Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 20. August 27 1979

The Last Election

The Last Election

The last election, that of Women's Rights Action Co-ordinator (the only part-time position open) was again a one-person race.

Denese Black gave a brief speech, outlining her experience in Women's Rights and expressing her ideas of what the job involves and what she would like to do with it. Denese has been Women's Rights Officer at Otago and has had experience at organising abortion and Gay Rights campaigns, seminars and forums.

She sees WRAC as being an important position, for it allows a positive women's voice to student politics. She would use the position to co-ordinate activities on the various campuses, to help the local Women's Rights Officers and to increase the awareness of Womens Rights at every campus.

During both questioning and discussion, there seemed to be almost no opposition to Denese taking the position. She has, obviously had the experience, she is dedicated to NZUSA policy and she convinced those people there of her competence and ability to do the job.

The only form of dissent came from Lincoln delegates. They believe that WRAC is unnecessary and don't believe that Lincoln women need an awareness of Women's Rights. "Lincoln women are all equal".

After Denese left the room, there was nothing but praise coming from each campus. Going straight to the vote, Denese was elected on the first ballot 37 for, 5 invalid.

So, the situation at something after 4.00 a.m. on Thursday morning was that NZUSA has appointed two out of the four vacant positions for 1980. It is not a rare occurence for positions not to be filled on election night and it proves that NZUSA, although instituting a harrowing election process, is ensuring that we get competent national officers. It is the money of students that pays these officers, and their quality corresponds to the quality of NZUSA's work—so students can fairly expect such a searching and critical process.

Stephen A'Court.