Laurence McLean
Hi everybody,
So as you all know, election period is coming up, and I was going to be running as Vice President Gender and Sexuality, as pre-selected by the Queer Collective, for the Pulse ticket. Pulse pre-selects candidates from the Queer, Womens and Environment Collectives because they believe in autonomy of positions. I feel it's very important to fill everybody in on the events of the last week and a half to bring everybody up to speed on what's happening.
On Friday the 10th of August, UQ Union held a council meeting and approved changes to the regulations pertaining to elections for the union. One of the councillors (Flynn Rush) who won under Pulse last year wasn't able to get a copy of the new regulations to be voted on, and wasn't given the appropriate notice as required in the UQ Union constitution. These regulations were approved, with an "urgency" motion to ignore the requirement of councillors needing notice.
On Monday the 13th of August, the election was called sometime between 11:00AM and 2:30PM, and nominations opened at the same time, which was different to previous years where an election had to be called at least five days before nomations were allowed to open. This took a week away from any other group's ability to prepare for elections. We were also unable to get a copy of the new regulations from the Returning Officer (who has to declare the elections) who told us (I was personally present at the time) at around 2:40PM on Monday that she didn't have a copy yet.
We got a copy of the new regulations from the Returning Officer on Tuesday the 14th of August to learn what had changed. Some new positions were created, rules regarding timing of elections and requiring extra people to "second" a nomination are what we noticed on Tuesday. Under the old rules, from the calling of an election we had four weeks until voting started. Under the new regulations, we only had two weeks, so this takes away many groups' time making it harder for anybody except the incumbents to take part in the elections.
On Wednesday the 15th of August, we found a new change to the regulations which we hadn't noticed the day before. Under the old rules, for a group to use a name that had been used in the last few years, signatures of at least ten candidates of people on the ticket from the previous year was required. Under the new rules, this was taken out and a form (called Schedule Eighteen) is required to "protect" a name from being used. This form can be submitted *before* elections are even called.
On Friday morning, my nomination for Pulse Gender and Sexuality Vice President as pre-selected by the Queer Collective went in. Our campaign manager was contacted by the Returning Officer on Friday night, telling us that we couldn't run under the name Pulse because it had already been registered.
Unless we come up with a new name by Midday Monday (tomorrow), we will all be running as independants, not as the group Pulse which we were going to be running as. Under the regulations, only electoral tickets and not independants appear on voting forms unless people specifically ask for a below the line form which is where Independants will appear.
It's important that students know what's going on with their student union. And it's pretty clear that the incumbents don't want anybody else running except themselves, using tactics such as taking our name away from us. So yea. That's what's happening this year with elections.