Hey everyone,
I’m Jack Milroy, NUSA’s General Secretary for 2006.

I’m in my second year of an Arts/Law degree and also work for a Federal MP. My job as General Secretary involves alot of the organisation and administration of NUSA and the NUSA Council (your elected representatives). What this translates to is only slightly less mundane than it sounds. So if you enjoy bureaucracy, read on for my goals for 2006!

But first, many of you who have been around the Uni for a while will have an array of different opinions about NUSA. The most common one i hear (apart from how great NUSA is), and one I heard regularly at last years elections was along the lines of “NUSA doesn’t really represent me and what I want out of University.” To this all I can say is that you are probably right.

With a voter turnout of about 200 students over a week of elections last year, its is obvious that most students didn’t have their say.

So... do something about it, come to the office (near BotH) and see what you can help out with, run in this years elections, or at the very least VOTE IN THE NUSA ELECTIONS. It's your Students' Association, your representative body, it’s your right to say how you want it run.

Now, on to my goals for the year -

1. To ensure the long term financial viability of NUSA.

The backbone of NUSA has always been that it has had adequate resources to pursue a number of different programs and services. Under Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) we need to work hard to maintain a proper level of financial viability so that we can ensure NUSA remains a professional organisation and not a purely voluntary one.

I plan to investigate alternative funding sources for NUSA. The proposed University Markets and partnerships with local businesses are just some of the alternative funding services I have been looking into with the help of other councillors.

2. To encourage and promote voluntary membership.

NUSA must always have a broad and inclusive membership base, and we should reflect this diversity in our policies and actions. It would be a mistake to retreat into a comfort zone of a membership base of only 10-15 percent of the undergraduate student population. This would reduce us to an interest group or club, not a representative organisation.

I plan to hold regular meetings over the next couple of months with other student organisations, UNU, NUSPORT and NUPSA, to work towards a membership package that would enable us all to maintain a decent membership.

3. To maintain a healthy working relationship with the University.

This will be more important than ever this year as we make the transition to a VSU environment. I plan to keep in regular contact with the Vice Chancellor and other senior staff of the University.

While there may be things that NUSA and the University management disagree on, we should always maintain a dialogue in which to air these views.

4. To increase the effectiveness of the NUSA Council.

Anyone who has been to a NUSAC meeting will know how they can often become bogged down and confusing. This leads to longer than necessary and often, unproductive meetings.

I will encourage all Uni students to come along to the meetings to put their views to the people that run the Students Association. A healthy campus democracy will lead to better services and representation for students.

5. To reform the NUSA electoral process to make it more democratic and encourage wider participation.

You only have to look at the lack of candidates at last years elections to know that NUSA elections are tightly stage managed affairs. The factions in NUSA (like political parties) deal out the positions they will stand for and then, get this, campaign for each others candidates! Now, I am in a faction, aligned with the Labor Party, so its not factionalism that I’m against but the erosion of democracy through factionalism. Last years elections were my first look at this culture. If you are OK with this system deciding who is in charge of the organisation you pay fees into, then do nothing, otherwise take an interest at election time and vote.

The lack of diverse groups and candidates means that the whole of the student population isn’t always represented on the NUSA Council. This is a big problem. How can we claim to be properly representing the views of all students when it is clear that not all viewpoints are represented. The confusing voting process, combined with a general lack of knowledge about NUSA combine to produce appallingly low voter turnouts.

I will investigate different electoral systems which may include putting all the ballots on one paper (duh, wonder why no one has thought of that before...) and optional above the line voting (so you know which group you are actually voting for).

So finally, this is going to be a difficult year for the Students Association, with VSU set to come into force in second semester you will undoubtedly be hearing alot from us about joining up for the rest of the year. I urge you to do it, because the benefits that we provide will always far outweigh the cost. Remember, this is your Students’ Association, your representative to the University.

Don’t let us forget it.

Jack Milroy

General Secretary