To poll or not to poll?
By Nick Middleton
CANBERRA — Students at the University of Canberra go to the polls on October 21-23 to elect next year's Students Association. A petition has been tabled by a Labor Right member for a student general meeting (SGM) to postpone the elections until March, sack and replace the current executive and allow last year's National Union of Students delegates to maintain their positions until March.
The initiator of the petition is also an NUS delegate. The SGM, ironically, may only be held during the election itself.
The petition was supposedly tabled because the elections were not called with proper notice, and there have been rumours that this means that NUS delegates will not be accredited to the national conference in December.
"This is a total farce", commented Resistance member Nick Soudakoff. "On the one hand we have a faction of Labor Right that wants to postpone the elections and elect themselves as the new exec. On the other we have a Labor Right exec that has called the elections late, but wants them held, and is trying to bureaucratically stop the SGM from happening.
"Ironically, they are arguing that the SGM is unconstitutional! Both factions are scared of student involvement."
ACTION, a broad left ticket in the elections, is urging students to attend the meeting if it is called to vote down the motions.
"ACTION is running as an alternative ticket because we believe the association should be active on issues that affect students, not issues that benefit themselves", said ACTION candidate Soudakoff.
The ticket includes members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student Association and Resistance, and has been endorsed by Rubber Rose Ranch (the sexuality collective).