Wollongong Undergraduate Student Association president Jasper Brewer must step aside immediately, student activists looking to save the troubled union say.
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University of Wollongong student Isabelle Liddy said the Young Liberal leader Brewer didn’t represent students’ interests, and secured the presidency without receiving a single vote in last year’s WUSA elections.
‘’Clearly the Young Liberals currently running the union have their priorities in supporting unpopular Government policies and not in representing student voices,’’ Liddy said.
‘’The student union is now in danger of being shut down… Since being undemocratically elected, funding to WUSA has stopped, the book bank program has ceased, and the union has been used to endorse fee increases.’’
Brewer was unavailable for comment but has previously told the Mercury he had WUSA’s best interest at heart and was not sabotaging the union.
But UOW student and National Union of Students NSW education vice president Chloe Rafferty argues that the Young Liberals have been lobbying behind closed doors for WUSA's dissolution.
It’s pretty obvious that president Jasper ‘no votes’ Brewer and the rest of the current WUSA executive do not represent most UOW students.
- Chloe Rafferty
‘’And that’s all without earning the vote or endorsement of a single student,’’ she said.
‘’It’s pretty obvious that president Jasper ‘no votes’ Brewer and the rest of the current WUSA executive do not represent most UOW students.’’
Rafferty also reiterated concerns that the WUSA executive was ‘’refusing to recognise dozens of undergraduates as union members and has been deleting comments and banning critical students from the WUSA facebook page’’.
‘’That’s why we are holding a protest on August 9,’’ she said.
‘’We are also rallying to oppose the Turnbull Government's fee increases and to save our student union.
‘’We’re calling on the university to hold democratic and widely advertised elections by September and to commit to stable funding for our student union.’’
We need activist student unions that will fight for our rights, not side with those trying to bleed us dry.
- Ceridwen Bush
UOW student Ceridwen Bush says it's important for students to take a stand.
‘’Turnbull had proposed a revolting budget that plans to cut uni funding, force students into more debt, and make us pay our HECs back when we’re barely making minimum wage,’’ she said.
‘’This is a dire time for young people, who are constantly under attack from the top. We need activist student unions that will fight for our rights, not side with those trying to bleed us dry.’’