Wollongong SRC Still blowing student funds with only 6 months til VSU - January 2006. PDF Print E-mail
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MEDIA RELEASE

University of Wollongong LIBERAL CLUB

 

Monday, 16 January 2006:



Wollongong SRC Still blowing student funds with only 6 months til VSU!

 

With the passing of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005 or Voluntary Student Unionism, most student associations have felt the need to re-assess their finances and prepare for a tough year ahead. However, newly elected President Jess Moore is mould breaking in her policies of paying friends money for previously unpaid jobs, employing staff without advertising positions and ignoring the constitution.

 

Wollongong Undergraduate Student Association President Jess Moore, in contempt of the constitution, withheld meeting agenda and the proposed budget until literally seconds before the council meeting. The association's constitution, stipulates that all delegates are to have the agenda electronically sent to them at least 24 hours ahead of time, however in order to rush through an ill-prepared budget and several dodgy motions, the agenda was withheld until literally seconds before the meeting was to begin.
Despite numerous methods available to her to contacting representatives, phone, fax and email the easiest ways, some delegates are still without their copies several days after the meeting.
Apparently there is also dissension in the ranks, with Media Coordinator Grant Coleman attempting to wrestle control of the meeting from the President.
One of his motions was to have all advertising removed from the Tertangala, this is an ideological motion, because financially it is completely without logic. In 2005, the Tertangala ran a $90,000 deficit and that was with $10,000 of advertising. $100,000 in a VSU environment is going to be hard to justify to the liquidation courts.
That this was an ideological motion to remove the 'evil' corporate advertising, it was surprising that he wished to remove advertising of charities from the student's paper also, until the media officer refined the motion to cover Christian charities only, and then his priorities were clear.
With several questionable motions put forth, the most curious were to:
  • Pay $12,000 to maintain a website that attracts less than 30 visitors per week, without raising the position for public tender.
  • Pay Executive member Jenna McConnachie $7,000 to campaign a leftist agenda, which is normally an unpaid expectation of her position.
  • And to replace an office worker who was made redundant only 2 months ago by the same group on last year's council.

WUSA Constitution:

http://wusa.uow.edu.au/regulations/constitution.pdf