First section mostly detailed explanation of how things got to this point.
Abe introduces himself – 0 to 15 sec.
17 sec – ‘I was going to run as the president. Candidate on Pulse (ALP) , there were also two other disqualified groups, I just want my voucher and fresher spread I don’t really get but apparently it’s funny to college people – 1.02
35sec – on Friday the 10th of august. There were last minute rule changes that were kept secret; I was at that meeting… small edit? The content of the changes were never made public until 4 days after….
Election Campaign week and voting week. 1.25
Pause here, this is where I asked for clarification – he was at the meeting where they made the changes but didn’t get to see them? What the? (you were at the meeting?)
2.06 – that’s right and the guy was denied access to them… explanation for why they didn’t get to see the changes… refused. 2.04.
2.04 – that raised our suspicions a bit but it wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Anyway on the Monday we found out that the elections were about to be called, we found out from the returning officer. We didn’t have a copy of the rules. Explains what the actual changes were, the time had been shortened to 10 days ‘and that was the first inkling we got that something was amiss’ – 3.28 – the second one was that party name rules had been changed. Any party with the name voucher was excluded and any one with the name of another party was excluded. In my eyes those changes were explicitly aimed at excluding voucher and fresher – 4.09. the third major change was the way protection was afforded to party names. It was automatic, but under the new changes you had to lodge a form. By the time every other student found out about the changes -4.54- none of this crystallized when we got a call after the close of business saying your ticket name has been rejected, we were faced with a situation of having to redo everything in 48 hours, had to reprint, brand recognition… also faced with – 5.53 – a situation in which designed to knock out any student except fresh.
6.07 – we made the decision that we wouldn’t legitimize the system that does this… myself and 60 other candidates withdrew.
Second section is about why they withdrew as well as the democracy for uni of qld union (uqu) movement/org.
Important intro to second section: these parties withdrew, nobody forced them to, and that’s prompted a lot of people to dismiss it or put up internet memes (I don’t always lose to fresh but when I do I claimed it was rigged in some way) why would they withdraw from the election completely?
Second section – that’s strictly accurate, our ticket name had been rejected… blah blah there’s no way that this system is legitimate
sorry I should also clarify that the effect of having your ticket name disqualified is you go below the line… explanation of above or below the line – good-
Second section – 58 sec. – so we’d made a number of requests at the meeting (explanation of trying to get copies of the changes) on Friday the 10th of august and we sent an email…. She told them that she didn’t have them, hadn’t seen them, or couldn’t give them to us. – 1.41
1.41 – democracy for uqu is all o fthe candidates who withdrew and also many other students who joined the movement since then… people who have approached us said I don’t usually do this but I don’t think this is fair. The bulk of our support comes from
2.39 – democracy for uqu is all about free and fair elections, that’s our reason for existence. (edit) calling on the uni to make sure that free and fair elections do take place. we held a rally to call on the university to call off the elections. At my disappointment they failed to call of the elections while they were still going on it would have made everyone’s life a lot easier. 11.17 – THERE’S A CLAUSE IN THE UNION CONSTITUTION THAT SAYS THE UNION IS OBLIGED TO HOLD A REFERENDUM IF THEY GET SIGNATURES OF 5% OF THE STUDENT BODY.– I’m absolutely confident that we’ll get that many we’ve been going for 36 hrs, what happens after that.. I think they’d be going into very dangerous territory by ignoring the student body. –4.15-
4.15 – that’s the most fascinating part about it for me, a bunch of our volunteers are people of that nature … people often say I’m a political but they’re not because they believe in democracy… people have gone a long way down the way of becoming an involved, concerned, engaged citizen.
4.49 – probably need a bit of an intro to this part (that stereotype exists about UQ students especially) I don’t think that’s a stretch at all to say that this might change the way UQ operates, the way UQ students operate because I’ve never seen this many at a rally and nobody has seen that in decades on this campus. And once people wake up to their own power their own authority over the affairs of this campus and this country, there’s no stopping them, I think once people are awake to their own latent power, capacity to affect change I don’t think there’s any going back and I think that people are going to be more engaged in this election and the next for the union and also for other elections. 14.18
5.40 – there have been 2 rallies so far and they both had turn outs f between… both rallies have been really positive, the vibes been really relaxed but people have also been really willing to engage with the message about democracy and about student control of student affairs. 15.05
6.26 Break – need intro!(why should you care?) -6.26 – there are a couple of really good reasons the first one is money. Union is messing with and if they’re not willing to face us at a fair election…. The second reason is student rep. has the capacity to be hugely beneficial to students. But there’s also another side… just a voice of their own on campus. And that’s something people have been waking up to in this movement as well, because once we start talking about elections we start asking why do we have elections? Important because of toga parties and the red room but also because they ought to be the ones advocating on our behalf. 16.50ish. you can’t have an election that’s rigged etc, and secondly they’re not fulfilling this role as your advocates and they’re not being held accountable for failing to do so. 8.16
About the union building rally open mic….
8.16 – so there were a number of people on the pulse ticket who were there unwillingly. And I know a lot of those people were either directly deceived or lied to in some way when they were signed on to that ticket… and when they found out that it was ‘ballot squatting’ they were outraged and many people tried to withdraw 8.46… person at the rally made a good point that they are victims in this situation, not perpetrators (edit) blame (edit)
8.59 – the referendum is worded that new elections must be held before the 22nd of October, which is the last week of classes… I’m confident that we will get new elections… forensic audit… the university will be responding in some way. I don’t know how and I don’t know when but the uni has the power….– the ref question is not perfect, we have to work within the confines of this system which is stacked against everyone who isn’t fresh. We’ll only get elections that are slightly better this time around– 10.00 – the same rules will still be in place but at least people will know in advance what the rules are and given their misbehavior I hope that the union officials will afford every student the chance to participate in those elections.10.22.
10.22 uni’s role so far has been very unclear, we do know that it has the capacity to step in. there’s no legal relationship that they have. But it does provide about 1 and a half million dollars of student’s money every year so it does have the capacity that can affet how its run. Funding and services agreement clauses. uni can move in and take over commercial properties… I wouldn’t lke to see that happen but that’s one of the powers the uni has….. to fix the situation..11.59 (end).
Third section – electricity thing. Just a misunderstanding.
0.36 – we did have a bit of hassle from security telling us to turn the noise down at various points and a friend of mine said he’d like to make a noise complaint about the construction. I think that’s an unenlightened attitude…. Hoping the next time students are expressing themselves politically security can be a little more relaxed. 1.26
1.41 – I haven’t heard anything from anybody in the union for a couple of weeks, well about one and a half weeks now. I’d very much like to, I’d like the have a convo with colin about why he couldn’t call off the elections. I’d like to talk to the newly elected people about how they feel about the way that the elections were conducted. But certainly the union hasn’t said anything to anyone that I’ve seen and I’m not sure why not.