaching time, academics can spend more
time doing what they really want to do – like write books. With more high quality
academics, one would also assume that this would have a flow-on effect to the
quality of teaching.
However, the University has missed the point. Academics are not only attracted to
universities by short semesters. Other factors come into play, such as reputation,
availability of resources, and, of course, remuneration. Perhaps if the library’s books
were not constantly disappearing in mysterious ways, more academics would come.
Perhaps if they were paid salaries closer to that of Professor Fred Hilmer, more of
them would come. It is simply a long shot to assume academics would be instantly
attracted by twelve-week semesters.
The only motivation for this move that is clear is the monetary kind. Shorter
semesters will mean that a full summer semester can be run. This means more
money for the University. Shorter semesters mean increased attractiveness to postgraduate students, many of whom study part-time. Again, more money, simply
because such courses are more expensive.
Fred Hilmer’s business experience will prove valuable to his employers. However,
his business mindset has already proved detrimental to students of UNSW (note
UNSW Asia). Universities are places of learning, and his role as the
Vice-Chancellor should be to promote it, not stifle it in the aim
of a bigger profit margin.
Matt Kwan
14
Tharunka enthusiasts will recall that in our Time and Space
issue we covered the decision to run twelve-week rather than
14-week semesters. We outlined the consequences of this
(mostly negative) and the reasons for this (mostly bullshit).
One positive consequence that we neglected to mention was
how the whole debate has seen the word ‘semester’ roar back
into popularity at the expense of ‘session’. In some senses this
is ironic: it’s hard to argue that twelve weeks is half of a year.
Nonetheless, it is a good illustration of that Chinese proverb:
from all loss, some gain.
One negative consequence that we were unable to cover in
the Time and Space issue due to time and space constraints
was the impact of twelve week semesters on student life.
This, too, is ironic. It is ironic because the Academic Board
that made the decision discussed the ‘Hot Topic’ of how to
improve the UNSW student experience at the same meeting.
Surveys of high school students reveal that while UNSW is
seen as on par with Sydney University academically, many
prefer Sydney because it has a ‘better campus experience’
defined as the experience ‘outside the lecture theatre and
tutorial room’. (It is unclear which University is perceived as
having a better experience in the exam halls). These students
are probably racist; but no matter: we want them.
Twelve-Week
SemesteRS:
We’Re StiLl AngRy
Without wanting to detract from the SuperMario-themed
landscape gardens around the new Chemical Sciences
buildings, it is fair to say that we won’t be able to compete
with Sydney University at the gardenia stakes. The logical
thing to do would be to bolster the substance of a UNSW
degree, emphasising the experience of being around the
best and brightest (who are not waspy twats), just like John
Niland did a decade ago. It felt like that when I arrived five
years ago.
If the university is serious, however, about improving the
liveliness of the student body and the perception of the
campus experience, it is setting itself a massive handicap. All
the messages emanating from Chancellery recently say that
undergraduate education does not matter. The twelve-week
semester, the removal of extra-curricular weeks from semester
Without any comment on the fact that the ‘Academic Board’ time, the unromantic decision to close UNSW Asia, the
is the wrong place to discuss ‘the student experience outside
gutting of the library, the destruction of the Arts faculty, the
the lecture theatre and tutorial room’ the Board heard
expansion of summer school and night school... with Hilmer
opinions to the effect that the location of the University, the at the helm, undoubtedly there’s more to come. ‘Lively
language barrier, the attitudes of indifferent staff towards
students’ and their parents care about this sort of stuff, and
students and the competence of individual teaching staff were it’s starting to paint a picture.
factors that affected the student experience.
The twelve-week semester is at the heart of the problem,
Tony Dooley is President of the said Academic Board, and
since it introduces a constant obstacle to any student extrawas also chair of the working party that recommended a
curricular activity. I asked Jesse Young, president of the
twelve-week semester. “I would like the campus to be more
representative council and co-chair of CASOC, how it would
lively, sure” he said. “There’s a perception that it’s a little
affect clubs. “Clubs will have less of student’s time, for sure,
bit out in the suburbs, we’re not endowed with City Road
and it’s going to be harder to organise big events and trips
like Sydney Uni. I would like to see the campus more used,
during semester.” He continued “the thing is, students won’t
because it’s a nice campus”. In response to the point that his have an opportunity to be involved in anything because their
twelve-week semester plan will see it massively less used, he
learning is so condensed. Even when they are on campus they
said “well, we do our best in all these ways. The 14-week
will be spending all their time in lectures and study.”
semesters haven’t made it lively to date, has it?”
We discussed the contrasting picture at Sydney University,
Campus culture and marketing is a theme that Tharunka
where Vice-Chancellor Gavin Brown has undertaken to
broached with Elizabeth Farrelly, commentator on
ensure that no club, society or representative organ will suffer
architecture and public space at the Sydney Morning Herald. from VSU, recognising that having a lively autonomous
“You had people saying that the campus, as we know it, is
student culture is a major marketing asset. “Unlike Sydney,
going to be replaced by the internet and other technologies
UNSW seems to be panda-ing to the government’s agenda
but instead, in the last five years at least, the importance of
of commodifying the university experience. There’s now
the campus has only increased. You can see this just in the
nothing you get here that you wouldn’t get at another
amount that Sydney University spends on gardenia. I know a university, plus extras” commented Young. Indeed. UNSW is
lot of people that want to go to Sydney just because it has the taking it lion down.
nicer campus.”
Let’s hope that Chancellery lives up to its promise that all
But we also discussed what all the money spent on campuses this cost-cutting is to ‘spend more money on students’ (Fred
beautification represents. “You have to worry it’s not just a
Hilmer quoted in the SMH August last year), and adequately
smokescreen” said Farrelly. Sydney Uni is trying to revive
supports the new Arc organization. Here’s hoping as well
symbolism about classical education that more and more is
that Arc is up to the challenge of reviving UNSW’s famously
just not in tune with their actual educational policies and
lively student body that, currently, is being squeezed from all
practices.
quarters.
Tom Bowes
15
Apathy Or
OppoRtunity?
A different perspective on why
we’re becoming less political
It has become a matter of faith amongst many
journalists and academics that the protracted decline
of student activism is attributable to the negative
effects of external forces, for example today’s harsh
expectations on students. In the sixties, the argument
goes, students were not expected to work, education
was free, and a degree held economic weight which
meant that students did not have to fear for their
futures in the workforce. These days, the devaluing
of the degree through massive growth in enrolments
means that students have to be more serious about
what they say and do, so as not to jeopardise their
future through bad marks, negative publicity or
government attention. Further, students are in
dire straits economically relative to their parents’
generation- lack of government generosity in student
welfare payments and a culture of students paying
their own way as increasing numbers of parents
are not able to bear the full burden of a lengthy
education, means that students trying to keep their
heads above water simply can’t find time for activism.
In actually observing my colleagues, I
feel obliged to paint a different picture. There is a
link between increasing student employment and
declining activism, granted. But for many students
it is not the directly causal ‘more work= less ability
to protest.’ The effect is more along the lines of a
fundamental integration into society that many
of today’s youth are experiencing. In our parents’
generation students created their communities and
movements on campuses and were able to theorise
and criticise footloose and fancy-free, not having to
worry about the real world where one must produce
to be able to consume. Upon entering the workforce
and settling down they were quickly (apart from a
minority) absorbed into the mainstream. What we are
seeing today is a bringing forward of this absorption.
16
Students are empowered by society and with respect
to society at an early age as they are encouraged
by their parents to enter the labour force. By the
time they reach uni they are already increasing their
leverage and progressing to more challenging and
well-paid jobs- as ‘team leaders’, office assistants
and paralegals. The confidence that this inspires in
young people cannot be overstated. We are given
a real sense of being able to make it in society for
ourselves. And with today’s incredibly tight labour
market and all firms expanding their graduate intake,
we feel ever more wanted. A small minority still sees
it as ‘corporations encroaching on our educational
space’, but firms are throwing money at our uni to
simply get their name out to students as a great place
to work (see that new building that defies the laws of
Cartesian1 geometry courtesy of Freehills). University
enrolments have expanded dramatically, but this has
been a boon rather than a bane to society as there are
ever more professional jobs, spurred by increasing
productivity due to increasing education.
Oh twaddle, I hear you say, you speak of a
charmed minority whilst most students languish. I
have two responses to this. The first is the interesting
evolution of voting patterns among our target
demographic.
“The traditional pattern whereby young people
tend to be more likely to support the Labor Party
than the Liberal Party has been reversed, and in
fact, there was a sizable margin in favour of the
Liberal party amongst the very youngest voters.”2
If students were really preoccupied with their survival
and keeping their head above water, they would
be turning to Labor which promises a reduction
in education costs and more generous support for
students. If, however, students were becoming more
confident of taking on the economy and coming out
on top, chasing down that top income tax bracket,
they would be voting for the party of tax-cuts and
individualism, would they not? We are seeing an
exception to the historical rule of students leaning to
the left, which is truly a momentous shift. My second
response is to urge you to look around at your class
mates. Do a straw poll- do many of them wish they
hadn’t stepped in to the labour force? That’s not what
I find. Then look to the other end of the spectrumthe activists. If things are getting worse, we should see
an increase in those who get really involved in protest,
who want to stand up for the rest of us who are
‘suffering’. Yet despite the Arc Rep Council offering
generous ‘incentives’ for UNSW societies to send
members to the National Day of Action (protesting
education funding, climate change and student rights
at work) including $400 cash for the society with the
most members attending (incidentally, money coming
out of the Student Union contribution you used to
have to pay), the grand total of activists representing
UNSW was… fourteen.3 Spread between the three
buses hired (also with your money) to take them to
the rally. I should have taken five members of my
society to get that cash! Is anyone suggesting that
the ‘masses of passionate activists’ all had to do the
Wednesday afternoon shift at Kensington Oportos or
be fired as per ‘draconian’ AWA?
A similar societal integration effect to the one
here hypothesised has been observed by an academic
and observer of French student activism“Students majoring in the social sciences… are
notorious for their involvement in and organisation
of student protest. Interestingly, political science
buildings have been moved in recent decades to city
centers, away from the heart of campus. In so doing,
students become more accustomed to everyday city
life and are more inclined to accept traditional society
as they themselves are integrated into the city.”4
We are becoming more conservative and less
radical as we have been encouraged into mainstream
society. We are finding our feet earlier, and are hence
firmly grounded in our world. By gaining a first-hand
appreciation of the real economy we are less likely
to be idealistic. Experiencing the real effort that goes
into earning that dollar, we are less likely to call for
expansion of government and taxation. Seeing how
hard our managers and bosses work, we are less likely
to vilify business-people.
A fair question induced by this argument is- is
it a good thing for us young people to be stepping
right over that previously traditional carefree period
of our lives, that bridge between childhood and
adulthood? Is it fair that we are reaching that stage
of responsibility at 20 when our parents could enjoy
their youth irresponsibly? Are we being robbed of
that romantic vision of youthful abandon? I don’t
know the answer. There is no question that we are
losing our childhood and innocence earlier. I, as
I’m sure many of you do, sometimes let my mind
wander to a simpler age of which our parents tell. The
political aspect ties in to the social- it was a different
way of life. Our parents do seem to have lived a less
materialistic and frenetic life during uni- to have
been more removed from the rat-race. It’s hard for
us to imagine today, and it can easily conjure up
nostalgia in today’s mind. But there are two sides to
this coin. In some ways I believe we are happier than
our parents’ generation. We have a confidence and
steadiness unimaginable to our parents at 20. We
know we want success and are not afraid to admit
it, they expended their energy opposing themselves
to the establishment. Whereas our parents tended to
fight the system, we let it work for us.
Nick Orlic
This may be a flagrant violation of the true meaning of the
term, but I’m sure you can find something more controversial
to complain to the editor about you silly Built Environment
student.
2
ABC News 2005 ‘Electoral survey finds young voters
switching sides’ viewed at <www.abc.net.au/news/
stories/2005/09/08/1455576.htm>
3
According to a semi-reliable inside source.
4
My emphasis. Britton, C.M. 2005 ‘An examination of
conditions present during historical and contemporary periods
of student activism in France’, Florida State University, viewed at
<http://dscholarship.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=112
8&context=undergrad>
1
17
ScavengeR Hunt List
1.Peter Debnam: 20 pts (bonus 2000pts if in a budgie 14.Ivan from Ivan’s Fernery: 20 pts
smuggler)
15.Finding out what and where the Photovoltaic
2.Highest bid on eBay for advertising space on your
information point is: 30 pts
body: 1000 pts (Must advertise client on Foundation
Day, all monies raised must go to the Cancer
16.Anthony Callea and boyfriend kissing on stage:
Council)
20pts
3.A lump of coal: 20 pts
17.Cats clock: 100 pts (max of one)
4.An official bid for Qantas: 100 pts
18.A city rail suburban network map from a train in
one piece: 50 pts
5.Victor Ma, President of the Macquarie University
Students’ Council. Currently being investigated for
rorting their student union: 200 pts
6.McDonalds bag of pancake mix: 100pts
19.The bell from the Quadrangle: 2000pts
20.Anything from Tool Shed with proof that you got
it from there: 80 pts
7.Any official item, such as stickers, letters or posters,
with a logo on it from one of these organisations:
a.UNSW Student Guild: 30pts
b.UNSW Source: 30pts
c.UNSW Union: 50pts
(maximum of five different items for each)
21.Dean from any faculty: 100pts per dean
8.Nikki Webster: 500 pts (minus 10 pts if she dirty
dances)
24.A text message from Shane Warne: 30pts
9.Copy of “Jonestown: The Power and The Myth of
Alan Jones” signed by Alan Jones: 50pts
10.Sport items: 10 pts each (bonus 50 pts if all worn
on stage at Foundation Day)
a.Flippers
b.Cricket leg pads
c.Hockey face mask
d.A box (worn on the outside)
e.American Football shoulder pads
f.Lacrosse stick
11.A John Howard election corflute: 20pts
12.A digital reconstruction of the Law
Building without the dent in it: 50 pts
13.A ‘Jesus Ain’t a Dirty Word’ shirt: 50pts
18
22.A Tesla Coil: 500 pts
23.A UNSW Institute of Administration folder:
60pts
25.A Google shirt: 30pts
26.An Optometry student: 60pts
27.A Pussy Cat Doll: 30pts, (400pts for the one that
can sing).
28.Any Tharunka edition before 2003: 60 pts (not
from the Tharunka Office )
29.Any Blitz edition before 2003: 60pts (not
from the Blitz Office)
30.A free Chlamydia test kit: 30 pts
31.A badge from each department of the
Arc Representative Council: 10pts each
(Women’s, Environment, Education/Welfare,
International Students, Queer)
32.A t shirt from any student
volunteer programs from 2007: 10
pts each
(Oweek, Outback Assist, Learn
the Lingo, Mosaic, Artsweek,
Hypesmiths, Contact)
33.Best replica of the Sydney Harbour
Bridge made out of coat hangers: 100 pts
f.WorkChoices
gAustralia’s net foreign debt of $521.161 billion (as
at December, 2006) despite the whole Australian
economic boom.
h.GST
i.The list can go on
(40 pts each, double for a copy of the response)
34.A Pokemon card of Charizard: 200 pts
42.Proof of a submission to the Senate Estimates
Committee: 40 pts (extra 500 pts for copy of
response)
35.An Enviro-Pad: 20 pts (Note: you must make a
donation to the Enviro Collective to take one)
43.A tape recording of Amanda Vanstone speaking
Chinese: 500 pts
36.50 grams of peppermint carob from the Food Coop: 20 pts (Note: you must pay for the carob)
44.An item from another university: 20 pts
37.A Med Revue poster: 20 pts
38.An International Student Survival Handbook,
2007: 20 pts
39.A Women’s Handbook 2007: 20pts (Note: only
women can enter the Women’s Room)
45.A piece of official federal government cutlery: 100
pts
46.Proof of yourself on Sunrise: 50 pts. Extra 250 pts
if you:
a.Wear a UNSW shirt
b.Get Tharunka in the shot
c.Talk to Kochie or Mel
40.Proof of sending a letter to any Liberal Party MP
berating them for:
a.Introducing VSU
b.Introducing Domestic Full Fee places at Universities
c.Proposing to remove the cap on Domestic Full
Fee places at Universities
d.Reducing funding to higher education
e.Your HECS debt
f.Introducing WorkChoices
g.Bill Heffernan (double if you are a woman)
h.Australia’s net foreign debt of $521.161
billion (as at December, 2006) despite the whole
Australian economic boom.
i.GST
j.The list can go on
(40 pts each, double for a copy of the response)
47.A bike: 20 pts
41.Proof of sending a letter to any Labour Party MP
asking them what they are doing about:
a.VSU
b.Domestic Full Fee places at Universities
c.Removing the cap on Domestic Full Fee places at
Universities
d.Reducing funding to higher education
e.Your HECS debt
55.A Cityrail ticket from Katoomba, Macquarie
Fields, Waterfall or Newcastle: 15 pts each
48.A ticket stub from a Red Hot Chili Peppers gig: 30
pts
49.A lock of ginger pubes: 80 pts (double if owner of
pubes gets on stage as well)
50.Someone graduating on Foundation Day: 100 pts
51.A woodwind instrument: 30 pts
52.Fred Hilmer: 200 pts
53.A G-string: 40 pts (clean preferably)
54.Last year’s Foundation Day t-shirt: 30 pts
56. A copy of the Arc’s 2007/08 Pocket Card - 30pts
19
CHRAYN!UM
DALAI LAMA
Don’t be a- llama-d, the
capybara is the king of the
rodents. Allow Dayna to explain
what this means and why it is
relevant to anything.
His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama really needs no
defence. He is a highly respected public figure with
valuable things to say about a range of spiritual and
non-spiritual issues. Chris Moore would be stupid
and culturally insensitive to say a bad word about
him. Nevertheless, in keeping with the animal
theme, it is fair to point out that the Dalai Lama
LOVES animals. Even animals that nobody’s really
heard of, like the capybara.
The capybara is the world’s largest living rodent. It
is native to parts of South America, as is the llama.
You’re more likely to see a llama mooching around,
being mistaken for an alpaca at the Easter Show
or trying to cash-in on the popularity of Napoleon
Dynamite, than doing something worthwhile. Let’s
face it, a llama is more boring than a boor. The
capybara, on the other hand, is filled with the fiery
passion of a thousand salsas and has scent glands of
steel.
Here’s why a capybara could tango a clumsy llama
out of Bolivia and into oblivion…
Religion and Food
The capybara, like the Dalai Lama, has considerable
religious significance. In Venezuela, during the
Catholic period of Lent, capybara meat is said to be
substitutable for fish. Thus, it is able to be eaten
without any of that pesky Catholic guilt. Funnily
enough, the taste of capybara meat is described
as pork-like. So it’s a guilt free fish alternative
that tastes like pork. What self-respecting Catholic
wouldn’t want to eat that?
20
By
CHRIS MOORE
and
Dayna Thompson
Water
The capybara is semi-aquatic. The llama is not
even quasi-aquatic. If a few droplets of water were
somehow sprayed onto a llama I can imagine that
it would a) turn into a total sissy and complain
about its fleece getting frizzy, b) congeal or c)
melt. I believe the quality of an animal has a direct
correlation to its ability to adapt to both wet and
dry situations. The capybara can mate and even
sleep in water, with its nose exposed to the air.
Few other mammals can do this, aside from Paris
Hilton who could more or less mate under any
circumstances even if her nose wasn’t exposed to
air.
Wife Swap
I once saw an episode of Channel Nine’s ‘Wife Swap’
which I have on good authority that Chris Moore
actually watched at MY HOUSE (mister speaker).
The episode in question involved a “city mom”
switching places with the mother of a family that
raised llamas. She referred to herself as a “llama
mama” which is a damning indictment of just how
lame she really was. In fact, the word “llama”
shares several consonants and vowels with the word
“lame”, including ‘L’, ‘M’ and ‘A’. Wife Swap has yet
to approach the topic of the capybara, though I am
quietly hopeful that it will soon be ushered into
public dialogue.
Clearly the capybara is a fine and upstanding
rodent. Even while on all fours. Llamas, on the
other hand, especially those who are bottle-fed and
overly coddled become prone to bouts of spitting,
kicking and neck-wrestling. Much like students of
North Shore private schools.
The bold and blatant refusal to refer specifically
to the Dalai Lama clearly demonstrates that he is
unspeakably better than some regular llama/lamea. All I had to do was deliver a rant about the
extraordinary capybara. And that’s the strongest
defence you could ever wish for.
Two authors desperately try to make passionate arguments
For and Against things nobody actually cares about.
In this edition...
REGULAR LLAMA
Although he likes them a lot,
Chris is not a llama-mama,
but an episode of Wife Swap
compelled him to use the term.
Artistic Output
The Dalai Lama is credited with writing 71 books.
That’s a lot, but I once heard that llamas could
paint with a brush wedged between their teeth.
These achievements balance out, except for the
awesome film ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’, which
was actually co-authored by a llama, and features
an emperor who is turned into a llama for dissing
llamas (that’s what you get, Dayna). Llamas also
produced the Monty Python film ‘The Holy Grail’
(see the opening credits if you don’t believe me).
Specifications
There’s really no way of making sure that a Dalai
Lama will be up to your high standards. The
selection criteria is terribly antiquated; the reborn
Dalai Lama is identified by finding the Tibetan child
who is most familiar with the possessions of the
previous Dalai Lama. Additionally, the Panchen
Lama, the dude who’s meant to find the next
Dalai Lama, has been kidnapped by the Chinese
government so that they can install a Beijingfriendly Dalai Lama when the current one dies.
However, by doing this they’ve opened themselves
up to competition. Here I make the case that
I’m the next Dalai Lama, by listing his current
possessions:
1. Robe
2. Spare robe
3. Party robe (sequined)
4. Glasses
5. Glasses-and-fake-nose disguise kit
6. Sandals
7. Thongs
8. Birkenstocks
9. Manolo Blahnik “Cheerful Monk” stilettosandals
Hence I have
proved that I am
the next Dalai Lama,
and also revealed that
he loves his shoes.
Actual llamas are
much more reliable, and must
conform to rigid specifications as
set out in the Breeding Standards document of the
Llama Association of Australiasia (Inc.) For example,
the male genetalia:
“A well-attached scrotum should carry two
equally sized testicles, approximately 3.5-7cm in
length, 2.3-3.5cm in width, and 3-4cm in depth
at maturity.”
Honestly, who knows how well the Dalai Lama’s
scrotum is attached. Only perhaps the Chinese
government, who have Tibet by the balls.
Warmth
The Dalai Lama may spread warmth and compassion
through his cheerful teachings, however, this can
never compete with the toasty insulation provided
by a llama-wool coat. Llamas are quite literally
covered in llama-wool, which is why they’re often
referred to as “llama-wool trees”. The Dalai Lama
is almost completely hairless, and though he’s fond
of yarns, you probably couldn’t knit them into
anything more than a condemnation of the Chinese
government’s oppression of Tibet.
Awards
The Dalai Lama has been given over 50 prestigious
medals, degrees, awards and doctorates, and also
something called the Order of the White Lotus from
the Republic of Kalmykia, which is probably just
some guy who gave him a flower.
This pales in comparison to the acclaim that has
been showered on llamas, including the Supreme
Champion Llama - Sash & Foxdale Farm Trophy,
the Champion Performance Llama - Sash & Tintero
Memorial Trophy, and the Champion Packing Llama
- Richard Horder Trophy. Llamas are probably the
most highly-awarded animals to ever exist, although
my cats are prize winning (I’ve got the sashes to
prove it).
21
Poetic Justice in a
KangaROO COuRt
I feel sorry for
animals. It’s not like
they don’t have enough
with which to contend:
kittens being set alight on
train stations, poachers in
Africa, monkeys begging
with organ grinders.
But then, to make the
torture proverbially
complete, they are
unwittingly implicated
in piece upon piece of
poor writing, lacklustre
conversation, and in the case of yours truly (a
demonstrably egregious offender), pun after horrifically
fowl pun in a vain attempt to derive cheep thrills when
cooped up in bed with chicken pox.
General laziness sees us humans unthinkingly parroting
off dog-tired clichés, without bothering to think of our
own descriptors. You may well get up on your high
horse now and argue with me stubbornly (like a mule,
perhaps?), that these animal phrases are very useful
communication devices: you don’t need to think to use
them, and the other person knows exactly what you
mean when they hear them.
I’m often intrigued at how pervasive these notions are
(though I apportion the lion’s share of the blame to
advertising). I mentioned I had a three second attention
span, and half my audience compared me to a goldfish
and the other half went a step further and felt obliged
to point out to me a castle, and, oh look, another
castle. Before you ask, yes, I do consider my sample
size of two to be sufficiently representative. No-one
remembers what the commercial was for, but they do
recall (ironic, non?) that goldfish have short memories.
How this particular tidbit of undoubted truth has been
ascertained, I do not know.
Similarly, I am curious (though not yet killed,
thankfully) as to how the elephant acquired his
But I implore you, think of the poor animals. It is no
reputation of never forgetting. It seems rather tenuous
poultry affair. Over generations, people have ascribed
to link the skill of being able to remember all of one’s
human qualities to animals, so as later to describe people pre-school playmates, friends’ birthdays and previously
with these traits with reference to these animals. Rather discarded poker-cards to animals whose singularly
wily, is it not? (Hands up, who thought of foxes?). What lauded feat is to bury their dead in the same place each
makes it even odder is that the attributes we respect in
time (which incidentally, humans do too).
animals are not ones we respect in people. We praise the
courage of the lion, the widely-noted king of beasts, yet What really gets my goat is that the litany of literary
disclaim as cowardly the biggest kid at school who uses
wrongs does not end there for our poor beleaguered
his size to bully others.
beasts. According to the press, the animal kingdom is
also culpable for the war in Iraq, and poor performing
While being labelled so haphazardly may not be an
financial markets. I’ll believe it when I see Yogi with his
issue for owls (wise as they are), it is nothing short of
mouse (!) hovering over the “sell” icon on the website of
libellous to domestic pets for us to label catty individuals his favourite online broker.
as bitches (though admittedly, it’s a testament to your
sweet, docile nature if you’re considered like a pussycat). So please, for the sake of the animals, for the sake of
the English language and for the sake of your audience,
Inherent contradictions like that really ruffle my feathers. please don’t just follow blithely like lemmings those
A “dog of a day” means it was awful, yet “every dog
indifferent wordsmiths before you. Set an example for
has its day” means one will experience a moment of
the leopards, change your spots, and use some new
limelight and success. Both idioms are to be contrasted
phrases.
with my dog’s day, consisting of 23 hours of sleeping
and 1 hour of general play/eating - which sounds quite
Symmie Swil
delightful really, but not particularly praiseworthy.
22
If POliticians
weRe hORseS…
With the spring racing season fast approaching,
Richie Kenzie thought it an appropriate time to look
at the form for the biggest race of all; the race for the
Lodge.
It should be an intriguing race with a start likely in
November, so let’s cast our eye over the field of likely
1. Howard’s Battler (J: J
Howard) (60) Dour old
stayer who produces his best
in the big races. Successful
in the last four Federal
Election cups (3200m) and
has a habit of winning from
difficult positions. Wily
jockey a big help too. Top
hope.
Odds: 5/2
keen to get into the money
here, but a place hope is
probably the best outcome
realistically.
Odds 30/1
5. Unrepresentative Swill
(J: P Keating) (56.5)
A past winner but not
really in this. Best racing is
several years behind him,
but should stick around the
2. Dollar Sweets (J: P
pack and make a nuisance
Costello) (59) Luckless
of himself. Outspoken
gelding who frequently
jockey has not endeared
finishes second but is always himself to the public either.
in the money. Looking to
Not here.
break his duck in the next
Odds 100/1
few starts and age is still on
his side, so don’t discount.
6. The Mad Monk
Include in trifectas.
(J: T Abbott) (56.5)
Odds 8/1
Middleweight slugger who
has made his name as a bit
3. Top Hat and Tails (J: M of a head kicker. Jockey
Turnbull) (58) Consistent certainly likes a scrap and
performer ear-marked for
has made no friends in the
future successes. Stable mate mounting yard with his
of Howard’s Battler and
tactics. Should figure in the
possible successor. Already
finish though.
has claimed a large amount Odds 7/1
of prize money. Watch
betting moves.
7.Beds are Burning (J:
Odds 9/2
P Garrett) (56) Loves it
on the big stage. A recent
4. Swanning Around (J:
addition to the caucus
W Swan) (57) Dependable stable, with many saying
if unremarkable stayer from that greener pastures were
the caucus stable. Would be being left behind. Won
plenty of sprinting events
coming into this staying
test. After the best of both
worlds.
Odds 10/1
8. Teachers Aid (J: J
Bishop) (55.5) Honest
mare looking to cement her
spot in the Liberal stable
with a good showing here.
Racing well of late without
setting the world on fire.
Learnt a bit from recent
outings so keep safe.
Odds 25/1
9. Werriwa Whirlwind (J:
M Latham) (55) Beaten
favourite in the 2004
Federal Election cup. Fell
from grace with the public
after that race and the
jockey was guilty of several
off-track misdemeanours
thereafter. Making up the
numbers here, but could
still cause some grief for
other runners.
Odds 120-1
10. Ruddy’s Rumba (J:
K Rudd) (54.5) Racing
in peak form and looks
the one to beat from the
caucus stable. A real crowd
favourite and the only
question is whether the
honeymoon will last. Has
been aimed at the 07 FE
cup for some time and has
youth on his side. Expect
the crowd to get vocal when
he makes his move. Will be
there at the finish.
Odds 3/1
11. Thorn in the Side (J: P
Georgio) Another runner
from the illustrious Liberal
stable. Has hamstrung his
more fancied stablemates
such as Howard’s Battler
with some well-timed runs
in the past. Unfancied in
this company though.
Odds 66-1
12. Lateline (J: M McKew)
An experienced mare in a
tough field. Has publicly
claimed that Howard’s
Battler is the one to beat
and will devote her energies
to the task. Consistent
performer over the years
and will give a good show of
herself.
Odds 9-1
23
The GROwth
of THE
animal RightS
MOvement
and cannot be compromised just because it would be
advantageous to another party to do so.
Animal rights are not an exact replication of human
rights. Animals would not have the whole gamut of
civil and political rights - it has not seriously been
suggested that donkeys should stand for government,
for example [insert token comment George W Bush].
But there is no moral justification, according to the
animal rights advocates, for denying animals more
basic rights such as the right to life or the right to
protection cruel or degrading treatment.
Animal rights is essentially an appropriation of
the concept of human rights. The central idea with
human rights is that all people have inherent rights
and dignities that are to be respected whatever the
cost.
The basis of those human rights has been continually
debated. The contemporary understanding is that
rights have nothing to do with intellectual proficiency
- even the most severely mentally incapacitated
person has rights – but that people have rights
because they are sentient and capable of suffering.
Another adjective is impugned with
every struggle for emancipation.
First middle-class, then white
middle-class male, and by the
time we got to white anglo-saxon
protestant it was necessary to
switch to acronyms. Will future
social justice reformers pronounce
‘human’ with similar contempt?
Animal law, which recognises the existence of animal
rights, has already been embraced by some of the
big-name law schools in the United States including
Harvard, Boalt Hall, Duke and Georgetown.
Animal law is about extending legal personality to
those beings charmingly described in the discourse
as “non-human animals”, which would necessitate
colossal changes with the way we treat animals. That
could be possible to sue on an animal’s behalf, and we
could no longer treat animals as property.
More abstractly, the recognition of animal rights
imposes a moral prohibition on any use of animals as
resources. No more eating their flesh, wearing their
pelts, using them for transport or relegating them to
supporting roles in B-grade movies. Arguments about
the utility of animals as resources do nothing to soften
this position. Rights, unlike interests, are inalienable,
24
Animal rights activists ague that animals are
indistinguishable from humans on that point, and are
therefore likewise imbued with rights. That argument
could either lend considerable logic to the animal
rights movement or makes the whole concept of right
seem ridiculous to start with, depending on where
you stand.
But although animal rights might initially sound
like nothing more than a reductio ad absurdum of
the idea of human rights, it has strong support of
philosophical and legal scholars, including Jeremy
Bentham, Peter Singer, Alan Dershowitz and
Laurence Tribe. Despite that, most cautious judges
would say these rights are destined to languish in the
realm of theory for a long time, simply because the
recognition of animal rights is so monumentally out
of sync with current practice.
Rose Grey
VOiceleSS: SPeaKing
UP aBOut the cRuel
tReatment of Animals
While Arts students salivate over the prospect of a new
rights discourse, the battle to improve the conditions of
farm animals is underway. Voiceless is an organisation set
up by the businessman Brian Sherman and his daughter
Ondine to promote the cause of animals through the
media, politics and above all the law. The focus of their
campaigning is the ‘Factory Farming’ industry, which
destroys the quality of life of farm animals for the sake
of economic efficiency. Rebecca Zaman and Tom Bowes
visited their headquarters in Paddington to chat with
Katrina Sharman, UNSW Graduate and corporate
counsel for the organisation.
What drew you towards animal rights?
My concern about the suffering of animals has been with
me my whole life. I grew up in the country, in Armidale,
and from a young age I had insights into things that
seemed to be discrepancies. Like when I was about 11,
I had a pet rabbit, and I remember one afternoon I was
going with a friend out to her farm, and her Mum kept
stopping by the side of the road to empty things into a
garbage bag. And I realised that they were traps, and the
garbage bag was full of dead rabbits. As a society, we kill
some rabbits and keep others as pets – discrimination
within the same species. And animals in different
environments – households, farms, research labs – have
drastically different sets of protections.
So animal protection legislation seems to focus more
on the motive or the purpose of the person harming
the animal rather than the harm itself?
Well, animals are classified in law as property; we own
them so their interests will almost always be subordinated
to our own.
Nowhere is that more starkly demonstrated
then when we can use them to eat or to clothe us or for
entertainment, but when they’re in our immediate family
there’s a different set of protections. Companion animals
are still ultimately subordinated, we still decide whether
they live or whether they die, whether they should be
sold – they’re still property at the end of the day but their
quality of life is different as they have a different set of
protections in law.
What are the focuses of Voiceless at the moment?
Our mission statement is to focus on compassion and
respect for animals, raise awareness about the conditions
in which they live and take action to protect them from
suffering. Our focus right now is on factory farming.
We do that through a whole range of initiatives. Firstly
there’s our legal arm which runs an on-line discussion
board, Voiceless Law Talk, for lawyers and law students to
toss around ideas and cases that concern animals. We’re
also involved in promoting law reform and in raising the
profile of animal law. Animal protection is a social justice
movement similar to the environmental movement,
the women’s movement, the children’s movement, the
abolitionist movement.
Do you have a clear end-goal in mind?
We’re not shy about the fact that we want to end factory
farming. It’s a tremendous issue, given the size of the
factory farming machine. We do believe that most people
in Australia and around the world are compassionate in
25
their hearts – they don’t really know the extent of animal
suffering in the world today. There’s this veil of secrecy.
People living in the cities and even in the country aren’t
connecting with these animals – and still think there are
Old Macdonald type farms out there, but unfortunately
life isn’t like that for the majority of farm animals
anymore.
Should the laws we have about animals be grounded
in our humanity or their animality?
Really, these are distinctly philosophical questions. People
always say “Oh, what do you want to do – give a dog
a vote, give a chimpanzee a driver’s license?” While we
do need to talk about animal’s rights, that abstract rights
talk is so far from the reality where we are. We’re living
in a situation where 59 billion farm animals around the
world are killed, half a billion used in farm production
in Australia every year – that’s 50,000 killed per hour – a
staggering number when you think about it.
The broader community just does not know how
these animals are living in factory farms – and there’s a
whole set of horrors involved in the factory farms for each
species. Female pregnant pigs, for example, are permitted
to be kept in sow crates, in which they can’t take a step
forward or step back for most of their reproductive lives,
and these are very beautiful and intelligent and sensitive
animals that share cognitive characteristics with dogs and
primates. They sing songs to their young.
It’s just some quirk of history that led us to think it’s
okay to put some animals in this situation where they are
confined and mutilated without pain relief – and then let
others sit by the heater with us while we watch television.
The law is the tool that allows this to happen, so the law
could just as easily provide the same protections for these
farm animals as it does for the other species.
It’s an interesting philosophical question – what
kind of rights can they have – but what they have to have
and what they should have had a long time ago is a basic
right not to suffer, and to be treated with dignity. This is
not happening in factory farms where animals are treated
as milk or meat or egg-making machines. Their sentience
is just not taken seriously.
You compare the animal rights movement to
abolitionism. Animals, like slaves, are living property.
Should there always be a difference in the legal status
of humans and animals?
26
To some degree it’s an academic question. There are so
many different views. If you start to wade into this area
of animal law you see there’s some people who believe
animals can be protected within the property realm and
are convinced that they can qualify as property but still get
proper protections; there’s an argument that says animals
will never be protected as long as they’re property because
at the end of the day their interests will be secondary
to humans; and there’s a third view which is emerging
which is proposing a guardianship of animals, somewhere
halfway between the two.
It’s particularly strong in America where people
are calling themselves guardians instead of owners.
I can’t really say which model offers the most
hope for animals at this stage. What I can say is that there
are many abuses that result from the legal classification of
animals as property and it’s these which have to end. The
law needs to be amended in a way that ensures that those
animals aren’t suffering. Animals need a set of protections
that ensures their fundamental and basic interests are not
being denied. That’s why we need more and more young
and expert legal minds to enter this realm of discussion
and search for the answers.
So you see your role as broadly about consciousnessraising?
We’re not a prescriptive organisation, so yes. We’re not
saying to people: this is how you have to behave. We’re
saying: these are the facts. Now you know more, you can
choose to act or you can choose not to act. But I think
you’ll find that most people, once this veil of secrecy is
lifted, are quite affected. Some will choose to abstain from
animal products altogether, and others will make what
seem to them to be more animal-friendly choices.
The reality is that the benefits for animals of
consciousness-raising are potentially enormous – and how
could they not be? There are so many animals suffering
and so many people don’t know about it.
Are you conscious of staying in step with public
opinion? Animal rights groups sometimes get
dismissed out-of-hand.
Well, we don’t get dismissed, because we’re lawyers! One
of the great strengths of the movement is that lawyers
are involved – we can argue well! But most importantly,
lawyers are associated with being conservative and rational,
we make the law and we abide by the law. And that’s an
important issue for Voiceless as well, because everything
we do is lawful – people respect that.
Is it difficult to maintain a moderate stance when other
animal rights groups are extremely radical? Is it hard to
maintain a coherent platform?
I don’t think there’s anything radical about promoting
respect and compassion for other sentient beings, which
goes to the heart of what animal protection groups are
doing. We support a range of non-profit groups with
different philosophical views through our annual grants
program. We give funding to those groups for specific
projects aimed at reducing the suffering of animals, on the
proviso that the projects are lawful.
The focus of our legal and education arms is
factory farming. There is a huge array of issues out there
and we’re just focussing on a particular one. Professor
Steven Wise, who taught the first animal rights law course
at Harvard Law School calls it ‘chipping away at the wall’
– we all chip away at a different part and in our own way.
You can’t do it all, but we believe we can help.
law courses – that’s thousands of law students who will
have engaged with these issues, who will be progressing
their careers with these ideas in their minds.
And, even if I thought it wasn’t going to happen
we’d have to do it anyway, because we owe it to them to
give it a shot, we have a moral obligation.
What about people who just roll their eyes thinking
And it is happening. The growth of free-range
it’s too hard and never going to change?
and organic products and the range of brands of ethically
produced animal products and animal product alternatives
In all of these social justice movements there are great
is exponential. In the European Union right now we’re
obstacles – whether they are economic, psychological,
seeing a ‘seismic shift’ in attitudes to animals. We can only
historical or religious. And it’s always a small group of
hope that Australia and America will follow, and it’s all
people who start these movements – who come upon
because of consumer perceptions of animals. Corporations
these ideas and injustices and start to talk about them.
are leading the way - consumers are knocking on the
But that’s just the nature of a movement, it will pick
doors of corporations asking for more ethical choices.
up momentum. I think Voiceless’s approach focusing
Agricultural interests are part of a huge machine
on respect and compassion and awareness-raising is
but
we
can
take them on. We have to take them on if we
something that most people can identify with. We’ve had
want to address the cause of the most animal suffering in
a tremendous amount of support – people approach us
the world today.
every day. Some have no idea about what’s happening
There’s an agricultural reverence in the Australian
– and it’s quite a shock if you’re someone who cares about community
– it’s not just a financial issue since we’re
animals to read about what’s happening to them, not just
not riding the sheep’s back anymore – it’s more of a
in factory farms but in many aspects of society today.
psychological issue. It’s the old idea of the Aussie farmer,
There’s just so much stuff that’s going on that
people don’t know about, and the majority of it is lawful. but that iconic farmer’s not there. He’s being pushed off
the land by agribusiness- by the factory farming machine.
That’s what I keep reiterating – law has a tremendous
Australia has a strong bond with agriculture,
role to play in uncovering some of these practices and in
but there’s plenty of scope to treat animals a significant
ensuring that the practices end– that they are no longer
sanctioned. We need to speak for animals -they don’t have amount better without abandoning agriculture.
Professor Steven Wise has pointed out that in the
a voice.
19th century there was a feeling that world trade would
collapse if slavery was abolished. It didn’t.
Is it fair to say that Voiceless concentrates more on
speaking for animals than on what they’re trying to
Tom Bowes & Rebecca Zaman
say?
Well, there are difficulties representing a client that can’t
communicate, obviously. But if you’re thinking about
battery caged hens, they’re not going to be saying, “Oh
leave us in here, where we get our beaks cut without pain
relief, where we’re never going to be able to stretch our
wings or see the sun or enjoy dust-bathing or perform
our natural behaviours” so I think some instructions are
obvious.
Isn’t it obvious that they’d say “Please don’t kill us” as
well?
Certainly- but before we get there we need to focus on the
quality of life for these animals, and I think it’s a matter
of common sense that if they could say “Get us out of
here!” they would. This is a matter of the heart as well as
the head, and you can look into your heart and realise that
these animals are sentient, they can feel things as well as
we do, it’s quite disconcerting that we’re all complicit in
this to a degree.
Do you worry that even as people become aware of
the suffering of factory-farmed animals they still won’t
be interested in changing it because of the saving
they make on their grocery bill, or their support for
agriculture?
Firstly, you have to absolutely believe it’s going to happen.
If we didn’t, we couldn’t do what we’re doing. I don’t think
it’s going to happen overnight, but these kinds of social
justice movements take time. Right now in the United
States there are more than 85 law schools offering animal
27
Moby Dick
or
The Whale
A “Magnum Opus”
As it does every year, the annual meeting of the International
Whaling Commission provoked a flurry of media interest in
Australia in 2007. All eyes were focussed on Anchorage, Alaska,
as Australia mounted its glorious yearly crusade to prevent
Japan from extending its whaling cull.
As per usual, it seemed that we could all agree that
whaling is a crime against humanity (or something). Year after
year, Australian heads shake in disgust as we claim the moral
high ground over the Japanese, shouting ‘Marine scientific
testing! What a load of carp!’ at our ABC news screens.
One thing is certain - the Japanese haven’t given us
anything this worthwhile to yell about since the bombing of
Darwin (or possibly the kidnapping of Harold Holt). But to
be honest, I feel that there’s a bit of a dark fleshy underbelly to
Australia’s strident anti-whaling position that never seems to be
properly reflected upon.
cows as the kings of the earth (the small exception being the
billion people that make up the world’s third largest religionbut as vegetarians they probably weren’t going to be the biggest
threat to animal rights.) If nothing else, what we should glean
from this is that other animals aren’t as savvy as whales in
choosing their constituents.
In the end, it must be admitted that there is not a lot of
substantive difference between whales and other creatures - and
that they are probably best viewed as some sort of miracle
combination of mammal and fish writ very, very large. And
with that image in mind, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be
curious to have a bite. I know I’m opening myself up to a
whole lot of enraged finger pointing here, but honestly, fellow
bone munchers - what’s wrong with that?
A secondary misconception must also be addressed - that we
choose to protect whales for their intrinsic natural value. In
short, this idea seems to be complete nonsense. As feel-good as
it is for Australia to have one national environmental platform
that actually aims to protect something, it must be noted that
there are far more self-interested reasons at play.
First of all, whale-watching is a form of tourism that
involves the entire Eastern seaboard. With this government,
you have to suspect that there’ll be an economic explanation;
and there it is.
Admittedly, Malcolm Turnbull must also enjoy
parading around our environmental credentials in far off places
like Anchorage by taking easy positions like ‘it’s mean to kill
whales with huge jagged spears’. But at home we blatantly
refuse to take the environment seriously by committing to any
concrete environmental targets to reduce greenhouse gases.
Australia’s sense of outraged opprobrium on the issue of whales While that comment might seem unrelated at first blush, I can
pretty much guarantee that there ain’t going to be no whales if
as a Japanese delicacy has never made sense to me. The idea
the ocean’s temperature notches up to around 40 degrees. In
that if you eat oysters and prawns you’re regarded as having a
sensitive culinary palette- but if you eat whales you’re some sort fact, I think someone should probably tell Turnbull that he as
of frothing sicko- seems to me to be more than a little limited good as killed a whale just by the emissions involved in him
flying to Anchorage. It’d be funny, even if it’s not true.
in its sense of perspective.
So then, I hear you ask– how do I think eating whales
Finally, I should note that many states support Japan’s whaling
relates to the ethical dilemmas associated with omnivorous
program, and can be expected to do so in the future. As our
behaviour generally?
minister noted in relation to the 2008 meeting, ‘the balance
Well, the first concession that I should make is
of votes between the pro-conservation and pro-whaling
that vegetarians are undoubtedly the most morally superior
blocs will once again be knife-edged’. Putting that incredibly
creatures in this debate (apart from, perhaps, the whales
themselves). Eating any animal involves an element of cruelty, inappropriate turn of phrase aside, we would do well to
remember that for better or worse it is ultimately important to
and anyone that properly considered the ethics of what they
respect the sovereignty of states to make their own decisions.
eat would conclude that flesh-guzzling is both selfish and
Somewhat irrationally, I propose that this principle of
unsustainable. But for those of us who perennially choose to
ignore these arguments in favour of a good bit of steak, I think international law should be regarded as totally inalienable, even
that it’s time to recognise the flaw in the idea that it’s somehow when the countries in question are all being bribed, and are
more inherently cruel to kill whales than to suck the blood of landlocked, and don’t sound like real states in any case.
factory farmed animals.
In a last ditch attempt to save personal face, perhaps I should
conclude by commenting that all of my remarks in this piece
From the parable of Jonah, to Moby Dick, to Free Willy,
should in no way be regarded as an incitement to kill beautiful
our society has continually taught us that whales are the
large creatures. Rather, I simply feel it is time to stop presenting
kings of the ocean. In fact, I would go so far as to say that
the issue as one in which crusading Australia is the regional
whales have taken centre stage in every single major work of
sheriff to the Japan’s whaling Yellow Peril. Before we criticise, I
western culture. Nevertheless, the astonishing ability of the
think it is high time that we take a good hard look at our own
whales’ public relations department to permeate our national
consciousness is not, on its own, a defensible reason to elevate personal motivations and hypocrisies - and then maybe we’ll
think twice about all our blubbering.
whales to the status of deities among the animal kingdom.
The sad fact is that the incredible resources of the
Julia Mansour
Whales Junket don’t seem to extend to other animalia. Popular
culture has never deified a sheep, and nobody has ever regarded
28
PaSS the
SKiPPy jeRKy,
lUV.
Al Gore told me that
eating beef was bad for
the environment. I’m not
really comfortable eating chicken any
more, what with the prevalence of
documentaries on battery farming, my
(more than) sneaking suspicion that
‘free range’ actually means ‘sardines in
a paddock,’ and the potential for diseases like avian
flu to become shiftier and deadlier the more they
circulate among stressed and compressed birds. As
appetites for meat increase, particularly in emerging
economies, it is becoming clear that global livestock
production is unsustainable and environmentally
catastrophic when the resources required to raise,
fatten and vaccinate animals and the associated land
clearing and pollution are taken into consideration.
As a product of a sensitive new-aged 90s primary
school education that taught me to rap about the
water table (and that’s no fable/ is rising up faster
than we are able/ to cope with it man / it’s bringing
up salt / halt, halt, halt the salt… aherm…), I know
that in this country, the introduction of clovenhoofed livestock has caused enormous damage. Steve
Irwin didn’t agree five years ago (and, ok, so he doesn’t
really have much chance to recant now), telling
the Good Weekend that our landscape has simply
learned to adapt. In the face of a suggestion that we
should consider eating native animals, Australia’s
conservation hero also reckoned that we shouldn’t do
it because you shouldn’t eat your national emblem,
full stop.
much fat. (It is. You should try it some time). Even
if these things were true, there would still be a need
to counter public opinion. Kangaroos have a special
place in our fuzzy communal imaginations, and the
prospect of eating them requires a large leap in the
way we consider them. So do whales, but strangely
enough the global depletion of tuna stocks garners far
less attention – after all, nobody really wants to hug a
tuna.
Initially, I thought that I could extrapolate from all
of this a theory of cuteness conservation, holding
that we tend to disproportionately value those
creatures whose aesthetic pleases us, much like the
way attractive people are often recognised to have an
easier road in life and end up happier (this isn’t just
prejudice talking. There have been actual scientific
studies). Somewhat inconveniently for my argument,
lambs are also pretty cute but their chops are no less
attractive to most people for that reason. I reckon
this is because we have learned to disassociate the
packaged supermarket meat from the puffy white
gambolling creature, in a way that we are unable to
do with our native fauna, or, when we give a collective
shudder at stereotypical Korean cuisine, our pets.
The answer obviously lies in changing the way we
A straw poll of about 4 people told me that even more perceive our native animals. Roozilla is shaping up to
prevalent than this cogent reasoning is the argument be a pretty awesome movie.
that kangaroos are cute, and therefore unsuitable for
Zsofi Korosy
food. Let’s assume for a moment that the farming of
native animals, which are pretty well adapted to our
1
The Australian Conservation Foundation raises a number of
very dry climes, makes more environmental sense
concerns about native animal farming procedures –
than the production of traditional meats (the jury is
see policy statement no 62.
1
still very much out on this one). Let’s assume also
that kangaroo is a very tasty meat that doesn’t contain
29
Experimenting
On Animals:
An Ambitious But Ultimately
Shit Article
You tell your (slightly painful) friend who is going on
exchange to the US for 6 months (and travelling around for
a bit afterwards) that you’ll miss them as it seems the polite
thing to say. You don’t miss her that much, obviously, because
you do get a weekly travel email regaling all the CRAYZ
TIMES!!!!1 being had, due to the CREAZY!!!!1 amounts
of alcohol being consumed (the keyboards over there are
CRAZX!!!!1111 so you excuse the typos). When your friend
returns you discover that she had an AMAZING time. It was
THE BEST. Helpfully, she is also now an expert of the many
and varied cultural differences between America and Australia.
You are casually reminded of this as your (pale and flabby)
friend waltzes around class in her American University’s
tracksuit pants (OR ‘SWEATS’ AS THEY WOULD SAY
OVER THERE!!!!), regaling you with stirring tales of the
amazing football match between the two long time rival
colleges. It was Blue vs. Brown. The Dogs v. Bears….
…You stop listening for a while and tune in momentarily
to hear her clanging on about Halloween or Spring Break
(and did you just hear the words ‘cell phone’ being uttered,
for crying out loud?!), so you return to reflecting on the farreaching school spirit that US learning institutions are able
to elicit. How does even the limpest of Australian interlopers
manage to absorb the fervour of an American football match
in a world where only about 15 people will turn up to
Foundation Day? Perhaps if you’d kept listening you’d have
arrived at a more sophisticated conclusion involving a dual
consideration of the jingoism of Americans and the influential
college sporting league, but instead you arrive at exactly where
you stopped. It must be the animal mascot. UNSW needs an
animal.
But UNSW of course, being “one of the leading teaching and
research universities in Australia – renowned for the quality
of its graduates and its commitment to new and creative
approaches to education and research”, is several steps ahead.
Here Kitty Kitty Kitty
Let us begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of this
land: The Feral Cat population. The trek up Basser Steps is
rivalled only by the Inca Trail in its lush wildlife and hilarious
gradient. Nestled in the bushes that take us from the Telstra
Stadium style culinary delights of the Colonnade, all the
way up to Badabagan, is an anaemic looking Tabby. Another
mongrel breed hisses from the bushes near Mechanical
Engineering, a war-cry for the construction workers on their
site of eternal scaffolding.
Pre-UNSW days, the land we now learn on was an extension
of Randwick Race Course where domestic cats roamed free.
About 5 years ago the Campus Cat Coalition was born and
30
they began to feed, de-sex and find homes for the feral cat
population. Imagine how the uni would have felt without the
dedicated toilings of this team? Our school spirit obliterated.
Another brick in the VSU wall.
The emblem dotted around the multiple campus-portholes
and stamped imposingly on exam booklets shows a lion
pawing its way through the four stars and Cross of St George.
Although the motto is trying its darndest to pump courage
and heraldry through my fibres, you can’t help thinking that
it is just another misplaced metaphor, miles from its natural
habitat.
When slumping idly in a tutorial as the discussion is propelled
every way but forward by a “When I was on exchange…”
strain of conversation; the clock on the classroom wall is your
only solace. Time seems to be standing still and you wonder if
the ominous looking black cat embossed in the centre of each
of these uniform timepieces has something to answer for. Are
the dark arts at play here? Your paranoia swells as your brain
registers the words scrawled menacingly on the back of every
single chair… CATS.
The explanation, however, is far, far more boring. CATS
stands for Centrally Allocated Teaching Space and they
manage the allocation of space, room bookings and operation
of over 200 University “non-specialist” rooms and theatres.
It would have been fun to do a blazing investigation into the
reasons behind the perpetual classroom chair shortage and
the culture of incompetence endemic to this organisation,
but they’re probably still smarting from changing over their
entire planning and timetabling system in late 1999 because it
wasn’t Y2K compatable. So instead you applaud their efforts
and meander over to a little nook within the Wallace Wurth
building called the Biological Resources Centre.
You draw a few stares for clapping while walking, but you’re
patience is rewarded when you find quite a stash of UNSW
mascots: The Domestic Short Haired Cat Colony for research
and teaching purposes!!
Although their website claims to comply with the University’s
Animal Ethics Committee and all sorts of important animal
research legislation, all half-hearted requests for information
were met with a mere “I have passed this on to Alison who
breeds and looks after our cats.” Perhaps if Alison had offered
a tantalisingly scandalous tidbit like “Ah but ‘research’ is just
a convenient linguistic guise for the severe abuse we force
our cats to endure. We skin them to make textured hats”
(imagined quote) then perhaps this article could have a more
substantial fate. And so begins a voyage of speculating wildly.
Hypothe-cat-ions
Animals are routinely deployed to symbolise something of
greater meaning. In Animal Farm, George Orwell used pigs,
dogs, donkeys and pigeons to symbolise the structure of a
nation under Soviet rule. Pink Floyd extended the metaphor
in their 1977 concept album Animals. While Impossibly Hip
Young British Artist Damian Hirst explores macabre and
death in through his grotesque and grotesquely expensive
works such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of
Someone Living - a tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde,
and A Thousand Years which featured maggots feeding
off the severed head of a cow and then being killed by an
electrocutor.
The Cat in Animal Farm was unethical, ignorant and
cowardly. It was thought to highlight (one of the many)
unsavoury aspects of Russian society at the time, such as the
Mafia. So we’re off to a bleak start in the search for a UNSW
identity.
Well it has. This was all a
precursor to the theatrical
canon of representational
displacement that now
occurs on Entourage and
on the shop Façade of
Mercifully, Sumiko Iida, lecturer in Talking Japanese Culture Baby Things on Anzac
steps up so I can deftly avoid looking to Schrodinger’s Cat for Parade. With Mandy
some answers. Because what can’t be explained by Quantum
Moore occupying a space
Mechanics can surely be explained by Hello Kitty. Sumiko
in both the fictional
told me about the phenomenon of Kawaii or “cute culture”
Hollywood of the
that swept through Japan in the late 70’s, and how social
show and in the actual
theorist Okonogi Keigo viewed this obsession with the kitsch Hollywood of real world,
cat as celebrating sweet, innocent, pure and simple at the
wouldn’t there be an
expense of responsibilities, social duties and adulthood.
Adrian-Grenier-shapedhole in the internal world
That Hello Kitty, with her perfectly symmetrical whiskers and of the show? And how
the bow on her ear, was never afforded a mouth also presents can a bulgy-eyed cartoon of
a feminist quandary that calls to mind the charming use of
an infant co-exist with realistic
the word ‘pussy’ in referring to the female genitalia. Often
rendering of a newborn baby in
used in conjunction with the word ‘some’, the term actually
the otherwise thoughtful branding of Baby Things? Are some
originates from the medieval French word ‘pucelle’ meaning
of their products for people with drawings of babies?
‘young virgin’.
Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori came up with a theory
The thing is, Japan is to Southeast Asia what the USSR was
called “the Uncanny Valley”, when he noticed that the more
to the West, so we’re really no closer to finding a unifying
humanlike his robots became, the more people related to
symbol for UNSW students. At least they may provide
them. But people became repelled and disgusted if the robot
smutty med revues with some material for hi.lar.i.ous sexual
became too realistic because then they start to focus of what
innuendo. Hello Clitty…. go on take it. It’s yours.
is lacking. So you can mix the real with the unreal, but only
up to a point. Perhaps any chance of a locating a coherent
UNSW symbolism will continue to evade us, as all the
different types of cats on campus are placed too far apart on
the scale of real-to-unreal.
For the ultimate authority on the significance of cats to
university life, we need look no further than the seminal mid90’s ABC kids puppetdramedy: The Ferals. Using the left over
scrap metal from Lotis the magical-advice-giving-genderlesslift in the creepy educational ABC show Lift-off, the ABC
Just as learned sage Richard Glover might, why not let
props department fashioned a backyard shed that housed
irritating puns have the last word and imagine a world where
four greasy feral creatures: Rattus P Rattus, Mixy, Derryn and a UNSW student seeks guidance from the teachings of the
Modigliana. (I believe the ALP obtained Lift-Off’s EC doll to cat…
make Kevin Rudd’s face).
Comforted by the knowledge that cats have nine lives, the
The show also comprised of uptight, neurotic landlord Joe
student takes some grand liberties with their current one,
and two university students who attempted to shield the ferals ravaging their mind and body with a generous intake of
from eviction, even though they were sometimes frustrated by substances. The student’s scholarly pursuits take a back seat
their zany tricks. And on a side-side-side-note, Joe was played and they cat-nap throughout their lectures, week after week.
Mig Ayesa, who continued his disdain for the untamed by
In order to pass the subject the student leans forward ever so
later contending to become a highly cultivated version of
slightly in the exam, peeking at the booklet on the desk in
Michael Hutchence in Rock Star: INXS.
front. The student is accused of being a copycat. (The student
mounts a passionate defence for the culture of plagiarism at
The Ferals involved a deeply sophisticated deconstruction of
UNSW- “look at our coat of arms! It’s just a blatant rip-off of
Coleridge’s ‘Suspension of Disbelief’, which asks audiences
USYD’s!”) This does not work.
to accept non-reality as reality for the duration of the art
experience. But this show assaulted us with an awkward
The student has begun to live dangerously close to the caution
philosophical dilemma: how real can the humans be when
that Curiosity killed the cat. The student no longer studies,
they exist alongside puppets? That’s all well and good, I guess or learns anything. The student doesn’t even research properly
I can handle that. Sesame Street had been doing it for ages,
for the article they chose to write. Instead, the student makes
anyway. But there’s no such thing a Snuffleupagus, and birds up quotes and gambles on the obsessive nostalgia of their
just aren’t that big. The Ferals took it a step further by using
generation by using childhood TV shows to distract. Look
puppets that represent real animals. What would happen if
over there! Teabag! Gumby...... The Raggy Dolls!
a real cat slinked past Modigliana? Surely the world would
Sophie Braham
implode?
A Charmingly
Spontaneous Diversion
Relying on Hackneyed
Proverbs to Feign A Conclusion.
31
The NORmanhurst Boys
ChaseR AppReciation Society:
Let me put
something to
you: the Chaser
team is the
new Presets.
They are an obviously incredible
group who are the best in their
field, but now just another
aspect of popular culture.
JOIN OR DECLINE?
They have outgrown their cult status to pervade
the national consciousness and this can be seen
by two major developments: their incredible TV
ratings up against arguably one of the hottest shows,
House, and the very public wooing by commercial
television stations. Their notoriety and reputation
is now starting to precede them, with those very
32
reliable current affairs shows Today Tonight and A
Current Affair spending airtime usually dedicated
to push-up bras and dodgy builders doing an
exposé on the Chaser team and their antics.
I remember when it was cool to like The Chaser. It
was way back in the depths of high school, where one
of my mates subscribed to the Chaser newspaper and
we always were sure to tune into The Election Chaser
or CNNNN, and our little group of friends would
laugh ourselves silly over their very clever satire. No
one else knew who these Sydney University graduates
were (them??), and we assumed ourselves to be on a
higher level of intelligence because of this awareness.
But I digress, as The Chaser team is now a massive
hit around the country. Their daring stunts, biting
satire and ability to expose elements of our society to
ridicule have endeared them to the Australian public.
Conversations that were once about Australian Idol
or Big Brother at the water cooler have now been
replaced by, ‘did you see the Chaser last night?’
But why did they pervade the public consciousness
in such a spectacular fashion, coming from the
backblocks of the ABC schedule? It all started with
Channel Nine’s attempt at signing the Chaser boys
to the network, and we all know this failed, and
looking at what they made Mick Molloy and friends
do at The Nation, all I can say is thank God.
Some may interpret this as ‘selling out’, as many
may accuse them of doing so. I don’t believe
that this is the case. The Presets didn’t sell out
either; they just got popular because they make
awesome and unique sounding music. If anything,
the Chaser boys’ quality of content (and most
certainly their editing and production) has
improved dramatically ever since they switched
from doing CNNNN to The War on Everything.
Instead, the War on Everything episode after an
ACA story singing their praises, included a stinging
piss-take of a ‘pilot’ asserting that their style would
be cramped by constant editorial interference and
the need to appease advertisers (no such problems at
Tharunka). They didn’t get away with their rebuttal
unchecked, as after an episode which featured the
Sophia Loren incident, as well as a party at a house
that was ‘open for inspection’, the Chaser team
were immediately denounced by Steve Price and
others as being irresponsible, going too far with
their pranks and not showing any proper respect.
Their success was inevitable, it just needed the
appropriate time slot to showcase their talent,
and the ABC took a risk and gave them the
chance this year. Even with the ugly shadow
of the ABC bias police hanging over them and
several Quadrant contributors on the board, they
have been fearless in their critique of the Howard
Government, always prepared to attempt to
humiliate politicians for their misguided comments.
The lack of respect, sometimes bordering on
disdain for authority, and what is deemed to be
acceptable and appropriate on television has only
added to their popularity. Examples of this include
the ten questions segment they tried on Sophia
Loren, which was strongly denounced in the media
afterwards, especially by the Liberal Party battalion
of radio shock jocks. Their actions in this instance
were also closely examined by Today Tonight and
A Current Affair. This leads me to my next point.
The fact that you are on one of those very reliable
current affairs programs indicates that you have
become part of the fabric of Australian society, the
sort of thing people want to hear about after a long
day at work. Whether this means the how loses its
tag of coolness is subjective. Popularity and notoriety
go hand in hand, and the Chaser team will be
returning in the new ratings with a real challenge
to maintain their integrity and spontaneity.
In the wake of this, Julian Morrow had to go
on national television and admit that some of
their stunts were set up, which was quite an
embarrassing revelation for a show that prided
itself on being fearless. Viewers will now approach
the stunts with a little more cynicism, trying
to detect if what’s going is spontaneous or not,
instead of the usual reaction of hilarity.
Nevertheless, the Chaser boys produce the best
television in Australia and their antics will always
attract the attention and delight they very much
crave. The challenge for them is to not let their
fame overtake their ability to upset, critique and
take the piss out of aspects of Australian society.
One fears that they will encounter the same
problems Sacha Baron Cohen did with Ali G
after he got too famous. But I hope for the sake of
Australia that the Chaser boys, like the girl from
the Presets track, forget all the friends and enemies
they’ve made along the way and dive headfirst into
doing what they do best – making us laugh.
Tim Phang
33
WILDlife at UNSW:
A PictORial Essay
Leon Wolff BA,
Faculty of Law
Dr. Kevin Fox PhD
School of Economics
Geoffrey Robert
(Geoff) Whale,
School of Computer
Science and
Engineering
34
Adrian Bull,
Faculty of Engineering
MEDIA, NEWS & EVENTS
The Snake that students built
Thirty eight design and engineering students have constructed an enormous
sculpture of a snake, nick-named Ed, on the UNSW campus to celebrate
multi-disciplinary design education.
Ed, an imposing construction of triangles made from of cardboard and wood,
twists 40 metres up the University’s Kensington Campus Mall, its five massive
arches and five-metre-tall head dwarfing passing students and staff.
Tharunka’s arts reviewers went along to disrespect multi-disciplinary design
education.
35
But what do you know
about these kids? I
thought so, absolutely
bugger all. Is there a
reason why they choose
to look the way they do?
If you ask me, skinny
jeans on guys never
looked more wrong.
What do they actually
want us to think of them?
As it happens, I actually
like music that my
Campus Bible Study
friends consider to
be emo. I took the
opportunity to speak to
a few punters that were
at the all-ages Underoath
gig at the Roundhouse
last semester. What
is the reason the kids
love Underoath?
Is it the message they project? Is it
the music? Or is it the image?
Finding EmO
What is ‘emo’? Ask your average
ignorant commerce student
what it is, and the response will
be somewhere along the lines of
‘screwed up multi-coloured hairstyle
with a massive fringe, too much
eye-liner, likes Fall Out Boy and
My Chemical Romance, frequently
slits own wrists while watching
Napoleon Dynamite…’ The list goes
on and on. Actually, your response wouldn’t be
too far off that description either would it?
Sophie dealt with the tragic suicides of Jodie Gater
and Stephanie Gestier in her article on MySpace
and Facebook in the last issue. The media at large,
excluding the broadsheets, were very fast to declare
those girls and their deaths representatives of the emo
culture. Not surprisingly, rock music was brought
back into the argument as a dangerous and subversive
cultural force, whereby impressionable teenagers
are heavily influenced by the music they listen to.
36
The underlying message that I extracted from
the night was that being an individual, especially
looking like an individual, was of utmost
importance to the punters. It was about not being
like the ‘sheep’, and choosing your own path. At
this point in time you may detect the irony in
this message. Even though those kids who hang
around the Town Hall steps may look different
to your average Law Student, how many others
have you seen trying to imitate their ‘style’?
It could even be argued that the emo style is now a
populist style, as opposed to being eye-catching and
easily distinguishable. In fact, I would go as far to say
that it is just a mere pastiche of different styles that
acts as signifier to stereotypes that may or may not be
true about the wearer. Superficial image is probably
the defining determinant in how others shape first
impressions about the people they encounter, so
why do people choose to align themselves with a
culture that has so much stigma attached to it?
Another comment I got on that night was that they
didn’t care what other people assumed about them
as an individual. As long as they were comfortable in
their own self-expression that was what was important
to them. This attitude is admirable, but their
resilience is expected since the populist view would
be denigrating their choice of style and music tastes.
Especially with respect to Underoath, their faith
in the one true God is something they promoted
without fear of polarising people. It must be said here
that since Underoath are an unashamedly Christian
band, the people present would not be especially
critical of organised religion. With that said, in my
personal experience, emos usually have very little to
do with organised religion. In the US there are lots of
hardcore bands, who consider themselves Christians,
but whether this is just a selling point or a genuine
conviction remains to be seen. In fact when I was
going around asking questions I was surprised at
the number of people sympathetic to Christianity.
Of course, people have been quick to mix in
‘goth’ and emo culture together because of their
similarities in style and music on a superficial level.
The comment about hardships would probably
support this point of view. You may even say that in
the quest to relate to the hardships discussed in the
music, some listeners would even harm themselves
to emulate the feeling. In other words, do all emos
wear wrist bands to cover up their slit marks?
How often do you judge another person based
on their music tastes? Radiohead and Arcade
Fire equals pretentious prick. Ben Lee and
Panic! At the Disco equals you need to die,
immediately. Thrice and Rise Against equals
emo. But they’re pretty damn good bands aren’t
they? Exactly. It’s all just part of belonging as
opposed to any questionable mental state.
One of the punters was a little more laconic in his
response, but he hit the nail on the head. ‘The music
just makes me feel strong and aggressive. Everyone
else just does the same thing. At the moment it’s
cool, but really it’s all about struggling to find a
place, looking to belong and finding an identity.
It’s fine for now, but it’s a feeling that won’t last.’
So, it’s not all about being stereotypically depressed
for the sake of it. It’s not all about the eye-liner
and hair colour. It’s just the fashion of 2007,
nothing more than that. Are you emo enough?
Tim Phang
Interestingly, the attraction of the music was, as
one punter put it, the ‘positive message of hope’
it expounded. Of course this isn’t true for the
majority of the genre, as Underoath could easily
be an isolated example. But the point here is
that because the music is written from the heart,
it evokes more thought about what the lyrics
are saying and in turn they can relate to it.
But despite all the self-justification from some
people, it wasn’t all about the music or the
message. The image seemed to be the underlying
attraction of looking emo. The older members of
the crowd put it bluntly, ‘these kids are probably
here for the wrong reasons, and they’re just on
the bandwagon and want to feel the part.’ Isn’t
this true for all fads? Despite the entire stigma
attached to being an emo, it’s the new cool.
37
Teeth
A review, by the guy who
was sitting in front and
to the right of me, who
clearly enjoyed the film a
whole lot more than I
(as he stayed to the
inevitable, applauded
end), as imagined by
Thomas McMullan.
Guy says:
Some reviewers take a while to get to the point;
some prevaricate (look it up) so much you have no
idea what the fuck the reviewer thinks until you get
to the star rating down the bottom, and you’re all:
“Oh, so it’s GOOD. Right, ok, thanks for all the
goddam prevarication.” Not me though, no way. I
fucking loved this movie. I was laughing my arse off
the whole way through. In two words, Teeth could
be reviewed as FUCKING HILARIOUS. In four
words: TEETH IS FUCKING HILARIOUS. Shit,
you don’t even have to make it to the bottom to find
out how many stars I give Teeth, I give Teeth FIVE
FUCKING STARS.
Teeth is the debut feature from the son of Pop-Art
pioneer/ utter genius (genius clearly runs in the
family) Roy Lichtenstein, Mitchell Lichtenstein,
and is a revelation. Not only is it FUCKING
HILARIOUS, but it’s also empowering (to women,
finally), and a savage indictment of Christian
fundamentalism (again, finally). I saw it during the
Sydney Film Festival (SFF (which was amazing as
always (I’m a big film buff))) which was refreshing,
because you could tell that everyone appreciated these
subtleties, not just by how much everyone laughed
(particularly during the gross-out rape scenes), but
also how everyone applauded at the end, which is so
rare for a SFF screening.
Act 1 is mainly concerned with satirising
fundamentalist Christians, particularly Christians
who believe in pre-marital abstinence, and it’s a
RIOT. The way (main character) Dawn interacts with
her uptight friends, the dialogue they say to each
other, subtly yet hilariously (and courageously) pokes
fun at what is an entirely antiquated lifestyle. Act
1 also introduces the secondary villain of the piece:
Dawn’s incest-desirous brother Brad. Brad is capital
B A D from the get go, from his convincing tattoos/
38
piercings and ethnic appearance (entirely dissimilar
to Dawn’s mop of blonde hair and pale complexion),
to the way he refers to his biological mother (“that
bitch” etc).
Act 2 introduces the main villain of the piece, the
monster in this monster film, and holy shit is IT
horrifying! You see Dawn has teeth… (holy-shit roll
please) IN HER VAGINA! RIGHT IN THERE!
This, her ‘Vagina Dentata’ (Latin for ‘vagina teeth’),
is what is so empowering (to women) about the film,
which even hardcore feminists would have to agree
with: Instead of Women BEING brutalised, it is the
very essence of woman-hood that is DOING the
brutalising. Like a Mere Male column, It puts the
shoe on the other foot.
Her vagina teeth ‘debut’ in a scene that cleverly infers
that self-imposed abstinence leads to rape, and is
hands down the funniest gross-out moment in the
history of cinema (not for the squeamish/ people
who can’t laugh at a severed penis)! Later on she
makes short work of an inconsiderate gynaecologist
(squirm!); a callous peer who made a bet to drug
then bed THE WRONG GIRL (double squirm!);
and eventually, when confronted by Brad, leaves him
HALF THE MAN he started the film as!
I was going to take off half a star for the lack of
explanation of her vagina teeth. Throughout the
entire film, nothing is said about why they’re there,
except for the camera continually panning to a
nuclear power plant - which is subtle, like most of the
film – but that’s not enough! I WANT CLOSURE!
Actually, you know what? I laughed my arse off
through that whole film, as did the rest of the
audience, and we ALL applauded at the end. You
know what applause at the end of a film means?
FIVE FUCKING STARS
A BeaR
By Any
0theR Name
“going out” footwear. It might rain later, so maybe I
could lend you some plastic bags to put over them,
but you probably wouldn’t want them because there’s
a misplaced apostrophe in the safety warning. Now,
unless you’re going to buy the koala bear, piss off and
go get the wine spritzer you’re so clearly desperate
to drink before you go home to- I’m going to guess
and say the Woolloomooloo Wharf, but not the
expensive part- and settle down to write a submission
to Column 8 asking “what are they thinking down at
the souvenir place that will never be published. The
guy who checks the emails will probably just mutter
“wanker” under his breath before he double-clicks
your night’s work out of existence!”
Byron laughed. He had to. If the laugh had sounded
like it should, it would have sounded like compressed Byron slumped back, exhausted, against a display
air rushing out of the valve of a BMX tyre, probably a cabinet full of postcards of women in 1995’s hottest
Mongoose. There was a lot of pressure inside Byron.
bikinis saying “G’day from Down Under”. The man
turned and stormed out of the store. Byron was
“Yeah, I know they’re not really bears, but they
disappointed because he realised this was probably
make ‘em in China, and obviously they don’t know
the only time in his life he’d abuse a customer, and
that there,” Byron said, trying not to scream at the
he still had five years of bilious frustration ready to
man in his fifties who was currently waving a small
rush out of him like the aforementioned compressed
stuffed toy koala in his face. The man was wearing a
air. Fortunately the man came back later to buy the
tweed sportscoat over a black t-shirt that had been
koala, and Byron abused him again, having spent the
aggressively tucked into his jeans. The jeans were
intervening two hours coming up with fresh material.
trying hard, but couldn’t quite cover the man’s bright
white joggers, which were the only part of his outfit
Stephen Lloyd
more striking than his prematurely silver hair.
“Well, I think it’s terrible that you guys misspell the
names of these things. I notice one of the erasers over
by the Crocodile Dundee hats was also wrong. Where
is “News South Wales”, I wonder?”
“I’m sorry you’re not happy, perhaps there’s
something...” Byron didn’t have time to finish, the
man slammed the, by now probably perplexed stuffed
marsupial (definitely not bear), down on the counter.
“If I wanted to throw money away on rubbish
souvenirs I’d buy match programs at football games.
All I wanted was a small gift for an international
visitor I’m receiving (“That sounds about right” Byron
thought, but didn’t say- those kind of comments are
best said around friends with gay joke clearance) and
I come in here and find koala BEARS. Look, it even
has “BEAR” embroidered on its little yellow surf
lifesaving outfit!” the man said unnecessarily loudly.
His shouting pushed Byron over the edge.
“Look mate, I don’t make the f---ing souvenirs, I just
sell them and try to explain to Chinese people that
there isn’t a bus from Circular Quay to Uluru, and get
patronised by people who forget that I also shop, and
am thus not a lesser person than they are. Patronised
by people who think that their position on the shop
floor relative to mine grants them the right to be
complete dickheads. If you wanted a Louis Vuitton
embossed leather koala, you should have gone to the
QVB. Perhaps ‘G’day Cobber Australian Souvenirs’
Surry Hills is not the place for you. Perhaps you
should get home and run the toothpaste over those
runners again mate, seeing as they’re clearly your
39
THaRUNKA
IF edited By...
Tharunka if edited by dating
expert Sam Brett
Romance and Research: Can
There be Love in the Lab?… 2
Sugar Daddies: Hooking up
with your Lecturer for that
All-Important HD. …......... 4
Start of Session Party: Is It Too
Soon? ..............................… 6
Are Jews or Asians Better
Kissers? …........................... 7
Chraynium: Campus Bible
Studies v. Sex ..................… 8
Does Size Matter? Is He More
Of A Library Lawn… Or A
Library Tower? ................… 9
Your Favourite Positions:
The Quad, Mechanical
Engineering or The
Scientia?............................. 10
Threesomes & Foursomes:
Can Group Assignments
Really Work? …................. 11
Exoticism & Orientalism:
What’s Your Biggest
Theoretical Turn-On? ….....13
Plagiarism & Academic
Integrity: Basing Your Entire
Journalistic Career On Sex
And The City. …............... 14
Tharunka if edited by Blitz
Hey Guys!............................ 2
Sport! It’s Great! ….............. 6
Fashion! Looks Cool! …...... 8
UNSW! Yay! …................. 10
Using Nazi Words in Everyday
Settings! ............................ 11
Parties @ The Round Are
Heaps Of Fun! ….............. 12
Environment: Wasting
Large Quantities Of Paper
Every Week On a Glorified
Calendar! .........................14
“Dear Reader”, Affectionate,
Or Patronising? .................16
Good Sentence Construction:
A Thing Of The Past? .........17
Apology For Being So Upbeat
When You Are Probably
a Depressed Overworked
Isolated Student That Needs
To Use The Counselling
Service Located On Level 2
Goodsell Building….......... 18
Tharunka if edited by North
Sydney Office Workers
Fitness First: Is it First in
Fitness?................................ 3
News: Additional train stops
between North Sydney and
Milsons Point….................. 4
Investigation: Could Terrorists
be planning an attack on
North Sydney?......................5
Roadtest: Wearing New
40
Balance Runners For The
Walk From Office To
Station…............................. 7
Chraynium: Local coffee
shops v Starbucks...........….8
Opinion: The City is Cold
and Windy…......................10
All You need to Know:
‘Pin Stripes’….................... 11
The Ethics of Scoring
High School Girls at The
Greenwood….................... 12
Tharunka For: Parramatta
Office Workers
To Tie or Not to Tie –
Taking the big step…........... 2
News: Roadworks Planned
On Church St Until 2037….3
Parramatta:
Australia’s 3rd Largest City....5
Chraynium: Leagues Clubs vs.
RSL Clubs ......................… 6
Exciting New Gourmet
Delights: Foccacias, Wedges
and Cappuccinos…............. 9
Parramatta: Australia’s 3rd
Largest City…................... 10
Reviews: Rock Eisteddfod
Hits The Riverside Theatre..11
NSW v Commonwealth
Public Service: Would you
rather be in Canberra?........ 12
Parramatta:
Australia’s 3rd Largest City..13
Tharunka if edited
by Kevin Rudd
Peter Garrett’s Head –
A Strength or Weakness?.......2
Why I Haven’t Talked About
Religion For Eight Months ..4
Chraynium: Mike Bailey vs
Maxine McKew.....................5
Is It Unfair To Call Me A
Starfucker? Yes, I Think It Is..7
Can A Person Called Kevin
Be Important?
Yes, I Say They Can.............10
Do I Agree With Jesse Young’s
OB Report On Page 10? Yes. I
Wrote It..............................12
Has Facebook Lost Its
Integrity Now That Kevin
Rudd Is On It?
I Don’t Believe It Has..........13
Is Facebook A Good
Way To Reconnect
Young People With Politics?
I Tend To Think It Is..........15
What Does Mark Latham
Mean To Us today? Well,
What Are We about?
We’re All About The Future
In The Labor Party..............17
Can I Win The Election?
I Wholeheartedly Doubt It.19
Reviews: Paul Keating’s
Spectacularly Appalling
Appearance on Lateline.......22
Reviews: Wild Swans and My
Fluency in Mandarin..........24
Tharunka edited by Andrew
Denton
Can You Paint Me A Word
Picture Of That?...................2
Clive James, You Give Life A
Very Good Name…..............3
Hey John Butler, Thank You
For Not Being Perfect.......…5
Can I have your past when
you’re finished with it? .....…6
A Vegemite fondue and a can
of Foster’s, matey. May that
day come soon. Bilal,
Maha, thank you both
very much.........................…8
It’s Easy To Talk, Great To
Sing, But I really Respect That
You Give Time. Bono, Thank
you. ................................….9
You Can Cringe All You Like,
But I Am Far More Successful
and Widely Respected Than
You Will Ever Be …............11
Tharunka Edited
by SMH Online
Rape: Young Girl …............ 2
Rape: Old Woman ...............5
Paris Hilton ….................... 6
Assault and Battery….......... 7
$500 Billion…..................... 9
Ice Epidemic….................. 12
The Chaser…......................14
Paul Keating…....................15
Gangs….............................16
Tharunka If Edited By Stand
Up Comedians
Men and Women Are
Different In So Many Funny
Ways…................................ 1
My Ethnic Family Is Eccentric
But Sweet…......................... 3
I Was Really Popular At
Uni...................................…5
No I don’t Really Think
That Rove Is That Funny, But
He’s A Decent Guy and I’d
Very Much Like To Be On
His Show…..........................6
Not Another Fucking Library
Lawn Debate….....................7
I’m Really Famous In The
UK, I Swear. ...................….8
Workshop: Appropriating
Lyrics From Ice Ice Baby To
Describe Your Frustration
At The Amount Of Time
Your Girlfriend Takes To Get
Ready...............................… 9
Ooh oh yes yes err.. Eyebrows!
and .. aaahh ahh .. woahh…
Jeannette!… and I hate
Muslims! (this one relies on
my brilliant John Howard
impersonation).................. 10
Tharunka if edited by Dave
Eggers
Instructions For Reading
Tharunka ............................ 2
90’s TV Shows and What
They Say About Me…......... 4
The Third World…...............5
Soccer and Breasts…8
Do I Really Think Other
People In My Generation
Are Talented?.....................10
Expired Yoghurt and
Antipodean Politics….........12
Still Riding The Wave: Yet
Another Additional Extra
Chapter Supplement to My
Book That Has Been Out For
Ages…............................... 14
You Know That Tactic You
Use In Conversation To
Make Yourself Seem Funny? I
Thought Of It First…........ 16
Really Interesting Thoughts
I Had About Myself While
Editing Tharunka…........... 18
Tharunka if edited by
UNSW Retail Employees
We Speak English
In This Country,
and Other Musings…...........3
Best Off-Campus Eateries….4
If You Only Have 1 $5 Note
Left As Change In The Till,
Should You Give It As Change
For a Ten?.............................6
Chraynium:
2Day vs. MIX 106.5….........7
Students at UNSW
Customers Or Friends?.........9
Yelling Out Abstractions To
No-one in Particular While
Toasting Sandwhiches...
Enigmatic or Vulgar? ......…11
VSU and Other Issues That
Don’t Concern Us In The
Slightest…......................... 13
Drugs and House Music, The
Many and Varied Joys of Not
Being A Student. …........... 15
Tharunka if edited by
The Chaser
MUCH FUNNIER.
Tharunka if edited by
Honi Soit
MUCH BETTER
Animal Cruelty:
Does UNSW pass the test?
Tharunka camped outside Gate 9 with rubber ducks to find out.
Subject 1:
Delegate at Conservation
Biology Conference
swerv
es!
✔
Subject 2:
Looks like
Vice-Chancellor
Fred Hilmer
!
!
e
g
a
n
r
a
c
✗
Subject 3:
Route 400 Bus Driver
splat!!!
✗
It is mating season on Oxford St and the male and
female Cofa Cat have formed a pair-bond. The
creatures guiltily slink away from their leafy suburban
rearing and the protective parent species, busily
foraging among their new habitat of the Gaslight Inn
and Spectrum. Nocturnal by nature, it is extremely
rare to capture the Cofa Cat on film during the day,
and rarer still to capture two who aren’t sniffing species
of the same gender. Their bizarre life-cycle of hunting
little pills of many different shapes and colours leads to
extraordinary creativity in using theory to explain their
lack of hard work and technical proficiency. Regarded
by the local tribes-people and interstate tourists having
their Sydney shopping experience as ‘MASSIVE
FAGS’, the Cofa Cats are particularly vulnerable to
taunting catcalls such as ‘my 5 year old could do that’.
Due to the presence of a nearby regiment of the
Australian Army who have instructions to shoot
upon sight, the Cofa Cats have recently qualified as
endangered. Owing to the extreme danger of going
within 1500m of the beast without a working ability
to namedrop the most obscure of music subcultures,
it is exremely rare that they are captured on film.
Thanks to the inflated confidence of 1st year
photography students, these two Cofa Cats have
been photographed for posterity. The picture is
remarkable for its clarity - uncharacteristic among
Cofa photographers. It is hoped this picture will
promote greater awareness of this endangered species.