Adelaide Student Politics

The October 30 meeting of the AUU Board saw a foray into a whole new sphere of university politics: University Council. In their latest meeting, the AUU executive voted unanimously to endorse Sam Kirchner and Emilio Roberts as candidates for the 2009 University Council student representatives. Mark Joyce (who isn't on executive) raised this in the Board meeting, arguing that the executive committee was using its power unreasonably by endorsing candidates for a political position. He said that it should be a vote of the full Board if it was to be done at all. In response, members of the executive committee from a range of factions replied that they believed their endorsement (which hadn't been used yet - it just created potential for them to send out an email or otherwise communicate their preference if they chose to) could result in the election of University Council student reps who were willing to communicate with the Board. In addition, it was suggested that if the endorsed candidates were likely to have a better attendance record than the incumbents. A number of Board members argued that the decision should be ratified by Board, despite the fact that it wasn't required. In the end Mark Joyce put forward a motion to do just that, which was narrowly defeated.

Predictably, the OSA was also an item of contention. While there was too much going on to keep an accurate record, my notes say that there was 'Craziness!' at this point. It appears that the latest OSA report didn't vary from the previous one, although it was noted that the Impressions Ball did go ahead, with somewhere between 50 and 100 guests. For some reason, the Board felt it appropriate to go in camera to discuss the OSA, making it impossible to provide an accurate report of what was discussed. I can tell you that a motion was passed asking the OSA to look into recent increases in international student fees. These were initially brought to Board's attention because the person making the query did not have any confidence in the OSA being able to look into it appropriately. While there appeared to be a lot of sympathy for this belief, the Board ended up passing a motion asking the OSA to deal with it anyway.

The other affiliate that had been placed on notice - the PGSA - made for some very interesting, if awfully confusing, discussion. Their President, Felicity Rai, argued that they shouldn't have been placed on notice because the PGSA had always bound their minutes at the end of the year to place them on public record - putting them up on the internet was an extra - and that they were completely surprised such a fuss was being made about their minutes. Most of the rest of the Board and observers were more surprised, as they thought that the fuss was being made about something completely different in the first place.

The only other major issue for the meeting was the selection of directors for Orientation 2009, particularly the process for choosing O'Camp directors. Mark Joyce complained that there was the appearance of selection based on factionalism. The two who were present from the selection pannel - Lavinia and Simone, who sat on the panel with an events staff member - agreed completely with Mark. They said that the directors had been selected with a view to their factionalism, or more specifically, their lack thereof. Despite Simone and Lavinia's factional differences, it appears that the panel agreed that O'Camp should be kept as a no-go zone for factional recruitment.

On a more positive note, Jake Wishart moved a unanimous motion to congratulate the AUU staff for their help with the 2008 election. Considering the way that the staff had to work ridiculously late and go far outside of their job requirements to make the elections happen - despite having been promised that an outside body would be taking care of this year's elections - this motion was well deserved indeed.

There should be an online exchange established in the first incarnation of the new AUU website, which is due to be released in January. This will be a free way for students to make contact with other people looking to buy textbooks, materials, beds, bikes and probably old exam papers as well. Originally the exchange was to be an externally run book exchange as a fundraiser for the SRC, but that idea appears to have been forgone in the interest of making it easier and more useful for the students who use it.

An On Dit team was appointed for 2009! One of the teams in the running withdrew, making it unnecessary to hold the elections that had been (rather stressfully) organised to take place in the last week of term. Good luck to Clare, Steph and Vincent for their editorship next year.

A third position was also created for student radio to spread the workload now that it's a volunteer position. There was some debate about this, particularly because the current team were looking to have Board director Fletcher O'Leary as their third, but Fletcher gave his scout's honour not to be involved in 'any factional shenannigans involving student media', which appeared to be good enough for the doubters...or at least enough to embarrass them into silence.

The SRC consititution draft was submitted to Board, where it created a lot of discussion. Any actual change was deferred to the next meeting, to ensure that the Board had time to read it thoroughly and consider their suggestions.

The final point was a brief discussion of the Board's interactions with the National Union of Students. Lavinia said that discussions with the NUS committee were proceeding regarding what would happen without an election and whether a waiver would be necessary. Aaron asked whether nominations would be re-opened, and was told that the Board could appoint people, and that Lavinia would let the Board know what was going on. This is very interesting in hindsight.