Can't wait for the country to be run by these visionaries.

One day, student politicians will make headlines for reasons that don’t involve them screaming abuse at each other, having little slapfights at booze-soaked black-tie dinners, or generally acting like a flock of human ibis. Today is not that day.

For people not up to speed on the latest season of Australia’s Next Top Gronks, the National Union of Students is currently wrapping up its five-day annual National Conference at Monash Uni in Melbourne. On paper, the conference (or #NUSnatcon as it’s hashtagged on Twitter) is where representatives from Australia’s universities gather to discuss the major policy issues affecting students, debate how best to approach them, and eventually decide a course of action for the next year.

In reality, it looks a bit more like this:

That video, taken by reporters from Sydney Uni student newspaper Honi Soit, apparently depicts a scuffle between members of rival student political factions, in which a male in a t-shirt reading ‘Student Unity 2015’ can be seen pushing his way through a knot of arguing people and grabbing a woman, before being pulled away himself. There’s a brief pushing match and a lot of swearing, before the camera is covered up by a hand.

Honi Soit, who are covering the conference, have a write-up of that incident here, but it’s far from the only bizarre, aggressive, nonsensical thing to take place over the last five days. Attendees have reported on a culture of rampant physical and verbal intimidation, abuse, and harassment of women that pervades the conference, to the point where hired security is asked to step in and keep students apart..

#nusnatcon it’s pretty gross seeing how aggressive SAlt is getting towards other women, following them & invading personal space — BEYONCE PAD THAI (@ShayleeActually) December 9, 2015

The way people have treated both each other and our hosts had been absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. (3/5) #nusnatcon — NUSNatCon 2015 (@nusnatcon15) December 10, 2015

It is never ok to yell and shout abuse, it is never ok verbally and physically assault each other. (4/5) #nusnatcon — NUSNatCon 2015 (@nusnatcon15) December 10, 2015

Honi Soit‘s liveblog has been exhaustively chronicling the conference’s steady descent into an episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and some of the highlights are completely unbelievable if you’re not familiar with this kind of environment. The earlier dispatches from the conference’s first day were relatively tame, describing the agenda, the thrust of some of the speeches, and the general low-key nastiness of the main room.

But by nightfall of that first day, things had started to get weird. One of the main features of NUS’ National Conferences, besides people being horrible to one another, is the drinking culture. According to observers, delegates typically stay up drinking so late, and so hard, that the next day’s agenda doesn’t kick off properly until around 4pm.

That probably explains some of the more surreal behaviour that Honi Soit have witnessed. There’s a certain poetry in knowing that some of the people who will run state budgets and ministries one day have, at some point in their professional careers, knowingly ingested paper.

According to @honi_soit, eating paper is common in stupol circles. these are the people who will run the country pic.twitter.com/ujvwPKXWNl — Belsnickel (@catherinebouris) December 10, 2015

There’s very little video footage of any of this, because the conference has a longstanding practice of banning video recordings throughout its sessions and expelling people who don’t comply.

For those interested I did try periscope last night at 3am but quickly got shut down by @NUS_President ? #nusnatcon pic.twitter.com/H0Gys68zbi — tom joyner (@tomrjoyner) December 10, 2015

If all this bores you to tears, fair enough. But it’s worth noting that the most senior members of NUS — the office bearers, nominally in charge of portfolios like Education, Environment and Welfare — are paid annual stipends of up to around $36,000 a year in money levied from university fees paid by regular students. A few years ago, NUS was spending more than $200,000 of students’ money on office bearer’s salaries, with less than half that amount going to fund student-run campaigns.

That could help explain why NUS managed to accrue losses of around $350,000 by the end of the 2014/15 financial year. That’s a pretty hefty price for a subsidised all-in brawl/piss-up.

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Feature image via Honi Soit.

Correction: this article originally stated NUS’ National Conference is being held at La Trobe University. It is being held at Monash University.