News

The Student General Meeting (SGM) was held at 12.35pm last Thursday outside the OUSA office, in order to notify OUSA members of last year’s constitutional breach at the NZUSA election.

The breach in question occurred when three representatives of OUSA attended the NZUSA election last year. The three attendees were directed by an Executive motion to vote for former OUSA President, Francisco Hernandez, to be NZUSA president. However, two elected OUSA executive members and one other OUSA representative neglected to vote for him, thereby breaching the Constitution. At the SGM, OUSA President Ruby Sycamore-Smith gave the members an opportunity to “explain their reasons,” but they declined to comment.

Quorum was met at the meeting, with about 110 students in attendance somewhere around the Union area. Only about twenty people seemed to intentionally be there for the SGM, mostly made up of OUSA and Critic staff. A forum was also held prior to the meeting to present the questions for the upcoming referendum.

A sausage sizzle was presumedly staged to attract students to the SGM, but by the time the barbeque was ready, the SGM was over. Sam Clark, a sausage sizzle aficionado, said there were issues with the sauce, as well as the BBQ starting late. “It was actually a mustard bottle labelled as lemon juice, but contained tomato sauce; honestly, it’s just implorable.”

OUSA enthusiast Dan Stride was the speaker for the meeting where, for the most part, he gave a presentable speech. He moved the motion “that OUSA as per section 17 of the constitutional rules hereby validates the breach relating to the NZUSA presidential election of 2013.” No further discussion occurred relating to the incident and the motion was carried, confirming OUSA members had been notified of the breach. Unfortunately, the meeting concluded with Stride letting down the OUSA team by using the end of the meeting to launch a personal attack on a student, telling them to “fuck off and die.”