It's getting colder, but student politics is heating-up

It's election time on campus ... Operating in Stalin's shadow ... One student organisation is creating waves by under-spending its budget ... Barely Legal has the shocking details 

THE brisk autumn weather signals a change on east coast university campuses. 

To start with, rabid flu will rip through university colleges during swotvac. Another mutation is that student union elections, budgets, and general meetings are being planned and held before the financial year comes to an end. 

On these occasions law students will play a more prominent role, while others will not pay attention or care. 

Successful student politician Joseph Stalin observed: 

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." 

Student politics is no different. It is a game played and won by those who best understand the rules, how to manipulate them, avoid them, or change them. To this extent it is a place where budding lawyers are very much at home.

Many of the embryonic Machiavellis that spawn on university campuses are law students and the link between law students and student politicians is well-established. 

Student pollies are attracted by the idea that they can better understand the rules of the game, which puts them in a powerful position to manipulate it. 

In the way that a dank forest sprouts mushrooms, the University of Sydney SRC sprouts student politicians/law students en masse. 

USyd is legendary for the energy and brutality of its student politics. A large portion of frontbench MPs in the A-Bot government are USyd alumni, law graduates, and former student politicians - the most famous being the wall-punching PM. 

In its 87th budget announced on May 6, the USyd SRC chose to renew affiliation with the National Union of Students for the discount sum of $63,000. 

We can expect to see an influx of more combative student politicians moving into that organisation. 

The campaigning period for the USyd Union board elections also began recently. Let's hope that brisk autumn air doesn't give the flu to USyd's next Brutus.  

The ANU Post Graduate & Research Students' Association (PARSA) is also heading into elections.

In the last financial year, PARSA under-spent its (approximate) $1 million budget by a little over $300,000. 

The president is a law student who prides himself on efficiency. Although no one is talking tyrannicide just yet, there is certainly movement at the station. 

There are grumbles that the pot of gold of compulsory student unionism is not being dipped into sufficiently for the delivery of student services to postgraduates, in particular the social events budget. 

One proposal is to spend more money on the events that already occur, by buying far more expensive booze. A budget crisis has never been more fanciful.

Finally, in one of the most beautiful displays of election nothing-speak, the president of ACT Young Labor, having campaigned for President of ANU Sport, wrote an op-ed article, in which he proclaimed:

"It was seemingly impossible to explain to many within the [university] community that I had a different vision for ANU Sport service provision and that I wasn't actually a part of a conspiracy straight from Bill Shorten's campaign office." 

Stalin may have been a paranoid old goat, even in his days as a student revolutionary in Tiflis, but he never had to confront allegations that his "different vision" for sports "service provision" was part of a conspiracy straight from the top. 

Still, we must remember, student politics is the kindergarten for the real thing.