The Non-Fungible Times. The Worst Australian. The Ellenbrook Trainstation.
The name changes every year, but the annual newspaper, written by students at the University of Western Australia, has always done one thing the same – poke fun at current affairs and pop culture, and offer a satirical take on pressing issues like housing or climate change.
While it will be recognisable to commuters who are confronted by costumed students selling the satirical rag – which has raised more than $2 million for charity across its lifetime – it may come as a surprise that the tradition is entering its 95th year.
This year, money raised will support On My Feet, a program helping people at risk of or experiencing homelessness, and Perth Homeless Support Group, which provides food services, outreach, personal care and transitional housing support across the city.
The secret to its satire? Putting university students together in a room and seeing what bubbles up. It usually descends into laughter quickly, according to PROSH director Hannah Bygrave.
“Even just if we’re out with friends, someone says something funny, and you have to just write it down,” she said.
Bygrave, alongside deputy director Xavier Anthony, are running the show this year after writing for the paper in previous editions.
Last year, one of Bygrave’s favourite articles addressed the rapper formerly known as Kanye West and his wife Bianca Censori, who showed up in a see-through dress to the Grammys.
“I wrote an article that was a critique, saying she should have had a full bush,” she said.
Anthony drummed up a piece about the Drake concert, and the measles outbreak that occurred in the aftermath.
“I said that I think it was God’s plan,” he said, riffing on the Drake song of the same name.
“Measles were sent to punish people for going to a Drake concert,” he said.
The paper’s release coincides with a fundraising event held during the day on Wednesday, March 18.
However, for much of the paper’s history, their main fundraiser was held at night – and also included a parade with floats.
That changed in 1959, when the paper was banned from running the following year due to the “poor quality of the floats and the stupid behaviour of a small section of the student body over the past few years”.
“We are losing a lot of public support and goodwill. More complaints about people being hit with tomatoes have been received,” Bill Barker, from the UWA Guild, said at the time.
“It is all very well to have an inter-faculty ‘all-in’ fight but it is not the sort of thing you do in the city streets in front of thousands of people.”
From 1961, the event was held in daylight.
The paper has also come under fire for missing the mark on some of its jokes in more recent years – including being accused of racism in 2013 – but Bygrave said in 2026 they had tried to include a “good mix of everything”.
The latest edition is being kept mostly under wraps, but certain sections like letters to the editor, a PROSH-style take on horoscopes, and a real estate section (this year featuring a cardboard box) make an appearance every year.
“We like to have a good balance between worldly affairs and a lot of local news and local stories, because 99 per cent of our audience is buying in Perth – they want something particularly relevant to them, and stuff that they will find funny,” Anthony said.
This year, Bygrave said she was excited about a “choose your own adventure” story that would be a first for the paper.
“That was quite fun – to watch the team put that together on a big whiteboard,” she said.
Last weekend, the team laid this year’s edition out, but have been working since December to come up with stories.
The team will work from Friday through to Sunday to put the final touches on the annual paper before the main event on Wednesday.
Students will arrive at campus from 5am for a “Red Bull rave” and hash brown breakfast before heading out across Perth dressed in costumes to sell copies for a gold coin donation.
In the lead-up, students have hosted quizzes, writers’ nights and the annual PROSHlympics to plan the paper and engage fundraising teams.
This year a record 850 students are registered to participate.
Students will be out from 7am until 10am to sell copies, with the edition available to be purchased online after the event.
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