Te Ara Poutama Student Rep Resigns Over ‘False Allegations’, Blasts AUTSA ‘Lip Service’ By Justin Wong (he/him) A former member of AUTSA’s Student Representative Council (SRC) said her departure was forced by “false allegations”, slamming the student association as “a lot of lip service” that serves mainstream students and accused its upper management for being unresponsive. Tasha Tahā Henneker was Te Ara Poutama’s faculty representative on the SRC but resigned early May. In her resignation letter, Henneker said there had been allegations that she was starting a petition and decided it is in her best interest to “not to be part of a community that would place false allegations with no clarification on an individual”. She denied starting a petition, saying the situation “has been largely misconstrued, and I do not have the faith that this would not happen again.” “I entered the SRC to represent the best interests of the Te Ara Poutama faculty students, however the issues I have discussed with others have instead been twisted against me.”
She also warned of a “large discourse” between AUTSA and Te Ara Poutama students that needs to be resolved in the letter, and said she does not “have the mental capacity to try and change this.” AUTSA President Sisifa Lui said in a response to Henneker’s resignation letter that she offered to mediate between the two SRC members, but Ms Henneker declined and resigned. The statement also said Te Ara Poutama students remain “a vital and much-loved part of our community” and AUTSA’s Representation staff team would support Te Ara Poutama students until a new representative is appointed. Neither of the statements go into more details on the allegations, but Henneker told Debate that they came from an SRC member, who claimed members were “hounded” into signing a petition that called to exclude General Manager Simon Bell from AUTSA’s governance board and future SRC meetings and would have been handed in on May 7. From Debate’s understanding, the General Manager is not a member of the governance board, and instead reports to them. She said she only knew of its alleged existence after being told by email on May
Henneker said there had been allegations that she was starting a petition and decided it is in her best interest to “not to be part of a community that would place false allegations with no clarification on an individual”. 4 and the SRC member who made the allegations had not provided any evidence. “I actually told them if a petition came through with my signature on it, I would like legal action taken because that’s forging signatures. “And I did offer for them to go through my laptop right then and there because there was no petition.” However, Henneker admitted she was preparing to draft a critical letter of AUTSA for Te Ara Poutama students to sign after some expressed concern in the association’s ability to represent them.
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