Students protest housing crisis outside Australian Financial Review Business Summit

By HENRIQUE MONTEIRO

Several dozen students gathered outside of Sydney Town Hall on Tuesday to march to the Queen Victoria Building in protest of soaring rents in student housing.

The protest was set to disturb the Australian Financial Review Business Summit, where politicians such as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton, and CEOs of large companies such as Woolworths, Commonwealth Bank and Telstra were set to speak.

“The Government and the rich are colluding to keep marginal tax rates as low as possible for high-income individuals and living and housing costs for the poor as high as possible,” University of Sydney SRC Education Officer Ishbel Dunsmore said to the crowd.

In addition to targeting the rise in student housing rents, students have also protested against Peter Dutton’s boycott of the apology to Indigenous Australians, the Labor party tax cuts and the significant profits made by the Commonwealth bank during the pandemic due to the rise in interest rates.

Students protest growing wealth division

Addressing the wealth divide in Australia, Dunsmore said that “while students are being forced into suicide and homelessness, millionaires are drinking champagne and eating caviar inside the Hilton”.

The protest was held at the door of the AFR Business Summit as a symbol against the people responsible not only for the student housing crisis, but also most of the financial difficulties the average Australian citizen faces.

“The baskets are getting smaller and smaller, and the prices larger and larger,” said USYD Education Officer Yasmine Johnson in regard to Woolworths’ rising prices in 2022.

UNSW Education Officer Cherish Kuehlmann also made an appearance, addressing once more her midnight arrest on Saturday, after which she was held for four hours in a police station and was charged with aggravated trespassing.

Kuehlmann’s arrest was criticised for being intimidating and “oppressive”.

Other speakers present were USYD Education Officer Yasmine Johnson and President of the National Union of Students Bailey Riley.