University of Western Australia Student Guild

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, as well as financial counselling and interest-free loans.

Guild Council is the overall governing body of the Guild and consists of 23 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 Mr EW 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 Mr PWE 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 Mr PD Durack

1949 Mr SB Rosier

1950 Mr DE Hutchison

1951 Mr JO Stone

1952 Mr RJ 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 Mr AH 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 Mr KC Beazley

1971 Mr RJ Perry

1972 Mr JA McGinty

1973 Mr RB Porter

1974 Mr PM Alexander

1975 Mr DC 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 Miss DE 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

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.

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.The Australian
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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.

References

External sources

https://www.uwastudentguild.com/{{NUS

Student politics in Australia
Student Guild