Politics
ALL CLAPPED OUT: RMIT moderates destroy left’s evil empire
For many years, the RMIT Student Union has been a bastion of the ultra-left. In recent times, its ultra-leftist sleaze Rob Harding perfectly embodied its venality. The thirty-five year old dreadlocked bum has been living off a student union salary in one shape or form for more than most can recall.
Last week, young student patriots aligned with Student Unity, a group of moderate Labor students under the leadership of Xavier Williams, seized control of the union in a very strong election result.
FRESH START
The Student Unity “Fresh” team won control of the organisation with an average of 60% of the vote.
In doing so the moderates beat a fractured and once formidable group of “Grassroots Left” and “Socialist Alternative” based tickets that attempted to preserve the Left’s previously iron grip on the union. The Grassroots Left ran three different tickets, YOUR VOICE, INNOVATE and ENCOMPASS. While the Socialists ran as Left Action. All these ultra-left tickets preferenced to each other but it many cases were outpolled two to one.
The stunning overnight success enjoyed by Emma Henderson – likely to be elected president by the group of elected office-bearers – and incoming General Secretary Tom Ayers was the result of years of hard work and preparation by a group led by Xavier Williams, with many praising his persistence, resilience and political smarts in directing the campaign.
By contrast the Grassroots hippies were described as being hopelessly arrogant and expecting to cruise to victory once again, an observer explained:
On the first day of the election – a particularly good day for the broad left – the fluorescent rainbow of the Grassroots Left split tickets all packed up an hour and a half before close of polling. An example of their arrogance, ease of elections in past years, and their unwillingness to employ political discipline because they are just too cool for school…
It all started in 2007, when Williams bravely campaigned against the might of the RMIT socialists and they demolished his two-person ticket in a crushing defeat. Insiders recall the moderate’s disappointing experience was summed up by the iron-on logos on their campaign shirts peeling off on the second day. The disappointment only strengthened their resolve. A much stronger moderate effort occurred in 2008 but the Left again prevailed in circumstances some believed were “highly suspicious”.
But in 2009, a nearly two-to-one victory was achieved. A landslide indeed.
“Great things are expected of young Xavier” remarked one federal MP on hearing of the splendid news.
Crucial to the Fresh group’s success was an alliance with mainstream students including the Chinese Students Association who’d grown tired of lefty dysfunction and incompetence.
In a cruel and ironic twist, the incumbent leftists directed by Rob Harding – whose personal philosophy is said to boil down to “you’re only as old as the woman you feel” – spent up lavishly on a Student Union office refurb. The new offices have barely been used by the Rob Harding leftists before they’ll be required to pack their bong pipes, forged ballot papers and copies of Green Left Weekly and head back to Fitzroy.
A PLACE OF BROKEN DREAMS
An amused patriot explains that while the Student Union clock-watching perma-staff received their own offices, the student office-bearers are expected to work from “hot-spot activist spaces” made of expensively recycled timbers and such. Hot-spots are not such a bad idea, as long as the next office-bearer along has washed that week, something that apparently didn’t happen a lot under the Harding regime. He explains:
The Student Union offices underwent an ambitious renovation at the beginning of the year. The result was a dysfunctional, open-plan design with glass walls, exposed piping and gratuitous amounts of wood. While union staff enjoyed private offices, the student Office-Bearers are stationed in a bullpit with waist-high desk dividers. All the desks are shared areas, known as Hot Desk Activist Spaces. The exception is for the Student Union President and General Secretary, crammed into a shared office with glass walls on four sides. Some entire offices, set aside for staff, remain empty but for piles of old boxes and broken computers. The first thing visitors see on entering the office foyer is the dirty, fly-ridden kitchen of the ‘student space’. The Grassroots only moved into their utopia several months ago, and now have to vacate.
One activist reported that “Harding’s dreadlocks had the capacity of moving unprompted, they had spawned a new and mysterious form of life”.
Those disturbing new life forms were in full evidence during election week as Harding desperately tried to use the students’ own money to bribe them into supporting his ongoing reign. A patriot explains:
Activities Officer and Grassroots Left spiritual guru Rob Harding conveniently organised a carnival on the Wednesday of the election, the first such sign of life on campus since Orientation Week. They tried to sweet-talk people from their carnival into the voting booth in an abuse of incumbency. ‘Free Bands, Beer and BBQs’ read the flyer for the event (photo above). This is despite a Grassroots Left sh*tsheet appearing the next day, presumably designed by Harding, begging students not to ‘fall for promises of free beer and BBQs’.
THEY HATED FREEDOM
In its bad odour, the RMIT Student Union was distracted by many foreign causes during the year. Naturally lashing Israel was a favoured sport among the ugly left. Various anti-Israel events were staged or endorsed by the Union during the year, featuring vituperative pro-Palestine singers and scathing speeches from left-wing ‘activists’. A patriot explains the student union leadership pushed for a racist boycott against Israel:
The following motion was passed by the RMIT Student Union Council in February: “The RMITSU strongly condemns the Israeli Government’s recent war on the Palestinian people of the Gaza strip…The RMITSU expresses grave concern at the stance taken by the Australian Federal Government, and calls on the Prime Minister to immediately condemn the Israeli Government’s atrocities in Gaza…The RMITSU supports the call for an imposition of an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions… The RMITSU calls on students and staff of RMIT University to engage in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israeli academic institutions”.
VIOLENCE
Aside from theoretically hating Israel and wanting a racist boycott of the Jewish state, the Grassroots Left had a really ugly violent side to them, VEXNEWS was told:
Socialist Alternative campaigners running under the Left Action ticket harassed a senior female RMIT lecturer of Jewish faith. A formal complaint to the University is forthcoming. Also, a female AUJS member was pushed into a wall by a Left Action campaigner.
Patriots believe the incoming RMIT Student Union administration by contrast will be very cautious and adopt a back-to-basics services-focused approach to the union, in line with their campaign commitments.
CONFUSED PRIORITIES
By contrast, under the likes of the ageing hippy Rob Harding, $10000 given to the union for exam support for students was instead scandalously re-allocated to yoga lessons for those hanging around the Student Union office who enjoy worshipping pagan gods while twisting themselves into odd shapes. Appropriately enough, patriots observed:
Posters for these classes, alongside unused yoga mats, adorned the walls of the ballot room where the results were declared.
It was a fitting epitaph for the out-of-touch and irresponsible leftists.
They seemed to have lost focus even on the loopy values they profess to have. One of their campaigns had enormous A1 posters printed, in an environmentally incorrect move that prompted many of their traditional supporters to be aghast.
THEY BANNED THE CLAP
While they were happy to waste paper in their self-promotion, they held onto some very eccentric ideas indeed including banning clapping:
Members of the ruling clique voted for all motions on Student Union Council by way of ‘twinkle fingers’ – raising both hands in the air and flitting fingers back and forth. A similar trend broke out among Grassroots Left members at an NUS Conference in 2007, because ‘clapping is oppressive’.
While the ultra left are all clapped out, by contrast, the Victorian Labor moderates in Student Unity are going from strength to strength, with members enjoying great electoral success at Victoria University, Melbourne U, now RMIT and the Ben Maxfield heartland of Monash Berwick where sometimes still awestruck students still whisper his name in praise and discuss the possibility of erecting a statue in his honour.
Maxfield and Williams dared to dream. That’s how evil empires fall.
Discussion
65 comments for “ALL CLAPPED OUT: RMIT moderates destroy left’s evil empire”
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Except, because it’s Berwick, the Maxfield statue would have a tetherball attached to it.
Didn’t David Wilkins do all the work for Melbourne and RMIT?? -
Can someone explain how Maxfield gets credit?
We all know its all DeBruyn
it was definitley all jimmy mentor. i dont know how he manages to balance his efforts on his countless nus projects as he does on his campus unity facitonal campaigns. what a star.
Wilkins’ work for Melbourne consisted of comforting Carla.
The Victorian Left hope to get NUS on the back of annihilation across the campuses that matter in Victoria?
What do they hold?
La Trobe? no money, 1 paid office bearer
Monash Clayton? Essentially this is controlled by independents, who would jump on whomever won the election.
Yer having a laff.
to clarify, I meant NUS President.
poor carla
dont forget penny and thomas
Freedom rings indeed.
Freedom rings indeed.
De Bruyn for UMSU Enviro Officer 2011!
Matt Incerti for NUS President, 2010
Unity also won a spot at the table at Monash Gippsland
Student Unity: Smashing alliances between Family First and the SL since 2009
Prepare for total domination, commrades! The moderates are inflitrating the campuses of our learning institutes, none of us are safe! Soon we will all be brainwashed into being homophobic, misogynistic, pro-lifers who support the ABCC and dismiss human-caused climate change as rubbish! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The negativity of our friend above (Lenin) shows exactly why students are abandoning the hard left in droves. They see through the bully boy tactics and unfounded insults for what they really are – a ham fisted attempt to avoid a debate of ideas and about the direction of student unions in a voluntary membership environment. These dinosaurs are locked in a time warp where fighting culture wars and promoting extremism of the left and right to ferment revolution come at a higher priority than the delivery of basic services to students and the creation of a campus culture sensitive to all students.
Where was AC at the East Ivanhoe Fiesta on Saturday? The endorsed candidate missed 10,000 potential voters. I was there.
It’s not even a real university. Doesn’t exactly count.
East Ivanhoe is the posh part of Banyule and the Ivanhoe state electorate. Langdon never won there. AC has some brains. He’s campaigning where he’ll get votes. In East Ivanhoe he’ll get the committed minus a few Langdon stalwarts, and not much else.
I was too busy doing you know what with you know who.
Come off it, toorak tractor, saying, “It’s not even a real university.” The democratisation of what it means to be a university (sic) means that all universities must be deemed unequal, even if (as a famous pig might add) some universities are more unequal than others.
Delightfully useful word “deem”, even if it has been abused ever since the American breakaways used it to overcome problems with conclusions difficult to reach via standard logic.
Student Unity is once again proven to be the student choice
What does AC’s appearance or otherwise at a community festival have to do with a student union election result at RMIT?
Could anyone source the minutes which recorded that twinkle fingers thing?
There is only 1 university in Melbourne, all the rest are glorified tafe’s.
One wonders why such a rising star couldn’t get into a decent university….
I love twinkle fingers – then again I know heaps of deaf people and that’s how they ‘clap’.
I would like to think that they employed ‘twinkle fingers’ in solidarity with their deaf bros and sis’s.
Then again they may just be dick-heads.
Why oh why don’t you luv me CL?
[i]Harding’s dreadlocks had the capacity of moving unprompted, they had spawned a new and mysterious form of life[/i]
Well thanks, that’s just reminded me of a scene in Legend Of The Overfiend.
If you don’t know… trust me, you don’t want to know.
At least we can all agree that I am the greatest ever NUS President EVA!!
NLS4LIFE
And please excuse my crap attempt at formatting text.
is this a joke??? Non compulsory voting for starters, who thinks this means anything? Student unions are dead, and so is student politics. You fools. These guys should focus on doing something useful – like making fun of student unions. Not engaging in them!
If voting was compulsory, it’s pretty safe to say moderate groups like this one would consistently smash it in.
HERALD-SUN
Sex tape blackmailer Jake Michael Della-Vedova jailed.
A MAN who tried to blackmail $15,000 from a public figure to keep a sex tape secret has been jailed.
Judge Lisa Hannan said Jake Michael Della-Vedova had used his victim’s sexuality and position in the community to give leverage to his demands for cash as she sentenced him to at least four months in prison.
The County Court heard Della-Vedova, 25, threatened to ruin the career and reputation of the man after secretly taping a sexual encounter they had in July last year.
Della-Vedova sent the victim, who cannot be named, a series of text messages demanding $15,000 or he would send the video to media outlets or alert the victim’s employers.
The court heard one message read: “I am sure you know what this will do for your career not to mention your credibility.”
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Mr Cooper said when the victim went to police they organised a sting and Della-Vedova was arrested on July 4 last year when he went to a meeting to pick up the money.
Della-Vedova, of Hawthorn East, pleaded guilty to one count of blackmail.
Judge Hannan said Della-Vedova counted on the fact his victim would be stressed and anxious about release of the tape.
“Your actions were in my view callous and calculated,” she said. “This was not a momentary lapse of judgment.
“The nature of the threats was devastating from the victim’s perspective.”
Judge Hannan said there was some premeditation to Della-Vedova’s crime which was “focused on your own selfish desires for money”.
She accepted Della-Vedova was remorseful and had good prospects of rehabilitation.
Della-Vedova was sentenced to 18 months’ jail with 14 months suspended for two years.
Della-Vedova is out of jail. I wonder if his boyfriend has hooked up with him since?
How pathetic! These people like DeBruyn and Williams pretend to be Labor, but then they go and campaign out with Liberals and other conservatives- just to keep the lefties out. Isn’t it a total contradiction of Labor values to align yourself with the opposite philosophy? I mean the Labor Left won’t be campaigning against us next Federal and State Election, but the Liberals will.
Seriously all these Labor right and left people who spend their entire lives as a student trying to kill each other and really just losing sight of what they’re supposed to stand for. They should try and form a partnership with each other, not with the Liberals.
Seriously DeBruyn and Williams need to think about and apply their values if they have any.
Nobody is pretending to be Labor here, Gary Ablett, you pretend footballer (?!). You will find that Student Unity are hardly the only group aligning themselves on-campus with like-minded students from parties they would traditionally go up against at a Federal level. SL have also aligned themselves with other, far more questionable groups during their campaigns at various campuses this year. To put it in football speak for you, student politics is a whole different ball game.
Rob Harding is a such a loser
From the priceless file comes the tale of De Bruyn being sat on his arse in front of a horde of coppers at melbourne Uni.
De Bruyn,unaware that he wasn’t delaing with a “fem-man” from Nth Carlton, [eg: socialist alternative member] expressed delight in telling brave anti-vsu protesters that the Berlin wall had fallen.
To the delight of the brave students that had gathered despite the massive police presence, one gentlemen dropped his banner and then dropped De Bruyn.
Absolutely priceless!
Student Unity are supposed to be Labor, and yet justify their alignment with the Liberals- the Liberals who support Work Choices, VSU, no rights for refugees and a state in which little support is offered to the average citizen. You are saying that aligning yourself with the enemy is ok, because the left do it to. Honestly Student Unity and YL need to grow up, just because the left do it, does not mean the right has to. Seriously you walk on to a Uni these days and chances are that at some point you will be harassed by some nerd from both the right and left who try and convince you that should hate the opposite faction as much as they do, to someone outside politics it might come off a bit contradictory that the same party are fighting so heavily amongst each other. It also might confuse someone when they hear a supposedly Labor member say vote ‘Student Unity- labor and liberal together at last’.
Student politics may very well be a whole different ball game, but that does not any way justify liberals and labor joining up together, you don’t see Jews and Nazis campaigning together and the premise remains the same: opposites are opposites.
It’s a pretty sad reflection of all student politics when you see this kind of behaviour. Just rest assured that to the average student, student politicians are just a bunch of kids who didn’t have any mates in high school, who probably had their sexual experience go from nothing to everything when they were 22, and who now free from jocks and abuse finally have the chance to flourish in a nerd, loser loving university environment.
Doubt De Bruyen would have been dropped by anyone. He’s a smarter operator than that. is he even pro vsu?
Just a little bit hypocritical to sing about the Labor factions not working together at Melbourne and other campuses.
At Melbourne, the Labor Left rebuffed at every opportunity over the past 3 years a situation where the Labor Right and Left could work together. Despite this, the Right did not run with Liberals (and was subsequently beaten consistently). It was only this year that the Left came crawling back, as their empire began to crumble around them due to incompetence and poor management of the Union.
On other campuses, approaches based on Labor groups co-operating are consistently rebuffed by the Left. They would prefer to shack up with revolutionary lunatics who believe in the overthrow of the government. You need to have two partners for peace.
This is a personal attack, and mostly outright lies. I’d like to see where the author gets this misinformation from.
How exactly is condemning the Israeli attack on Palestinian civilions classed as hating freedom?
When National Labor Left pulls their finger out and deals with Student Unity on campuses and Natioanlly, you will find less and less space for Liberals and hard rights. However owing to the complete arrogance of the Left and portraying Student Unity has soem kind of anti-christ, NLS buggers moderate students.
It would seem that Student unity and those wacky, yet moderate patriot independents from the East will have 55% of NUS conference delegates this year. . . . hmmm I bet NLS have jumped on Student Unity’s bandwagon now!!!
What a dream ticket. . .
Xavier Williams -Gen Sec
James Wangmann -Education Officer
Kurt Steel -Welfare
and. . . . . Matt Incerti for NUS PREZ!!!
and DeBuyn for GM!
Don’t forget, my Lefty friends:
Emma and Tom won RMIT without Liberals.
It was a Labor ticket, and its now a Labor campus.
atvb Juan Kent
The ‘Incerti for President’ movement has made me think about my Unity NUS OBs ‘all-time dream team’.
President: Matt Incerti
Gen Sec: Pablo Campillos
Education: Michael de Bruyn
Welfare: Tom Cargill
Womens Officer: Lizzie Blandthorn
Indigenous: Face-deal for Sheena Watt
Environment: Lambros Tapinos
Female Queer: Belinda Clark
Male Queer: David Wilkins
Small and Regional: Ben Maxfield
Ethno-Cultural: Daniel Mookhey
Was “Twinkle fingers” that brothel on Cardigan Street back in the day?
evil mother fuckers. how do you sleep at night?
Where is any evidence to back this load of cr*p up…??? And if this is the level that the new fresh team have to lower themselves too, well I think RMIT Student Union is in for a dismal and disgraceful year
I love women. I want to be NUS Queer Officer
Cr Jenny Mulholland’s idiot child David Mulholland was part of the “cross-campus broad left coordination committee”: no wonder they did so well!!!
Jenny Mulholland…
Jenny Mulholland’s idiot son David Mulholland was on the “cross-campus B-R-O-A-D Left coordination committee”. No wonder they did so well!!!
David Mulholland….
Rob Harding is dead. And a perv
The left had to make their posters A1 to fit Rob Harding’s dreadlocks into the frame.
The political side of Australian student unions are still the haven of the socially rejected and intellectually inferior geeks and rejects, most of whom will fail in their degrees and are trying to hang around uni till they are 40. You are all scared to live.
This website reeks of amateur hour. Ghastly.
Nicely worded.
Tomorrows political labor leaders. What value will they add to the administration of the union?
Our political culture celebrates victory, but punishes those who seek to use power to improve the lot of ordinary Australians. What value does an apparatuck contribute?
President: Adam Spencer
Gen Sec: Steve Blaney
Education: Rob Houghton
Welfare: Anthony Roberts
Womens Officer: Natasha Stott-Despoja
Indigenous: Scott Wilson
Environment: Justin Kennedy
Female Queer: Penny Sharpe
Male Queer: C
Small and Regional: Phil Harrison
Ethno-Cultural:
President: Adam Spencer
Gen Sec: Steve Blaney
Education: Rob Houghton
Welfare: Anthony Roberts
Womens Officer: Natasha Stott-Despoja
Indigenous: Scott Wilson
Environment: Justin Kennedy
Female Queer: Penny Sharpe
Male Queer: Alan Tudge
Small and Regional: Phil Harrison
Ethno-Cultural: Lara Palumbo