VUWSA’s Constitutional Shake-Up (if anyone gives a shit)

Words by Niamh Vaughan (she/her) 

On 22 March, VUWSA’s Initial General Meeting was held in the Hub, with a quorum of 100 students, in which two changes to their constitution were brought forward. 

The first change is the adoption of a new te reo Māori name gifted by Ngāi Tauira, the resolution for which was passed officially in September last year.

The students’ association’s name will now be ‘VUWSA Te Aka Tauira’. VUWSA has set themselves the deadline of August this year to have the new name fully integrated within the association. They want to have their two main signs changed by that same month. 

Jessica Ye, VUWSA President, has told Salient that VUWSA is currently in the process of walking through the tikanga of the new te reo Māori ingoa with the pou tikanga of Ngāi Tauira. “We want to make sure we’re putting the name in places that are mana enhancing,” said Ye. 

The second change to the constitution will allow potential presidential candidates to pair up and run for a co-presidency. VUWSA hopes the change will encourage more students to run for the position, as the previous two presidents have been elected unopposed. They also hope this will allow for more “horizontal decision making” and “devolving power”, according to Ye. 

“A co-leadership style [should allow for] more diverse leadership,” she said. “Two years of uncontested presidencies...shows [that] the space can be inaccessible.” The change is expected to be enacted by the next VUWSA elections.

Both constitutional changes needed a two-third majority to pass and did so easily, with the te reo Māori name being unopposed, and co-presidency opposed by only one person. ^Salient does not know the identity of the person who was not in favour of the introduction of the co-presidency option, nor their reason for opposing the change. 

Alongside the constitutional changes was a motion to adopt VUWSA’s Te Tiriti o Waitangi statute, which outlines how the association shall uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This also passed with a majority of over two-thirds.