It was raining on my way into the office today. Bliss! The usually verdant gardens around the Graduate centre (where GSA has its offices) are looking pretty singed from the three 43ºC+ days last week. Rhodedendron, camellia, hydrangea and choisya will all need the grace of time to recover. But don’t be fooled by appearances. Battle-weary on the surface masks a nascent potential to burst forth at some opportune moment in a hopefully cooler, damper future. Student organisations, like the Graduate Student Association know what I mean.

But botanicals aside (well, for a moment anyway…), I want to take this opportunity to say welcome to 2009!

This is the President’s ‘blog’, and although I’ve never kept a blog before I hope you find my musings, ramblings, arguments and polemics enlightening. If something tweaks your interest, contact me! I started on January 4 as the new President of the GSA (we used to be called UMPA – changed our name late last year) – and what an absolute pleasure it is to represent the 14,000+ graduate students at the University of Melbourne. But what a year ahead! Already the economy is in economic meltdown, with no doubt thousands of graduate students staring down the barrel of unemployment. Kevin Rudd has declared that neoliberalism is now the unrobed emperor, and yet the recommendations of a recent government review into higher education (the ‘Bradley’ review), proposes reforms (deforms?) that suggest University’s should get back to parading around naked. More on this in weeks to come, but note that the Federal ALP government is touted to make some ‘big announcements’ in Feb/March about funding and regulation of Universities.

This year started with a hideous annihilation of over 1300 Palestinian lives as the fourth largest military in the world pummeled the Gaza strip with fire and brimstone. I've been criticized in the past by the likes of Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun) for my strident opposition to Israeli terror, but this time I make no apologies for doing everything possible to support the people of Gaza. The GSA executive this year made a vital decision to condemn Israel’s war on Gaza, and support a new student group being established called ‘Students for Gaza’. We are also calling on our research student members (yes, that might be you!) to join the international call for an academic boycott of the Israeli Academy. Email me if you’d like more info about this.

For those who don’t know me personally, ill unfurl a few petals for you:

• I study the Masters of Urban Horticulture at the Burnley campus
• I’m an avid gardener, and collector of potted citrus fruit trees (anything weird and wonderful, bring it my way), and I have research interests in Australian wild citrus species.
• I’m a socialist, an activists and a fighter for a better society and world
• I have a white chinchilla called Rosa (after Rosa Luxemburg), and another (just born) called Pomello (after Citrus grandis, the most voluptuous of the citrus fruits)
• I have studied in 5 faculties in the University: Medicine, Science, Arts, Education, and now Land & Resources. Perpetual student? Bah!
• I’ve been involved with, and committed to student organisations since I started uni (admittedly that was 13 years ago)

In amongst my commitments for the GSA Im doing a research project over the summer into a weird wild citrus species that’s endemic to the Northern Territory called Citrus gracilis. Last year I had some cuttings sent down to me, and I'm trying to propagate them in the greenhouses at Burnley. Citrus gracilis has never been photographed it its full fruiting glory, although the fruits are reportedly large and look like a cane-toad (seriously!). The NT Herbarium has one very old fruit in a jar of pickling fluid – but I’m yet to find anyone who’s seen one fresh. In the next pulpy segment (sorry) I’m hoping to get up to Darwin at some point to find one. But enough about elusive fruits.

Over the next few weeks a great number of new graduate students will be enrolling at the University. I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to speak at the welcome and orientation sessions hosted by each faculty and department – so if you’re new to unimelb I look forward to meeting you really soon. The other Office Bearers and I have committed ourselves to launching a massive campaign to demand that the state government provide public transport concessions to all postgraduate and international students, so at these welcome session we’ll be asking you to sign the campaign petition we have created. Melbourne’s public transport might have just experienced the biggest crisis in its privatized history, but at GSA the tracks ain't buckled yet :-)