Political rival of Students for Palestine calls their own General Meeting

A petition with over 60 signatures has been submitted to Arc by the 365 ticket in this year’s SRC election calling for sweeping change to the Arc Constitution, forcing the company to disclose its expenditure and cut ties with weapons manufacturers.

It comes in the immediate wake of a ‘Student General Meeting’ (SGM) run by Students for Palestine and Socialist Alternative, who are running against 365 in several seats in the elections, which garnered near unanimous support. The petition stops short of accusing Arc of investing in ‘the development, production, or sales of weapons or other arms’, but aims to ‘pre-emptively bar’ Arc from doing so, and legislatively halt any current business deals in progress.

“While successful, (the Students for Palestine SGM) doesn’t actually provide any concrete changes, but instead is just an endorsement of future protests,” the petition states.

While many universities where similar events have taken place have constitutional provisions mandating any legislative change endorsed at a General Meeting, UNSW does not, and our Chancellery remains uncompelled to oblige by Students for Palestine’s demands.

Arc, however, does have such a provision, and if successful this meeting would see the most significant change to Arc’s rules in recent memory.

Under section 7.2 of the Arc constitution, a group of at least 50 students can force the Arc Board to hold a meeting open to all its members by signing a petition in the manner 365 has provided. Any resolutions passed at such a meeting is automatically adopted.

More to come.