Proposed changes to the PARSA Constitution

COMPLETE OVERHAUL OF PARSA CONSTITUTION AND ELECTORAL
REGULATIONS by Ben Niles
Proposed changes to the PARSA Constitution will allow the membership to directly
elect all Office bearer positions within PARSA as well as implement eligibility criteria
for certain positions such as requiring the Indigenous Australian Officer to selfidentify as a member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Following the 2014 PARSA elections, which this newspaper dubbed ‘The
Postgraduate Game of Thrones’, the PARSA Postgraduate Representative Committee
(PRC) established a sub-committee to provide recommendations to improve the
PARSA Constitution and electoral regulations with the aim of avoiding a repeat of
the events experienced during the 2014 election. This sub-committee, led by the
PARSA legal counsel Michael Curtotti and consisting of College of Law lecturer Ryan
Goss and two PARSA representatives, Upul Wickramasinghe and Chris Wilson, was
only given a short time frame to complete their complex task such that any
recommendations could be discussed and implemented prior to the 2015 PARSA
elections. The sub-committee worked tirelessly over the summer to deliver an indepth report to the PRC at the first full meeting of the PRC following the hugely
successful PARSA O-week period. The report totalled 43 pages and included an
entirely new Constitution as well as separate electoral regulations, both delivered
with enough time to be enacted prior to the 2015 elections, if approved by the
PARSA members in a general meeting and the University Council.
The proposed Constitution, based on the ACT Government’s model Constitution,
takes things from the current PARSA Constitution, ANUSA documentation, and from
other student representative bodies around the country. To assist with student
consultation, the sub-committee released a survey to the Postgraduate community
which received almost 700 responses showing that interest in the mechanisms of
PARSA is high from the membership.
The major changes in the proposed Constitution and the updated electoral
regulations include:
 Moving PARSA to a direct election model for all positions
 Establishment of a General Secretary on the PRC.





Establishment of an independent body (the Disputes Committee) and
procedure to deal with allegations of misconduct by PRC members, including
a right and method of appeal
Setting out the methods of removing a PRC member, one through a lack of
support, the other through misconduct
Setting eligibility criteria for the renamed Indigenous Australian Officer and
the International Student Officer
More explicit procedures on how a PARSA election is conducted
Provision of a list of electoral offences enforceable by the Returning Officer
The report was presented to a full meeting of the PRC, including the recently filled
vacant PARSA positions, on Friday 27th of February which drew spirited discussion
from the representatives in attendance. Much of the comments and
recommendations from the PRC members present centred on improving the
documents provided in the report as well as further strengthening the accountability
on all PRC members elected in the future. “The move to directly elect all office
bearers by the Postgraduate community will allow our voters for the first time to
question the qualities, motives, and qualifications of every candidate in every
position prior the election. I believe this additional accountability is in the interest of
our members and PARSA as a whole” says PARSA Executive and current Treasurer
Chris Wilson.
The PARSA PRC has commenced an additional two week student consultation period
following the release of the sub-committee’s report. The report is now available on
the PARSA website where it is open for written comment up to Wednesday 18 th of
March 2015. An Ordinary General Meeting to vote on the new Constitution is
scheduled for Tuesday 24th of March as advertised on the PARSA website,
parsa.anu.edu.au, with all Postgraduate students encouraged to attend.
For additional details, please contact the PARSA President at
parsa.president@anu.edu.au or the Communications Officer via
parsa.communication@anu.edu.au.