…In which Analiese feels saddened by executive members’ behaviour and questions why she didn’t start this column earlier …

You know, I usually don’t write particularly scathing pieces about our student executive. They’re generally nice people. They pay my wages. Sometimes they even feed me. But, after having attended my first executive meeting of the year, I feel that there is no other option but to tell you about the conduct of the people who are representing you.

The meeting started off like any other. All executive but one (Salam Arif) attended, which is a pretty good turnout for an executive meeting. Apologies were accepted, reports were read and, albeit the munching as people ate their Subway sandwiches and the appropriate ayes and nays, the Exec was pretty quiet. Dare I say it without sounding like a school-marm, thus far the Executive were being well behaved and all was looking promising….

The President of the ASA, Rawa Karetai, then introduced their guest for the evening, Sophia Blair, Co-President of NZUSA. Blair was attending to talk to the executive about NZUSA’s role in actively lobbying for change. Blair handed around 7 pages of handouts to which Karetai, slightly shocked at the mound of paper, asked if she could just table the document. Blair replied that she’d rather speak to the document, to which Karetai, rather respectfully, told her she could take as long as she liked. This is where the trouble started.

Now, just to preface the below comments, I don’t care who your guests are. I also don’t care whether you fundamentally agree with what they’re saying or not. Whether it is a person from another association or the Regional Registrar, I am of the opinion that, when you have a guest in the room, as an executive member it is expected of you to behave appropriately. Sure, you can exchanges jokes and such and, granted, your demeanour is probably likely to change in Part 2 exchanges which are strictly for the executive’s ears only, but when people are representing the Association publicly, they should adhere to the ASA Code of Conduct, which, under Section 4.1.5, Subsection B, specifically states that “Failing to show respect or common courtesy to any member of staff, fellow executive, student or member of the general public” is an example of what is greatly frowned upon by the Association.

Whilst what Blair and the executives discussed isn’t really newsworthy (yet), the blatant lack of respect to a member of the general public which I happened to witness definitely was. Education Vice-President, Annie Zhang, constantly rolled her eyes, threw her pen up into the air and caught it and signalled and laughed to other executive members whilst Blair was presenting. Pacific Island Students’ Representative, Neil Tahal, threw rubbish across the table in an attempt to land it on the Subway platter, faux NBA styles. Given, there were a few intelligent questions asked by members of the executive, such as International Cultural Rep, Sumire Tachibana, who was legitimately listening the entire time, but, for the most part, I would go so far as to say that the behaviour of the executive last night was highly unacceptable.

Maybe I’m partly to blame. Had the executive had a media presence in their midst previously, maybe they would have learnt to present themselves in a more professional manner. I use the word “professionalism” with a dollop of irony as, throughout the meeting, Karetai stated on a number of occasions this is exactly what he values about his crew and his association: the fact that, generally speaking, the university sees them as a no-nonsense executive who stride to advocate for students in their capacity as student reps.

If I were you, I’d be embarrassed. I’d be questioning why certain members of your executive (not all of them, mind you. I feel slightly bad tarring them all with the same brush when some of them behaved very well) who are YOUR representatives on this campus find it acceptable to behave like juveniles in public. I’d want to know why the President didn’t pull them up on this nor whip his Exec into shape earlier. I’d also, if I were you, start turning up to Executive Meetings, as you’re fully entitled to do so. They’re every Wednesday evening at 6pm in the Quad A Boardroom. I know that, from now on, I definitely will be.