The 1997 University of Queensland Student Union will give students a voice on a range of issues to make campus life easier, according to newly elected president Cynthia Kennedy.
And high on the agenda are protests against the Federal Government's cuts to tertiary education funding.
'Amanda Vanstone can count on no support from next year's student union,' said Ms Kennedy.
Ms Kennedy, who takes office in mid-December, said the new Union would focus on representing all students.
Her team, Voice, had a mandate of 'a Union that listens, a Union that works'.
Currently the Union's Women's Vice-President, the fourth-year arts student said she had a pretty good idea of what to expect next year.
'Representation is really hard work, and you have to throw yourself into it,' she said. 'Our Union will keep in line with our campaign of bringing it all back down to basics - trying to raise awareness of the importance of student unionism in light of voluntary student unionism, and Government controls that affect students.
'Each student does not have time to write to the Government protesting about funding cuts - that's our job as their Union executive.'
Ms Kennedy, 22, said one of the first Union activities planned for next year was an anti-hatred campaign: 'against homophobia, racism and sexism and other things that make it hard for students to get along at University'.
'This comes out of my experience as Women's Vice-President, having people coming to see me with their problems,' she said. 'I know what a lot of students go through and have to deal with, and how things like cuts to DEETYA and living allowances can affect students.'
She said next year's O-Week activities would not be about 'hey, we're out of school now, this is what we can do', and would instead promote the Union, offer tours of the University and other things that could help new students.
'We'd like to share experiences that we've had as students with new students to make it easier for them,' she said.
'We are currently working with others who took part in the elections to plan O-Week activities and the Toga Party. One of the parties that ran, the No Toga group, suggested the idea of having a festival instead.
'We are keen to have a daytime event to bring different audiences together, like a mini-Livid festival, with bands, and then at night bus people off to different venues that are safer.'
She said she was driven to run for President after the Federal Government's August budget cuts.
'The Government cut hundreds of millions of dollars from funding, and I thought the Union would have been running around and going crazy. It didn't act like I thought it should,' she said.
'Next year we will try to set a new direction for the Union. We will be in an unprecedented position with new Conservative governments at both State and Federal levels - it is a different political climate, and it will be very different for student unions and students.
'The funding changes, such as differential rates of HECS and postgraduate levels, will have a large effect on a number of minorities, and women, entering tertiary education. It makes education a commodity and universities degree factories. Measures like that serve only to increase the gap between the rich and poor.'
From the Sunshine Coast, Ms Kennedy attended Burnside High School, which has produced several Union executives over the last few years including 1992 president Michael Kleinschmitt and 1994 treasurer Mary Thorpe.
'The school really taught students to fight for what they believed,' she said.
She said she did not want to use her one-year presidency as a springboard into politics.
'After going through the election, it would take something really major next year for me to want to do this for the rest of my life,' she said.
'I'm not interested in being a politician. I would like to be a high school teacher teaching social sciences, and take a grassroots approach to changing the world.'
For more information, contact Cynthia Kennedy (telephone 3377 2200).
m basic research stages through to clinical treatments, as well as for the testing of new acaricides to prevent tick attachment. The research group plans to investigate tick toxins and secretions to develop more specific antivenenes for the different tick toxins existing in Australia.
For more information contact Dr Rick Atwell (mobile 0409 065 255, telephone 07 3365 2551), Fiona Campbell (telephone 07 3365 2392) or David Harris at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 1120)
