BY VIV MILEY
The student association at the University of Technology, Sydney is embroiled in a legal wrangle with the university administration and is facing an uncertain future. The 2000 student association (SA) elections were declared unconstitutional by the administration. The crisis stems from changes made to the constitution last year.
In 1999, the student representative council (SRC), the governing body of the SA, passed a motion to set up a constitutional working party to investigate constitutional amendments. The constitution had not been changed since it was introduced in 1990, when UTS merged with the Kuring-gai College of Advanced Education. Amendments were required to make several office-bearer positions permanent and to allocate more funds to SA departments.
SA president Ryan Heath presented draft proposals to the working party last March. After approval from SRC, the proposals were presented to students in a series of constitutional review forums, held over a period of three months across all UTS campuses. From the forums, a reworked set of proposals emerged and were approved by a special SRC meeting.
There were 30 proposed amendments. Some changes merely clarified constitutional definitions and officially recognised office-bearer positions. Other proposals changed the structure of the SRC and its executive, the make-up of voting members of the SRC and increased honorariums for some positions. There were also amendments which extended voting rights to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander officer and to split the position of gay and lesbian officer into two positions, to be renamed queer sexuality officers.
The proposals were published into a broadsheet and distributed among students. A series of 14 student general meetings were held over a period of 10 days, and on all UTS campuses, so as not to exclude any students. The results of the meetings released in August showed an overwhelming majority (93%) in favour of the constitutional changes.
With approval from the student body, all that remained for the constitution to become valid was the approval of both the UTS administration and the university council.
Before the changes could go to the university council, they first had to be approved by the administration. However, the next scheduled student affairs and equity committee meeting was cancelled, meaning that ratification of the amendments was delayed until the next meeting.
On October 23, the student affairs and equity committee unanimously voted to recommend to the council that the constitutional changes be supported. However, the next university council meeting did not consider any substantive matters because it was a dinner meeting.
The SA went ahead with the SRC election based on the amended constitution. This decision was also based on an understanding that the university council would accept the recommendations of the student affairs and equity committee.
The SA was in a bind: if it went ahead with the election based on the "provisional" new constitution, it would run the risk of the elections being declared void. On the other hand, if the SA had postponed the election until the amendments were passed, it would have been in breach of the current constitution.
After the elections, the amendments were rejected by the university council. No adequate reasons were given.
Several weeks into the new university year, the SA is now was faced with the prospect of not being able to get access to the money allocated to it from student fees. At the moment, the university administration is claiming the SA does not have the necessary trustees to be signatories for the SA bank account because, under the new constitution, the positions of secretary and treasurer were renamed general organisers. Therefore, according to the old constitution recognised by the administration, these positions do not exist.
There is now the possibility that a by-election will have to be called for the treasurer and secretary positions, a move that would unnecessarily hamper the operations of the SA.
The refusal of the university council to pass the democratically decided constitutional amendments is an infringement of the independence of the student association and the democratic rights of UTS students.