Matt Harris, Perth
Many University of Western Australia students have been left wondering what the Student Guild actually means by its slogan "your guild, your voice" following the events of October 26. At an ordinary general meeting that day, students voted 91-6 (with four abstentions) to give the Guild's postgraduate students, international students, Indigenous, environment and queer departments voting rights on guild council. Currently, these departments have non-voting representatives on the council.
The motion was moved by Alexis Vassiley, an activist on the Left Alternative ticket elected to the 2005 Guild Council, and seconded by Resistance activist and guild councillor Fred Fuentes.
In direct opposition to the decision of the general meeting, a guild council meeting that evening voted 9-5 to deny the queer and Indigenous students' representatives their votes. Most of the guild council had been present at the general meeting. Fuentes described the council's decision as "outrageous".
Three motions aimed at silencing the guild on political issues were overwhelmingly defeated at the ordinary general meeting. Moved by Liberal Party member Chris Pearce, the motions called on the guild to abstain from taking a position of state and federal elections, to refrain from handing out election advertisements and to "remain impartial on issues not directly relevant to student welfare".
Despite students overwhelming rejection of this call for an "apolitical" student guild, guild councillors argued that the guild should not take positions on issues that did not "directly" impact on students, in order to oppose motions to give support to jailed unionist Craig Johnston and to sign a solidarity statement with the people of Venezuela.
Another motion will be put to the next guild council meeting to implement the will of the general meeting. Activists in the womens, queer and international students departments as well as those involved in Resistance and Left Alternative, have begun discussing a campaign to collect 500 signatures to force the guild to have a referendum on the issue of department votes.
[Matt Harris is a member of the UWA Resistance Club.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 3, 2004.
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