Labour on VSM
Labour have pledged to make student associations compulsory again, if they win the next election.
Good.
I can just imagine the horror this will cause students, especially at campuses like Victoria, when they realise a vote for Labour means a vote for a compulsory VUWSA.
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Tags: Labour, VSM
September 25th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Thank you Labour. Most of my fellow students couldn’t care less about politics, saying it doesn’t affect them. Now I can just tell them voting Labour means and extra $100+ on top of their uni fees for those student politicians who have never done anything for them. Labour were never going to win in 2011, but now it just looks like they’re going out of their way to lose it.
September 25th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
I like the fact the student campaign in wellington central could be rather easy
September 25th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Labour and corruption going hand in glove is not news. Surely we all remember the EFA, Taito Philip Field, Paintergate …
September 25th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Called it.
September 25th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
No surprises here – the party that is the political mouth piece of the union movement. It just serves to remains us all of what a joke Labour is.
September 25th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
I object to paying hundreds of dollars a year to subsidise crappy pissups which the local bars could do 10x better, and a weekly magazine which is essentially a Labour Party brochure.
Good stuff National. Maybe the first policy of merit you have enacted this term. Credit where credit’s due.
September 25th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
I remember the Otago University vote for compulsory Student Association Membership. Less that 10% of the student body voted. The result was 6% for and 3% against. A total rort at the end of the day.
I have always found student associations a total piss take. Elections were always wacky lefty vs wacky lefty and sainity was no where to be seen. Although I remember one person’s campaign poster with the words “I will not blow Huge Grants” with a picture of the prostitue who was caught with Hugh Grant. It was worth a vote for the humour value but as some lefty got a couple of dozen votes, he did not get enough support to be elected.
September 25th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
@nickb – actually you have ACT to thank for this.
September 25th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Except that the Nats. were naive enough to allow the present set up to run until the end of next year. i.e. after the election. If they really had any balls they would have stopped it at the end of this year. No election plank for Labour by the election and no funds to donate to Labour causes.
Another half cocked attempt to appease the education lefties.
September 25th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Yea of course Gwilly, them mostly. AoC especially
September 25th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
labour will also promise to abolish tertiary fees.
Students follow the money, always.
September 25th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
I love the fact that the Labour Party and it’s kiddies in the Uni Union want to make membership compulsory for the students .. I guess that means they don’t think that students have to ability to make such decisions for themselves. I understand that all students are still allowed to join if THEY want?? .. the bullshit coming from these left leaning dorks (see Redablurt) suggests that the Govt, ACT in particular, have banned the union???
September 25th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
jaba,
This is because the Left have a far bigger problem than the Right when it comes to sustaining their organisations and viability.
The Right only need funding. If they get a gazillion $ from a single donor or a million $ from many donors, it doesn’t change their reason for being [it certainly would change their campaigning of course - a gazillion?]
The Left, on the other hand, have a real problem. They not only need the $ to fund their activities [that's one area where the compulsion to join, and therefore the fees and funding $ come from] they also need a fundamental reason for being.
Their fundamental reason for being is to claim they represent sectors of society.
They way they do this (historically) is by cuddling up to groups that are able to provide a facade of a mandate through representation of much larger groups through the compulsion of those individuals to have to join groups they have zero interest in, and therefore undertake no participation in.
Through their ‘democratic’ (cough, cough) processes, however, those groups are able to claim a delegate system that is held to be representative of the individuals who never wanted to join in the first place and therefore take no shred of interest in the mechanics of an amorphous thing that simply bleeds money directly from them through their pay packet or annual student fees.
They used to be able to do this very effectively through compulsory unionism. That was fantastic for the Left as they got to claim the mandate of every worker in the nation, irrespective of the fact that many/most either didn’t give a rat’s arse or perceived the system well enough to realise there was 5/8′s of Sweet Fanny Adams they could do anything about it.
Oh, that and the Student Associations.
When compulsory unionism was killed off and the Left realised they could not easily resurrect it (I wonder why that is? – and believe me, they are still trying to figure out how they can) that left only the little ‘union type’ groups like the SAs.
For years they have stacked those associations (basically because the real human beings in those establishments are either studying – good on them – or too busy drinking and getting laid to care about student politics.) Compulsory membership meant they could claim the mandate of the students, even though the students have always been, statistically, the largest of the apathetic majority.
To kill compulsion is to kill their mandate, which is to skill their reason for being.
(Actually, they could. And in doing so, do us all a great favour. But they won’t.)
They cannot allow this to happen!
September 25th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Good to see Labour remains the party of choice. This really is a non-vote winner, yet they seem determined to compel people.
September 25th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
The Labour party has clearly declared the EPMU’s position.
September 25th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Compulsion. It is what Socialists do best. Whatever next? Shower Pressure regulation?…………. Oh Wait.
September 26th, 2010 at 4:07 am
[bhudson 8:20 PM] That’s the case in a nutshell.
cheers
David Prosser
September 26th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Well I suspect they would change the legislation back to what it was meaning students would have to choose the type of student union they have like they can at the moment until this bill is brought in. I hardly think given 90% of submissions were against when ACT were out on the campus at Vic every day in oweek trying to get people to submit for it that there is going to any particular move against Labour for giving them back the right to choose whether they have a compulsory student union or not. Only Auckland seems to like VSM which is why they already had it. If students really wanted a change the 10% of the student body needed would make the referendum for VSM.
September 26th, 2010 at 10:31 am
robcarr,
Great. So no need to oppose it, or to repeal any legislative changes made resulting from it? Win-win really.
Perhaps you could advise Goff & co that there is no need for them to do anything
September 26th, 2010 at 10:57 am
I think you misunderstood. It is the current act that allows students to choose for the university to be VSM or not via referendum at any point.
The current bill that ACT is bringing in removes that power and gives central govt power to choose in this case for VSM at all universities.
I imagine Labour would simply restore the status quo which would likely result in most universities going back to compulsory again. Given it is the preferred option amongst students and wouldn’t be forced on them if it were not then I doubt they will rile many people up by doing so.
September 26th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Ha! I told Mr C that this would happen. Soooo rubbing this in tonight
.
And this will be yet another reason why I will never vote for Labour.
September 26th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
September 26th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
nick – try this instead: given it is the preferred option amongst students who are aware that a vote is occurring (i.e. read the student rags), available at the times the unions choose to permit voting (i.e. don’t have a job) and care enough to turn up. How could you disagree with that subset of students choosing on behalf of all students?
September 26th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I think if we’d run the same campaign at the other major universities that we ran in Auckland, we would have won VSM there too. But all academic now. I think Labour underestimate how unpopular this policy will be once VSM actually happens. It only won in Auckland in ’99 by 98 votes, but the last referendum saw VSM get over 70% of the vote. Once people taste freedom, they won’t want to go back. Labour will just piss off a traditional support base if they try to turn back the clock.
September 26th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
I did not vote in any student elections. I was actually attending lectures and studying. Yes I partied at times. Yes I had some fun in the holidays. But I object profoundly that I was forced to join an organisation, whether or not I made any effort to vote in its elections. What part of freedom of choice don’t these Lefty idiots understand?
September 26th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Robcarr… utter and complete nonsense. Which University has been successful in applying the “10%” rule for referendums since that silly bit of legislation was made up? NONE.
Since when has compulsion been the “preferred option”? How can you prove this? Students cannot leave, nor can they trust their association to administer free and fair referendums. Can you explain to us all how this process worked for the students of WSU when they broke every single rule in the book to make it go back to compulsory?
OPSA had a vote the other day about leaving NZUSA. Out of the 7100 students there only around 50 voted and they chose to leave NZUSA. Where are your stats that students even know about their union. Why is it that the MAWSA president said that her association doesn’t advertise the option to students that they could have the option to leave their union?
The very fact that you turn this bill around to exclusively call it the ACT bill, is proof that you and your mates are pressuring the Nats into thinking this is a bill supported by a tiny minority. You tell me that after decades of student elections where less than 10% of students vote that you have a majority point of view.
At the end of the day you can’t prove anything. Only the fact that you know you’re wrong – because you don’t want to let students to make a choice at enrollment because you know very well what they will choose.
September 26th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Umm every student at Vic has the option to vote online over quite a long time so I fail to see how those with jobs wouldn’t have a chance to vote and it is sent to every students email address which it is meant to be mandatory for them to check for their courses anyway. I can’t comment on the voting system at other universities. Every student should be informed a vote is occurring it is merely that many choose not to vote.
I would base students being in supportive of compulsion on the submissions there are on the bill of 90% against, the fact I am currently a student at vic (no I’m not involved with VUWSA although I have met most of the current exec before) and haven’t seen much support for the bill, there is also the ability to start a new referendum which most students have ignored and if there was any real student support for the change would have been done rather than attempting to put a bill through, finally I would base it on the fact that most of the referendums when the last piece of legislation was put in students voted for compulsion. I take low turnout to mean simply that most people don’t actually care enough to vote and thus are satisfied with the status quo. I haven’t seen anything to indicate student support for the change to VSM.
Umm I am referring to it as the current bill that ACT are bringing in because it was endorsed by Roger Douglas and then by Heather Roy and has been consistently in the ballot by that party. National may choose to support it but that doesn’t make it their bill because they didn’t propose it. If they chose to adopt it now as a government bill then that would be different but they have not.
I personally think students should make the choice for compulsion or not on an individual basis. There should I think be stronger opt-out requirements than there are presently but there are great advantages to the current system in administrative simplicity and cost effectiveness for students that is lost by VSM. If there are strong opt-out provisions then I see no reason why it shouldn’t be allowed to be up to the students how their student union is run in terms of sign ups.
September 26th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQZgPljtHuA&feature=player_embedded
Lest we forget how the VUWSA student exec hold democratic meetings
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8O01T8Eros&feature=related
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0SAyL8hWl4&feature=related
Umm robcarr…
September 27th, 2010 at 7:52 am
I think the majority of students will support this legislation, but even if not, I couldn’t give a shit. Human rights have nothing to do with what a majority think – the opposite in fact. The whole point of human rights is to protect a minority from the whim of the majority. So even if only a handful of students didn’t want to join the student union and most did, it should still be voluntary. Nobody should ever be compelled to join. Personally I like student unions and think students should join them. But it should be a choice.
September 27th, 2010 at 8:48 am
“# wreck1080 (1,214) Says:
September 25th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
labour will also promise to abolish tertiary fees.
Students follow the money, always.”
Hey wreck heres a special little fuck you all of your very own. The submission I made for this bill was in support of it and only two students I know didn’t like it. Also the new requirement to pass at least half the papers in order to get the next round of loans is very popular amongst real students. Most are actually here to study and are not in the least interested in politics or supporting useless pricks with their trotters in the trough.
Little more actually information before you start hitting the keys wouldn’t hurt. Might avoid those nasty Monday morning fuck yous.