University of Western Australia Student Guild

UWA Student Guild

University of Western Australia Guild of Undergraduates
UWA Student Guild
Founded	1913
Headquarters	Perth, Western Australia
Location	Australia
Affiliations	National Union of Students
Website	www.uwastudentguild.com

The UWA Student Guild is the official student representative body at the University of Western Australia, representing the interests of students to the university, government and the wider community, as well as providing services to students. The Guild's published mission is to be Western Australia's leading campus student representative organisation.

Background

The UWA Student Guild is the premier student representative body at the University of Western Australia. The vision of the UWA Student Guild is to be Australia's leading campus student representative organisation.

The Guild provides a number of services, and is instrumental in promoting and sustaining student life on campus. The Guild runs a number of activities including Prosh, Orientation Day (O-Day), End of Semester Shows and other major campus events. Guild Departments and Subsidiary Councils run other events, such as Multicultural Week and Spring Feast (run by the Multicultural Week department), Club Carnival (run by the Societies Council) and the PAC Pop-Up series of performances (run by the Public Affairs Council).

The Guild also supports and assists a network of more than 180 affiliated clubs and societies on campus, catering to a very wide range of interests (religious, theatrical, cultural etc.). The Guild also runs the majority catering outlets on campus, including the Tavern, as well as a second-hand bookshop and a volunteering centre. For most of the organisation's existence, it maintained a monopoly in on-campus catering, although in 2012, the first three independent catering outlets were introduced.

The Guild's Student Centre provides one-on-one academic advocacy, financial counselling, a food pantry, and interest-free loans.

Guild Council is the overall governing body of the Guild and consists of 23 voting members and several non-voting members democratically elected at the annual Guild elections.

Guild presidents

1913 Sir John Winthrop Hackett
1914 Mr JJ Fitzgerald
1915 Mr JG Robertson
1916 Mr HS Thompson
1917 Mr J Shearer
1918 Mr HT Stables
1919 Mr AF Backhouse
1920 Mr E Grace
1921 Eric William Gillett
1922 Mr HPD Lyon
1923 Mr F Maw
1923 Mr TA Hartrey
1924 Mr SG Demasson
1925 Mr W Southern
1926 Mr GL Throssell
1927 Mr KL Cooper
1928 Mr RG Wright
1929 Mr AM Stewart
1930 Mr RV Nevile
1931 Mr HC Coombs
1932 Mr C Sanders
1933 Mr TG Wilsmore
1934 Mr TH Roberts
1935 Pike Curtin
1936 Mr GP Paterson
1937 Mr NG Traylen
1938 Mr H Giese
1939 Mr S Johnson
1940 Mr AJ Williams
1941 Mr GB Hill
1942 Mr FM Bennett
1943 Mr JM Thomson
1944 Mr AL Arcus
1945 Mr FH Hibberd
1946 Mr GE Ross
1947 Mr DD Dunn
1948 Peter Durack
1949 Mr SB Rosier
1950 Mr DE Hutchison
1951 Mr JO Stone
1952 Bob Hawke
1953 Mr BH Lochtenberg
1953 Mr LG Wilson
1954 Mr JH McConnell
1955 Mr JFM Gillett
1956 Mr EN Maslen
1957 Mr JK Walsh
1958 Mr KB Paterson
1959 Mr RD Nicholson
1960 Mr EM Palandri
1961 Mr GG Harvey
1962 Mr RSW Lugg
1963 Allan Fels
1964 Mr DR Williams
1965 Mr SG Errington
1966 Mr RB Alexander
1967 Mr PG Edwards
1968 Mr D MacKinlay
1969 Ms SJD Boyd
1970 Kim Beazley
1971 Mr RJ Perry
1972 Jim McGinty
1973 Mr RB Porter
1974 Mr PM Alexander
1975 David Parker
1976 Mr NG Roberts
1977 Mr AD Fitzgerald
1978 Mr WR Grace
1979 Mr KW Strahan
1980 Mr DN Anderson
1981 Mr ERJ Dermer
1982 Mr MW Rennie
1983 Mr MJ Huston
1984 Deidre Willmott
1985 Mr DJ Kelly
1986 Mr MT Schaper
1987 Miss JA Quinlivan
1988 Mr AC Tomlinson
1989 Mr MZ Sumich
1990 Mr TL Smith
1991 Bruce Baskerville
1992 Justin Kennedy
1993 Luke Forsyth
1994 Sarah Haynes
1995 Natalie Curling
1996 Simon Freitag
1997 James Fogarty
1998 Rosie Dawkins
1999 Emmanuel Hondros
2000 Tim Huggins
2001 Kristy Duckham
2002 Ryan Batchelor
2003 Myra Robinson
2004 Susie Byers
2005 Natalie Hepburn
2006 Mathew Chuk
2007 Dave de Hoog
2008 Nik Barron
2009 Dominic Rose
2010 Emma Greeney
2011 Tom Antoniazzi
2012 Matthew Mckenzie
2013 Cameron Barnes
2014 Thomas Henderson
2015 Lizzy O’Shea
2016 Maddie Mulholland
2017 Nevin Jayawardena
2018 Megan Lee
2019 Conrad Hogg
2020 Brehany Shanahan
2021 Emma Mezger
2022 Amitabh Jeganathan
2023 Geemal Jayawickrama
2024 Indi Creed

Annual elections

Student representatives are elected to their positions by students in annual elections held in September. Elections are conducted by the Western Australian Electoral Commission. Both independent and party candidates run in the elections, with the historical bias leaning towards grouped members becoming elected. Elected office bearers take office as of 1 December in the year they are elected.

The 2016 elections took place from 19 to 22 September 2016, and were for the 104th Guild Council. Three parties contested the 2016 elections: STAR, Launch and Left Action.

The 2019 Elections took place with including a fast lane outside the major polling station of Reid library, reduction in the paper allowance per candidate, a lunch hour blackout and an International Student Services Debate. Six parties contested in the 2019 elections: Star, Launch, Left Action, Global, Liberation and Progress. The election had Star winning majority of seats followed by Global with 4 seats, Launch with 3 seats and Left Action with 1 seat.

The 2022 elections took place in September 2022, with a total turnout of 2,228. Geemal Jayawickrama was elected the 110th President of the Guild, making him the first International Student to hold the position of President. The election also lead to a Spark dominated council, with all but one of the ten bearer positions being controlled by Spark. The elected ordinary councillors saw Spark controlling five seats, Star controlling five, Global controlling two, Launch controlling one and Left Action controlling one.

UWA Guild 2023 council layout

Controversies

Racism controversy

The 2013 edition of annual charity newspaper Prosh caused significant controversy when a racist article, "dream-time horoscopes" lead to a public relations disaster for the Guild, with major charity beneficiary ICEA withdrawing support from the paper.

In May 2021, the Guild was criticised for antisemitism during their Council Meeting which reversed a previous adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, despite Jewish students unanimously supporting this definition.

Missing money

In May 2014 the Guild hired audit and tax firm BDO to investigate financial irregularities in the Guild's 2013 accounts, which found about $870,000 had been misappropriated.

Based on the initial findings of that investigation, a staff member was dismissed for serious misconduct. No action was taken against the President or other Office bearers at the time of the theft.

Guild structure

The Guild is administered by a council of student representatives elected for one-year terms at the annual elections. There are twenty voting members of council, and several more non-voting members. Members may hold a voting and a non-voting role concurrently. Unlike some other campus unions, there is no financial compensation for student representatives, with the exception of the President who works at the Guild full-time during their term.

External links

• Official website