Tuesday the 9th of June saw the AUU hold a Constitutional Forum open to attendance to general students. This forum was advertised in an AUU members email sent several weeks ago, with a request that those who were interested in attending RSVP. From all indications, not more than 6 people did so, and five of them turned up (including yours truly). The forum was organized and chaired by AUU President Lavinia Emmett-Grey, and attended by Board Director Jason Virgo.
Lavinia opened the forum by giving a brief outline of the constitutional process as it has already occurred. I wrote down (by no means directly quoting Lavinia):
• Constitutional reform of the AUU must be passed by a majority of at least 10% of the student population, as well as AUU Board and University Council
• Several changes were tabled to University Council last year, which mainly dealt with references to Universal Student Unionism (now gone, though perhaps not for long). These were rejected by Council as they were not in the desired Constitutional format.
• The AUU has four stakeholders: affiliates, its staff, the university, and the student body. Consultation and strategic planning (regarding, among other things, the constitution) had occurred with the first three earlier in the year
• The AUU General Manager has presented a report to Board, and Lavinia has produced a benchmarking paper with other student unions.
• All students, and not just AUU members, will have the right to vote on the constitution. The new constitution retains this for all union elections.
• Board terms to be shifted from commencement immediately after elections to at the start of the next year. This seen as beneficial as it will provide training time for Board members, as well as allowing them time to get over burning each other’s banners and trying to kill each other during election week
• Board will have improved powers to deal with misconduct, including expelling a Board member (with a 75% majority at two subsequent meetings) and replacing them with whoever came 17th on the ballot (aside: The Liberals, surprisingly, seem to be supporting this measure, despite it being formulated so that in future they cannot speak out against what they see as corruption).
• Changes are being made so that the heads of AUU Committees no longer have to be AUU Board directors. This means that positions such as UAC (Union Activities Chair) will be directly elected, and may go to someone who excels at event planning as opposed to politics.
• Membership clauses have been written loosely, so as to apply regardless of what changes occur federally to things such as the student services fee.
• Board has been reduced to 16 members. And by-elections, which Lavinia says cost around $10,000 each, are gone (instead, the next on the ballot moves up to fill an empty space on Union Board).
After some discussion, the forums recommendations to Board were that:
1. The number of Board directors be made a separate question within the constitution
2. That Boards ability to expel Board directors for misconduct be made a separate question
3. And that the reasons why students were consulted last of all (probably the biggest bone of contention the forum had) be released from in-camera.
The forum offered no united opinion on the number of Board directors, or the ability to expel Board directors. However, while they appreciated being given the chance to speak at all, it is fair to say that all weren’t thrilled about the order of consultation. Especially resented by some was the notion that all on Board spoke for students as opposed to their own interests (and thus, a question on how truly representative Board was to speak on behalf of its primary stakeholder with no initial consultation), the possibility that students will feel ‘duped’ out of the way their union functions, and the resultant ease with which a ‘no’ campaign may be mounted and a year of constitutional reform wasted.
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