- Features -
go to empiretimes.com.au for more on the unfolding story!
silence in response was deafening. Hamish Richardson declined even to comment on why NLS was late to the student council meeting in February, that heralded the end of Harrison’s and Danenberg’s respective terms.
‘There were so many backroom, behind-closed-doors “caucus” discussion and most councillors were not informed at all as to what was going on’, Tomarelli says of the student council in the lead-up to the resignations.
Richardson is the convener of Activate but been unable or unwilling to help Danenberg and Harrison, his factional comrades. He now has the highest position in Activate after Harrison’s departure. It has been claimed that Richardson was ‘ringing around [the day of the SC meeting] to get the numbers against [Harrison]’.
This is a student council unable to communicate within itself, and even seemingly unwilling to do so. Transparency is not something they hope for, or will act towards, simply because it will not show them in a good light in this instance. Student council is not working to represent Flinders students so long as this is their approach to politics, and not willing to be accountable so long as this is their approach to the media.
Jason Byrne, member of the orange-shirted Fresh faction, was approached for comment. Unlike all Activate members, he gave a response. When asked if Harrison’s near-forced resignation was a punishment fitting of the crime, Byrne responded that ‘student unions must be held to high standards in integrity and transparency’. Empire Times is in agreement with Byrne in so far as that’s important. This FUSA student council has utterly failed on both counts. The council has hidden its dealings from the students and from student media. They have been stunningly unrepresentative, they have failed tests of integrity and they are unarguably deeply invested in opposing transparency in an effort to hide their dubious dealings. Byrne opposed Harrison’s condemnation of PIRs, as this is the stance taken by Unity. He also criticises the methods Harrison took in his pursuit of the policy. Byrne was out of the country at the time Harrison produced the motion. The fact that Harrison took the motion to the Executive Committee is another point Byrne objects to as Executive exists to ‘transact the business’ of FUSA, ‘on behalf of the Student Council, on urgent matters’ believed to be impossible to be delayed until the next Student Council meeting, according to the FUSA constitution (12.2). Women’s Officer, Angela Tomarelli believes ‘factionalism… to be the driving factor behind most of this’. She states her belief ‘the animosity towards Jack took up most of the discussion’ and that she feels ‘very strongly’ the treatment of ‘Jack and Gen in this instance was unfair’.
The test of transparency of the student council was this. All agreed to transparency in principal but once there was something to hide, it became a matter student politicians pulling editors aside to tell them they would issue no comment on the matter. Two office bearers have resigned due to feeling unable to continue working in the environment of student council, and with the people on student council. This is a time for transparency. This is a time for which student media was created. This is the time that members of the Activate caucus are trying to prevent us from doing our job by a considered campaign of silence. Present on campus at many of the key moments has been Alison Taylor, who holds no current official position in student council, university council, NLS, or the National Union of Students but has apparent influence on student politics. All things considered, there is one unavoidable fact: two democratically elected office-bearers have left, feeling unable to continue and have been all but removed, and the party responsible for doing this is so lacking in transparency and accountability, they refuse to let students know why.
AUTHOR Liam McNally, 23, Bachelor of Creative Arts (Creative Writing)
Liam’s favourite natural wonder is the Door to Hell - a pit of gas that’s been burning for 45 years.
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