STUDENTS TO BRING AUSA TO ITS KNEES
AUSA could be insolvent by the end of October, according to its own executive. If it becomes insolvent, the buildings it owns around the Quad will become the property of the University of Auckland.
The AUSA Executive has been in negotiations with the University to secure funding for next year.
However, We Are The University in Auckland has called for an SGM where they hope to pass a motion which would see no compromise reached “until such time as any proposed agreements have been made publicly available to all association members and ratified by a simple majority at another general meeting by the association.”
President Arena Williams believes that this motion will be to the overall detriment of the association.
“The problem is that if the motion is to pass, there is no time in the rest of the semester to pass the agreement needed with the University. AUSA will become functionally insolvent,” she said.
Because they are elected by the student body, Williams said that the Executive should have the power to make the agreements.
“This is something the Executive should be able to decide, it’s got nothing to do with democracy. We have consulted club presidents and faculty associations as much as we could have.”
But We Are The University in Auckland believes that the University intends to exploit the situation.
“Management intend to exploit the situation by using the inexperience of this year’s executive to once and for all end student control over student affairs,” says their Facebook event for an emergency public assembly to save AUSA.
Williams feels that the petition is a bullying tactic from a group of students intended to diminish the role of the Executive.
However, the group says that students need to take control of the situation, and calls for “student control over student affairs”.
“It is time students took control of the situation with direct democracy. It is time to end the broken practice of weak representation and immature personal politics,” said We Are The University.
The SGM will be held on Wednesday 3 October