Students fight to hold elections

Students fight to hold elections

By Nick Middleton

CANBERRA — A general student meeting (GSM) has been called to sack the current University of Canberra Student Association executive and replace it with an executive that would hold office until March.

Elections would be deferred until March 1998. Another motion to the GSM is that last year's National Union of Students delegates represent the university at the December NUS national conference.

ACTION, a broad left ticket in the upcoming student elections, is calling on students to come to the GSM and vote down these motions so that everyone gets a chance to vote for the student association and NUS delegates they want.

Resistance member Nick Soudakoff said, "While the sentiment for sacking the association is justifiable, students should have the right to choose the executive. A GSM of 50 or so electing an executive that will hold office for seven months is not democratic. It's quite revealing that the two initiators of this GSM are two of last year's NUS delegates.

"ACTION is running as an alternative because we believe the student association should be active in issues that affect students, not issues that benefit themselves."

ACTION includes members of Resistance, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students Association and Rubber Rose Ranch (the sexuality collective).

From GLW issue 291