Adelaide Student Politics

Posted 8th June

Rebuilding from VSU has been one of the key objectives of the AUU Board for the past three years. The big decision last year was what to do with commercial operations (i.e. the decision to sell the Unibar). This year, it’s constitution.

Earlier this year, AUU General Manager David Coluccio released his view on how the student union needs to function. Given its confidential status, Board moved in-camera to discuss the (by all accounts highly critical) report. ASP knows the report contained four different models of AUU governance, with Collucio’s preference being the first model (in which the professional management has more power than student representatives in the running of the AUU (i.e. a professional AUU Board), with the SRC being the peak representative body for students).

After discussing this report, AUU Board remained in camera to discuss most of their constitution up to the 21st May meeting, when the finally moved out of camera thanks to a motion put forward by Paris Dean (Activate) which managed to garner majority support. My feelings on their remaining in-camera for as long as they did have been aptly documented here, and as well as by Hannah Mattner in On Dit’s latest environment edition. Arguments for their remaining in camera until the majority has come to an agreement are the need to present a unified Board recommendation to the student body. It is crucial for a majority of students to vote ‘yes’ on the Constitution for it to pass come this years student elections, so staying in-camera may be argued as an effort to prevent the constitution from becoming politicized.

That said, when the motion was moved to move out of camera at the last Board meeting, Hannah and I re-entered the room to find Board heatedly arguing the three different options before them for how to fill vacancies on the AUU Board that often arise during a term. Option 1 was for appointment by Board, option 2 was for it to be the next person on the election results (currently, this would mean who came 19th on the ballot), and option 3 was to make it the choice of the person who has resigned (thereby maintaining the factional balance on Board).

Vacancies

Rhiannon Newman (Activate) moves a motion for the constitution to allow vacancies to be filled as per option 3, which is the model currently followed by Sydney University. Yasmin Freschi (Clubbers/Independent) wants this motion amended so as to remove the choice if the resignation is the result of misconduct.

A motion for option 2 is put forward. This being the first constitutional discussion on Board I have heard, my note taking here got a little dodgy as I tried to understand what’s going on. Paris Dean speaks out strongly against the first motion, arguing that they will lead to dummy candidates, and is very liable to be abused. Yasmin disagrees. Option three is put to a vote, and lost (5 for, all others against).

Paris then argues against option two. He calls it the ‘lottery option’, and says he is extremely concerned about it when taken in conjunction with the Boards new ability to kick people off (‘as if Board operates like an impartial court,’ Paris derided). He is concerned that it will lead to Board directors with little factional support being kicked off in favour of less well-scoring but more supported candidates who are next on the ladder.

There is vocal disagreement with this assessment. Many doubt whether it would be possible to get 12/16 (16 being the new number of Board directors, sacking someone requiring a 2/3 majority) of Board to agree on anything without good reason, and believe that any attempts to act in the way Paris has suggested would be quickly picked up by student media. The high cost of by-elections, which seem to be what Paris is arguing for instead of the three options presented to Board, is bought up several times as money that could be better spent.

Paris does not alter his mind. “By-elections are an uncommon occurrence. The point is to institute safeguards. The path to rorting is so clear through these ‘reforms’”.

An impasse being reached, the vote is put, and carried in favour of option 2, meaning the 17th highest scoring person in the annual elections would be appointed to replace the resignation. Paris and Andrew Anson (Pulse) have their dissent noted.

If anyone can find it…

A motion is then put to put a copy of a briefing paper (produced by AUU President Lavinia Emmett-Grey) outlining the main changes to the constitution which have been agreed on to be put on the AUU website. I’ve seen a hard-copy of this paper, and it covers a lot worth reading. I however, can’t find it on the website, the closest thing being the AUU Strategic Plan for 2010-2013. No email or links to this briefing paper have been made available either through a members email or on the AUU main page. If anyone knows where this wonderful briefing paper has gone, please let me know.

A clause of the constitution is passed, which allows the Australian Electoral Commission to conduct the annual elections.

3-Day Elections

Mark Joyce and Sonja Jankovic (both Liberals) place a motion before Board to change the election from the current 5-day to a 3-day voting period. Mark also puts forward a procedural to put the motion straight to a vote (with no discussion), which is lost. This being the case, Sonja makes a case for a 3-day period. She says it will lead to less harassment to general students from would-be AUU directors, and says she does not see why what is done in 5 days cannot be done in 3.
A procedural is put to defer this motion to the next meeting, which results in a 5-5 tie before Lavinia’s casting votes leads to its passing.

Call this a binding caucus?

This concludes the agenda discussion of constitution, and several other issues are covered before a question about the Presidents Report is bought up in ‘Any Other Business’. Mark says that Lavinia has included a comment about a Board director who has said to her that he/she is considering running a ‘no’ campaign on the Constitution, which he wants to know more about. Observers aren’t kept in the dark for long, as Yasmin takes a refreshingly straight-forward attitude: “Paris, why are you running a ‘no’ campaign?”

Paris attempts to redefine the issue. He says it was poor form of Lavinia to put a confidential conversation in her report, although he says Board should have seen it coming. “You all keep jam-packing controversial stuff in”, he accuses. Paris acknowledges that a lot of the changes are administrative, but that many others have the potential to radically alter the operation of the AUU for the worst.

Rhiannon however has little sympathy. She says everyone has compromised, and that the conclusion is an improvement on the current constitution. She also reiterates the fact that the constitution will not pass unless all those running encourage a ‘yes’ vote.

Lavinia says that if Paris sees two categories of reform, he should make these clear and put in some proposal to deal with them.

Aaron Fromm (Independent/Clubbers) defends Lavinia’s decision to put Paris’ comment in the report, saying that she was acting in the best interests of the organization. Mark however agrees with Paris that many of the changes are more controversial than others, and that they should not be put to a block vote.

David Coluccio reminds Board what a long and difficult exercise writing the Constitution has been. He says that Paris’ theories of democracy are not reasonable, and says that Paris argues against every suggestion, idea or reform. “Your role has been as a block”. He challenges Paris to put forward his proposals in a “positive manner”.

Andrew seems to be finding the debate tiresome. He says that this should all be raised in the constitutional working group, this not being the right forum.

Paris then defends himself. He says that he was not responsible for this being on the agenda, and so naturally is not prepared to do what they ask. He appears to be arguing that he has been ambushed. Nonetheless, “there are some things which I won’t support or compromise on. The ability to throw people off the Board is one of those”. He says he will make a submission with his proposals soon.

Yasmin doesn’t think much of allowing students to vote on specific aspects of the constitution. She argues that it won’t work, and will lead to a constitution as bad as the one currently used.

Ash Brook (Independent/Indy-Go) speaks for the first time in the meeting. He says the constitution to be presented has been the joint decision of Board. “I don’t see how you can campaign against it and consider yourself a good Board director”.

Andrew tries to close the meeting through a procedural. It’s a tie, but Lavinia’s casting vote comes in handy once again. The meeting remains open.

Rhiannon states that she plans to vote for the constitution in full at the next meeting. Andrew repeats that this discussion is highly unproductive, and that these concerns should be raised in the constitutional working group. Paris says that the Constitution should ultimately be up to students, as this is the entire reason it is put up for referendum. He says he will have some suggestions for Board soon.