Today VUWSA held an SRC (Student Representative Council) meeting at Mount Street Bar and Cafe. Surprisingly it got quorum. Some contentious issues were discussed and farcically debated. But one issue wasnt, and that issue is that SRC’s are a crock of shit. They are not ‘councils’ and they are not fucking ‘representative’.
In todays hubbub, we saw a motion passed that stated that students are against free printing. A pretty good motion from Gecko, and one that makes economic sense. Unfortunately it also destroyed half of Joel’s Mandate. Its pretty fucking strange when a group of 50 people can effectively override the majority who voted for Joel. Im not being spurious, I find the whole situation pretty alarming. It can effectively neuter a student politician in the eyes of the student body.
Another motion that was passed was “that VUWSA (and vic students) support fair trade”. I have no beef with VUWSA exec members or individual students supporting fair trade. But I find it absolutely repugnant that an SRC can label all students under one political position. Argh, it really grind my gears. What also ground my gears was the awful advertisement for the SRC. As well as the fact that the topics discussed were NOT the ones mentioned in the single ad that was published. If they were, im sure more people would have attended. In VUWSA’s defense, it appears there was some managerial confusion as to which topics to publish. But thats no excuse. I strived in vain to find a reading of the constitution that would make the SRC judicially reviewable, alas I could not find one. But that does little to seethe my anger at the improper running of this SRC.
A group of fifty students is NOT representative of the student body. It also doesn’t have enough critical mass to be called a council. VUWSA should make sure that on issues of public opinion they either have a very large quorum, or even better, make sure that motions of political opinion are not allowed at all.