University of Queensland Union


The University of Queensland Union is a student organisation established to provide service, support and representation to the students of The University of Queensland. It remains the largest student representative body in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. The Union oversees approximately $25 million in revenue each financial year.

Student services

The UQU operates most of the campus's student eateries, cafes, bookshops in addition to the university bar and cinema. These facilities and services are concentrated at the Union Complex at the St Lucia campus.
The UQU organises the university's orientation week activities, regular barbecues and free bands, as well as a range of larger events, such as Oktoberfest and, as of 2009, the annual Toga Party. Recently the UQU introduced a club funding scheme that supports over 200 clubs and societies, including faculty, ethnic, and a variety of social groups; sporting groups, however, fall under the domain of UQ Sport. The UQU also provides a free legal service to university students. In addition, it also organises the weekly Wednesday markets at the St Lucia campus.
One of the other roles of the UQU is to see that minority groups on campus are adequately supported. To this extent, it provides a Queer Space at St Lucia campus and Women's Spaces at St Lucia campus and Gatton campuses. The Ipswich Campus Queer Room has since been closed down, as a result of frequent vandalism by the occupants. UQU also has queer, women's, environment, disabilities and Indigenous collectives to represent their respective interests.

Student representation

UQU coordinates student representation to the University through its Student Representation, supporting students to take positions on faculty and University committees, and the Academic Board. UQU recently successfully negotiated for the University to contribute 1 million dollars to the Union annually for student services. UQU also negotiated for the "formula marking" scheme to be abolished.

Postgraduate

In 2011, UQ postgraduate students formed a postgraduate representative body within the UQU, called the UQ Association of Postgraduate Students. This new body has been in regular contact with CAPA and sent a representative to the 2011 CAPA annual conference in Sydney.

Clubs and societies

The UQU oversees over 220 student run Clubs and Societies, with a combined membership across these clubs of approximately 36,000 students. Clubs fall under one of four broad categories based on where they derive their membership base. These categories include: Faculty/School; International Students; Colleges; and General Interest.
Clubs play a vital role on campus, with the majority of social events at UQ being run by these student groups.

Student publications

Semper Floreat is the student newspaper of the University of Queensland. It has been published continuously by the University of Queensland Union since 1932, when it began as a fortnightly newsletter of only a few pages, produced by one editor. It was previously published as Queensland University Magazine and Galmahra. The Student Union also published a Songbook for Commemoration celebrations, featuring songs celebrating the Faculties and Professors of the time. The Songbook went by a number of names, including Whack-Ho. By the 1960s songs were omitted from the publication, replaced by articles and cartoons reflecting student culture of the time.
The chief editor in 2019 is Rowan Evans.

Executives

Presidents

For much of the Union's history voting was done for individual positions not group tickets, in some years, such as 2003, this resulted in the President being from a Labor Left ticket and the Secretary and Treasurer from a Liberal ticket.

Vice Presidents

As a politically active organisation, throughout the Union's history individual Vice Presidents have been involved in political controversies. One notable example was when Vice President Nicholas Sowden called US president Barack Obama a "monkey" on Twitter, which received worldwide media attention.

Politics

The University of Queensland Union Complex has a long history as a haven for democratic rights struggles. is a place for ideas and political discourse. The University of Queensland administration is trying the one space it does not control on the St Lucia campus, the University of Queensland Union Complex. This is corporate theft from generations of students and staff. Students built the UQ Union Complex with their union fees and gave it a history that forms part of .
1965 Women chain themselves to the bar of treasury and regatta hotel to protest against sex discrimination
1966 Vietnam Action Committee formed -new -left style -University based -Civil Liberties and Vietnam oriented
Footpath protest in month of March against Vietnam War -31 arrested.
Student demonstration Action -Vietnam, Education, University, Civil Liberties.
Conference on S-E Asia at University organised by off- Campus peace groups
Public Forums at centenary Park on Saturday at organised well attended
March from University to City by students on 5 October.
27 out of 40 students arrested armed police provocation and violence.
November – A.L.P. loses Conscription and Vietnam Election.
Protestors attacked by police during President Johnson's visit to Brisbane.
S.D.A. begins leafleting, door-knocking, opens Printery, violent clashes during President of South Vietnam Ky's visit for refusing to pay fines resulting in October conscription Protest
1967 Four people jailed for refusing to pay fines resulting from October conscription protest.
May – Civil Liberties Coordinating Committee formed to fight restrictive sections of the Traffic Act.
June -C.L.C.C. gave government ultimatum of deadline 11 July for sections of the Traffic Act to be repealed.
July – Deadline extended to 5 September, mainly due to negotiations the Student Union President and State Government
July – Anti-Radical "scarell articles run by monopoly media
4 Sep – Premier Nicklin promised decision on ultimatum
7 September –Rally and March postponed to 8 September
September 7 – Nicklin Government offer unsatisfactory
8 September 1967 – 4,000 people march to the city. Two thousand sit down in Roma Street. 114 arrested with police violence.
Trade Unions, ALP, Qld Council for Civil Liberties lodge protests in reaction to police brutality.
Union for Civil Liberties Demonstration in King George Brisbane. The demonstration was called by the Trades and Labour Council of Queensland to protest against police treatment of university students and staff in Roma Street, Brisbane during a protest march. The march, from the University of Queensland to the city, had been held a few days earlier.
The street march campaign
On 4 September 1977 Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the Premier of Queensland, said the following words:
"The day of the political street march is over. Anybody who holds a street march, spontaneous or otherwise, will know that they are acting illegally. Don’t bother to apply for a permit you won’t get one. That's Government policy now."
On 22 September 1977 there was a march from the University of Qld Student Union. This followed an earlier march on 12 September 1977 that was stopped at the gates of the University by 300 Queensland police officers. This did not stop students from walking on the footpath to a rally of 5,000 workers on Trade Union Rights. Wharfies marched to the rally in Roma Street forum.
The 22 September march went off campus and regathered in King George Square to attempt a march into the valley of death.
The first man arrested in Qld for demonstrating against the street march ban in 1977 was PB, a cleaner, identified by initials only who was arrested at 5.15pm on 22 Sept 1977 for disobeying a lawful direction. He was arrested by Constable Gary Hannigan, then from Sandgate CIB and to be the youngest ever detective in the Qld Special Branch. Hannigan's dad was an Inspector of police.
IR was arrested at 5.49pm, then LB at 5.55pm, LM at 6.00pm, PA who was the Australian Union of Students representative at University of Queensland was arrested at 6.58, NN at 7.03pm. The last person arrested in King George Square that night was JM who was arrested at 7.07pm.
All these people except for PB had been attending meetings at the University of Queensland of the newly formed group to fight the ban. It had been named the Civil Liberties Co-ordinating Committee or ‘CLCC’. By that last arrest, 20 people had been arrested on the King George Square steps. Another 12 were arrested later at parliament house.
The women arrested were stripped searched in the watchhouse that night in the presence of male police. Maris, a young student and member of the CLCC, organised a defence for all the arrested people in the courts and a few were acquitted. This was the beginning of 3,000 arrests of 2,000 people and court appearances which would continue unabated for 2 years – every time there was a political street march.
The democratic rights struggle is the longest single campaign of mass defiance of government in Australian history.  The longest struggle is aboriginal resistance to colonisation. From 4 September 1977 till July 1979 2,000 people were arrested, there were 3,000 arrests with the largest of 418 people being arrested in a single afternoon of 22 October 1977.
I have been asked to read out the following short passage written by Anna McCormack who was the women's rights organiser at the University of Qld Student Union in 1977 & 1978.  Anna could not be here today... her views are supported by women who were active in that struggle which, I think, was part of the democratic rights struggle here in Queensland.
"I’d like to acknowledge a group that played a positive role in progressive student politics at the Union in the 70s and later.
The group was the Women’s Rights Committee and their room was the Women’s Rights Room. There is the room in which they met and planned women’s rights campaigns in the 70s, ironically now a Commonwealth Bank.
Interestingly, this Student Union, the University of Qld Union, was the very first student union in the country to appoint a part time paid Women’s Rights Organiser.  That was significant.  It was in 1977 and it was in recognition that women needed to be able to campaign against the disadvantages and discrimination women students experienced at that time – and still experience.  Anna who was appointed to that position in 1977 is still politically active in the Women’s Liberation Movement more than 40 years later.
The Women’s Rights Room was often a hive of activity as women planned amongst other things, a campaign to get the Student Union to adopt policy supporting women’s abortion rights.  A student referendum was held on the issue and unfortunately the women were unsuccessful at that time.  A policy of ‘no policy’ was upheld.  It would be another 40 years before those women were able to celebrate Qld abortion decriminalisation.
A campaign about women's safety on campus raised awareness of the prevalence of sexual assault and rape on campus – it was some years, however, before the university responded.  The Women's Rights Committee also campaigned against sexual harassment of students by some academic and teaching staff.  They campaigned successfully for the withdrawal of student union funding for a student club that printed a newsletter that incited violence against women and girls.  They successfully called for the reinstatement by the Student Union of a woman cleaner who had been sacked for no reason.  These were a few of the areas around which these women's liberationists campaigned, sometimes with success, often without.
When the Women's Rights Room became too small for their meetings, the women asked the Union for a larger room.  The request was refused so the women and a couple of supporters,, occupied the room and moved the furniture."
In recent years, the UQU ended its accreditation with the National Union of Students, making it the only student association in the Group of Eight universities to have done so.
1991–1992, the Union was run under the umbrella of the Liberal party.
1994–2007, the Union was almost exclusively under the control of parties aligned with the Labor party, usually the left leaning wing. Liberal students regained full control for a single year in 1996 and won a majority of the split executive in 2003.
2008–2013, the Union was run by a party under the banner "Fresh".
2014–2017, the Union was run by Reform, during which significant opposition came from Lift and Thrive.
On 14 September 2017, after intense divisions between Labor's Left and Right factions, the Reform ticket announced their disbanding. The Labor Right faction formed a separate, independent coalition supported by a faction of Young Liberals, as well as some Greens and Independent students, to contest the elections under a new ticket named Focus. The Labor Left faction attempted to continue as 'Reform', however, they failed to lodge their nominations correctly. Owing to some administrative errors, Reform's Union Council ticket did not appear above the line.
After the errors made during the nomination process, the Reform ticket announced on Facebook that they intended to withdraw from the contesting the 2017 Student Union Elections. In the same post, they endorsed the Socialist Alternative ticket 'Student Action'. The 'Reform' ticket remained on the ballot papers for the Union Executive and the Union Newspaper, but the ticket did not run a ground campaign during the elections. The newly formed 'Focus' ticket was elected in a landslide.
In 2018, the Labor Left faction re-formed as 'Momentum'.
A referendum was planned to be held simultaneously with the 2018 election, but was announced in a manner inconsistent with the regulations. The referendum was thus postponed, and held instead during the last week of exams, and a regulatory amendment made to allow voting online. However, of the 6383 votes counted, 2218 were "against" votes were submitted from a single non-University IP address, significantly contributing to none of the referendum questions passing. One of the questions of the referendum related to eligibility to hold positions for elected officers. Several students who had been elected were not eligible to hold office under the current constitution, but would have been had the question passed. As such, these students vacated their positions immediately upon assuming office at the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting. These vacancies lasted until the first meeting of the newly elected council.
In 2019, Labor Right split from the Focus deal, and attempted to create a new ticket with Labor Left. Near the close of nominations, the newly re-formed Labor group were advised that another electoral group had reserved their intended name, 'Together'. The Liberal faction within Focus successfully nominated under the name 'Real'. The Returning Officer extended the nominations deadline to allow the Labor group to resubmit their forms with a new name, but the campaign manager for the new 'Together' ticket appealed the decision to extend the nominations deadline, taking this appeal to the Electoral Tribunal. Labor were supported in defending against this appeal by their former Focus allies in 'Real', but the Electoral Tribunal found against both the major parties, and in favour of 'Together', finding that the regulations did not grant the Returning Officer the power to extend the nomination window. Empower campaigners began the election on a platform of Real having sabotaged the election, but soon changed tactics to a more clear-cut Below the Line campaign.
Following voting week, the REAL executive ticket was elected in a landslide by a margin of 63% - 37%. This marked the first time in 6 years that no member of the Australian Labor Party held an elected position on the University of Queensland Union Executive.

Union council composition

2019

In 2019, the UQ Union Council is made up of 23 student representatives elected from five electoral groups, spanning from five different student factions, plus an independent.

2020

In 2019, the UQ Union Council is made up of 23 student representatives elected from seven unique electoral groups.

Controversies

2012 election

In 2012, there was controversy surrounding the conduct of the annual student elections. The incumbents made rule changes that resulted in other teams submitting their nominations in an incorrect manner. This specifically related to last minute changes to union election rules removing the protection for previously used party names, which resulted in campaign material for opposition parties becoming unusable. This resulted in all other opposition parties having their names invalidated. These Allegations were denied by the current President.
Minutes and a recording from the 101st UQU Council meeting show that new regulations were brought in on 10 August. The recording shows that an objection was raised by Councillor Flynn Rush on procedural fairness and constitutional grounds, though this was circumvented through amending the factual basis for the objection. The incumbents did not give the requisite 5 'clear days' notice as per the UQU constitution. The regulation changes went ahead regardless. They were not available until elections and nominations opened.
The 2012 union president stated that members of the Pulse party "can complain all they want" but had 12 months notice on the introduction of new regulations on the use of registered ticket names, and that the 'last-minute' changes to the regulations were to different provisions.
In response to the situation, an activist group titled 'DEMOCRACY 4 UQU' was started by a number of Fresh opposition groups concerned about how the measures introduced affected the student elections. Their goal was to correct what they perceive to be an unbalanced and unfair election process.
UQ deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Mick McManus, said in response to the situation that UQ was concerned that this issue had a significant impact on students and would be considered in full and addressed appropriately, and that the university would work to resolve the issues. On 22 August, the University announced that the current union administration would be required to provide access to the constitution and changes to it, financial reports, and notices and minutes of meetings held under the current union on its website. Graeme Orr, Professor of Law at the University of Queensland, has pointed out in a radio interview that the power of the electoral tribunal convened to assess whether the elections were held properly was limited only to whether or not the electoral rules were violated, not whether they are valid or were created in accordance to union policy.
On 24 August, the University declared that in line with their funding agreement with the University Of Queensland Student Union, they would carry out an audit into the management of finances. The results of this audit are available online.
On 29 August, hundreds of students gathered at UQ's great court to protest against Fresh and call for democracy.
On 3 December, the annual general meeting of the UQU was cancelled after those calling it neglected to inform students and most members of their own executive, resulting in too few people present for the meeting to be quorate. An outgoing Vice-President, who had defected to an opposition political ticket, spoke briefly about the conduct of FRESH, raising concerns that the locking out of the opposition tickets was an act of hypocrisy given that FRESH made multiple electoral reforms early in their term to improve electoral participation.

Notable alumni

The UQU has produced a number of notable alumni including Governors-General of Australia, CEOs, Chief Justices of Australia and State Premiers.