Labour’s $400,000 an hour filibuster
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:03 pm by David FarrarDanya Levy at Stuff reports:
The ACT Party says moves by Labour to delay the passing of its volunteer student membership bill is costing taxpayers more than $453,000 every hour Parliament sits.
The member’s Bill sponsored by ACT MP Heather Roy ends compulsory student association membership, and passed its second reading last December.
Labour opposes the Bill and has stopped Parliament reaching the next stage of debate on it by putting up spurious amendments to other non-controversial legislation.
Roy said the delay tactics, known as filibustering, denied backbench MPs the right to have their issues debated and cost taxpayers the same amount an hour as Hone Harawira’s Te Tai Tokerau by-election.
”Hone Harawira has been rightly condemned for costing the taxpayer half a million dollars by forcing the Te Tai Tokerau by-election, yet Labour’s filibustering is costing taxpayers the equivalent of one such by-election every hour.
The staggering thing is that Labour have not just fillibustered this once or twice – they have filbustered it all year, so desperate are they to protect their future caucus intakes. As someone said, there is no limit to what a mother will do to protect her young.
Heather said:
“I’m not opposed to any party delaying a Bill they strongly disagree with but Labour MPs are delaying Bills they already support. If Labour continue to debate each of the Royal Society Bill’s 23 clauses – which they openly support – in their entirety this could take 23 hours of the House’s time and cost taxpayers over $10 million. It is this sort of churlish behaviour that demeans our nation’s Parliament.
This is a key difference. I will absolutely defend the right of a party to filibuster a bill they strongly oppose. Such filibusters normally last a few days. But here Labour is filbustering every single local, private and members bill there is, in a year long filibuster. This is I think literally without precedent in New Zealand. They are for example going to spend two dozen hours of time, on a totally non controversial bill about the Royal Society of NZ.
Trevor Mallard has blogged that the marginal cost is zero, as they are not forcing any extra costs onto Parliament. This misses the point as it ignores the fact that during all this time, Parliament is not passing laws as it is meant to be – it is having Labour MPs stand up and talk screeds of nonsense for hours on end. An analogy would be having staff members in a retailer refuse to actually sell any goods, yet claim they are not costing any money as they haven’t imposed extra costs on the shop.
I have pinged the Government on their use of urgency this year – something which pissed off quite a few people within National. But filibustering is the flip side of urgency. If an Opposition continues with mindless sustained filbustering, then they can expect no-one to take them seriously if they complain about use of urgency in the future. If you turn yourself into a roadblock, don’t be surpised when a bulldozer is used.
Labour is also being incredibly selfish. Backbench Mps get only one day a fortnight to have their bills heard. Dozens of MPs from the Greens, Maori and National parties have members bills they would like to have debated. Labour has decided that no other members bill can be allowed to pass this year, just so they can try and allow their future MPs to keep forcing students to fund their political activism.
So next time a Labour MP complains about urgency, the response should be to buy themselves a mirror so they can find someone to blame.
Tags: ACT, Heather Roy, Labour, VSM
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Please post some of the most inane filibustering, if some of it goes viral it will be another Labour party tactic backfiring. Chief strategist Mallard is looking hopelessly out of this depth. Rather than communicate policy they would rather just waste everybodies time over something non controversial. Hell they didn’t even fight the GST increase with this much zeal.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:15 pm
I’m generally ook with them stopping Parliament passing laws as little good comes of that.
I presume if the Nats actually cared they could just make it a government bill and push it through?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:16 pm
runts?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Mallard is right.
Feel free to claim this is abusive of Parliamentary rules, and is wasting time that could or should be used to do other things, but when you make your headline about the financial cost, your point is lost. There is no financial cost; only an opportunity cost of what could be done instead.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:18 pm
@ Graeme – agree the $400k/hour “cost” is horseshit.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:20 pm
if it’s horse shit, you pay it.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:26 pm
So if during all this time, Parliament is not passing laws as it is meant to be, how is parliament “meant to be” passing laws? If the Government wanted this bill passed so badly and more quickly, it could easily adopt this bill as a government bill just like it did with the anti-smacking legislation. If it does not, then it must be happy for it to take its current course.
This is not more time wasting than the time spent on Paul Quinn’s bill earlier this year – a bill that nobody other than the sponsor and one other person bothered to submit to the select committee in support.
Oh, and Graeme, the opportunity cost of one hour of hearing rubbish for another hour of hearing a different type of rubbish is 0%.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:29 pm
@Shane he already does, along with you, me and every other taxpayer. I think you mean by yourself?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Agree with above. Alleged ‘cost’ of filibustering is nonsense. What else are parties in Parliament to do except oppose measures with which they vehemently disagreee?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:44 pm
@Milkenmild
Don’t you think of all the policies to vehemently disagree with or disagree with the govt. on this rates somewhere near the bottom. How many NZers are saying if students get to actually choose whether to fund their student associations/unions
Vote:my life will be hugely affected.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:47 pm
National need to give students the same rights as other citizens.
Vote:National needs to give students choice.
National needs to give students freedom to decide whether to join a union.
National needs to tell students, their siblings, their parents and grandparents that they support liberty.
National needs to make VOLUNTARY student membership a Government Bill.
National needs to stand by its founding principles.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Possibly V. I think it’s a non-issue myself and am surprised at the attention this issue gets from the right and the left.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 4:53 pm
How many laws do we need? Is it a number per hour or what?
Are we falling behind European law setting, will it harm our global reputation to be seen as not having as many laws and devloped nations or what?
Let them talk till hell freezes over… with them in it.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Agree with above. Alleged ‘cost’ of filibustering is nonsense. What else are parties in Parliament to do except oppose measures with which they vehemently disagreee?
Then Labour should come out and tell the country what they have against the Royal Society Bill.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:02 pm
How dare these opposition politicians engage in these opposition politics. It is outrageous that they are using politics to oppose the Government’s legislative programme. They weren’t elected to Parliament for that. Don’t they have something else to do?
[DPF: Turn that around. If the Government passes 100 bills through urgency, you can argue they are just doing their job - to pass laws. Stop being an idiot and acknowledge that this is about degrees - and Labour have gone way over the top with a year long filibuster]
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Here we have what passes for leftist economics laid bare. “Opportunity cost is no real cost.” Oh yeah?
No wonder they pissed away nine years of surpluses and put our productive sector into recession in 2004.
They thought all those new jobs in Wellington were producing something valuable.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:17 pm
I have to agree with Graeme Edgeler, KiwiGreg, dave and mikenmild on this.
Vote:Labour’s behaviour is silly and wrong. But claiming that it is costing $400,000/hour is stretching the point.
June 3rd, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Interesting that you raise the point about urgency. Are you suggesting that Labour’s filibuster is in part a protest against the Government’s use (or abuse) or urgency in the House of Representatives? if so, there would be a certain symmetry to it, even if it is futile.
VSM seems to be a pet project of your, so I can appreciate your frustration. But I don’t share it – I don’t really care much at all, and I think you protest far too much. I had to pay compulsory student association fees at university. It did little for me but nor did it hurt me much. On the scale of injustices I have had to endure it ranks very low indeed. Bit of a mystery why Labour want to die in a ditch for it, but I guess they regard student associations as an important training ground or something. But then I’m sure that applies to other parties too.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Have to laugh – the idea that using up sunk costs does not cost (which is what claiming it is not a financial cost implies) shows a poor understanding of how costs are made up. Similarly, trying to say lost opportunity costs is not a cost shows a poor understanding especially as the intention was to obtain the benefits from those opportunity costs.
There is an element of elasticity in output but it’s not a lot so using up time intended for another purpose costs money as that purpose was originally at a cost (whether implicit or explicit). So, if it costs on average $x for parliament to sit for 1 hour then using up an hour very definitely costs $x. I have no idea what the real figure is but filibustering has a very definite cost.
Taking this to the extreme Labour could fillibuster for ever and we never pass any laws – do people think that does not mean wasted funds and therefore cost?
That should not be taken as an excuse never to filibister as the right of parties to protest and highlight actions they are strongly against is a cost we should be willing to bear – it is one of the checks and balances we need.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:41 pm
This just serves to remind me what obscenely unconscionable scum the socialists are, and how shameful and disingenuous their moronic aplogists are on here. Tens of millions of dollars wasted, purely for the sake of denying students their freedom. I hope the Hansard of their nonsense gets used in a ‘your labour mp working hard for you’ type of campaign – here’s what your Labour MP had to say in parliament that was so fucking important at the same time that everyone else was worrying about earthquake recovery and preventing a recession…
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:41 pm
I agree Labour is being silly about this, but ACT’s $453,000 figure is quite wrong. The money to pay for Parliament to run is already committed. The question is what value to NZ is destroyed by Labour’s delaying tactics: what is the value of production that would otherwise have been completed by Parliament? Certainly not $453,000. Methinks it is likely very small. In fact I’ll guess the value is negative. That is, the less efficient and the more slow Parliament becomes, the less it interferes with New Zealand’s growth and the better off we are. Or at least those few of us still outside the welfare state.
So, in short, thanks Labour for saving us from you and your looter colleagues.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Adolph – generally I would agree with you, but this is Parliament were are talking about. It is full of Parliamentarians who, but for Labour’s interference, would be busy spending ever more of other people’s money to buy off their constituents and be re-elected. If this process creates no value then there is no opportunity cost.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Mallard is right.
Feel free to claim this is abusive of Parliamentary rules, and is wasting time that could or should be used to do other things, but when you make your headline about the financial cost, your point is lost. There is no financial cost; only an opportunity cost of what could be done instead.
Graeme the cost is to us and I’m not interested in bearing it. Liarbore needs to suck it up and change it when it gets back in power. That’s the honourable, ethical thing to do.
As I said on Whale’s blog on this topic thread, there is nothing so vigorously defended as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction. I memorised that phrase over twenty years ago and have watched it play out hundreds of times in life in all arenas and settings and countries. It’s a subconscious rationalisation to their perspective that the advocate wears so they don’t have to appear to themselves as a bad person for the position they take which seems otherwise wrong.
Unfortunately, one cannot say this about Liarbore in this case and that makes their actions even worse, for those politicians are not even subconsciously rationalising this to themselves. It’s perfectly obvious why they are doing this as I also said on Whale’s blog and which DPF alludes to as well: this is their hatchery, and they know it and this is why they are doing it. It’s not even a principal thing for them, this is how lousy it is.
Now one knows and expects politicians to be venal, most of the time, but this really takes the cake. A very small group of people numbering around a hundred, are holding up the elected Parliament’s agenda, the progress of the entire country, simply so more of your kind can propagate.
And this is the principal opposition party, not some group of cheap thug gangsters, which is what they’re acting like.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:50 pm
I have to agree with Graeme Edgeler, KiwiGreg, dave and mikenmild on this.
Labour’s behaviour is silly and wrong. But claiming that it is costing $400,000/hour is stretching the point.
Then replace the word “costing” with “wasting”.
Are you happy that they are wasting $400k/hr behaving like immature little children instead?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:51 pm
God DPF, could you try spinning it any harder? Like national wouldn’t do the same if it was a bill they disagreed with.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:58 pm
simply so more of your kind can propagate.
Graeme just in case you think this was directed toward you it wasn’t: it was a typo, I meant to say: their kind…
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Does it cost $400,000 an hour for National or ACT to filibuster Labour? or is it ok when they do it?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:00 pm
I don’t know about the rest of you, but given that we (the taxpayer) are forking out over $400,000 per hour for the house to sit, I’m reeling ripped off that this shit is happening.
Mallard even said on the radio today that the Bill was “evil” … how the hell can a Bill that gives someone the opportunity to choose whether they want to do something or not, be “evil”?
Well, only if you’re a socialist.
And this same idiot wants to be back on the Treasury benches…. God help us.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Maybe Labour is just trying to create a wedge between National and ACT as National is allowing this to happen by not making it a government bill.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:06 pm
Labour can filibuster whatever they like. I seem to recall watching a very, very boring item of regulatory reform pass through parliament last term and seeing National MPs take great delight in describing the inner workings of goodness knows what to the nth degree. I think in that case they were doing it purely for fun.
But as some above have pointed out, Labour is revealing something about themselves in the way they are opposing this legislation. The fact is that they are dying in a ditch to deny freedom – because denying that freedom advantages them politically.
Unemployment? Cost of living? No, what’s important to the Labour party is making sure it has a bank of public paid activists on tap.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Does it cost $400,000 an hour for National or ACT to filibuster Labour? or is it ok when they do it?
National & Act together have a majority dumbarse – if they don’t want a law to pass, they will just vote against it…
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Oh – and please don’t call me an idiiot. I don’t abuse you.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Ah, the compulsive control-freaks, the socialist Labour Party.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:16 pm
t’s perfectly obvious why they are doing this as I also said on Whale’s blog and which DPF alludes to as well: this is their hatchery, and they know it and this is why they are doing it. It’s not even a principal thing for them, this is how lousy it is.
It’s 100% in National’s power to fix it, but they don’t want or need to.
But isn’t it interesting how little interest they’ve shown in pushing through something that would remove a Labour disadvantage. If that’s intended to make them look more moderate than labour, it’s working.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Oh – and please don’t call me an idiiot. I don’t abuse you.
You should – its more fun and makes you feel like a big man too.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 6:43 pm
The Government did not adopt the anti-smacking legislation as its own. It remained a members bill in the name of Sue Bradford throughout.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 7:13 pm
They still remain unprincipled cowards. Freedom of association used to be a National war cry in the days of Birch but this lot don’t believe in such stuff anymore.
They also don’t seem to know which side of the political spectrum they should be batting for.
They seem more interested in continuing the status quo with their Liabour mates than establishing their own authority and their own sets of values that reflect their founding document. That’s why all their followers are quitting.
Do the Nats. actually believed in freedom of association and freedom of the individual anymore?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 7:17 pm
So we have a few less laws, Camping was right, the end is near. Shit you’ve got to have your rules, it’s like fibre in the diet, gives you the shits and if you don’t shit, well you know what happens. I’m all for filibustering, even at $450,000 a hour, probably still cheaper then the costs of some of the crap they force down our necks.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 7:46 pm
The really execrable thing is they are fucking with OUR democracy. This is what they did when in power. How dare they fucking also do it when we’ve already fucking told them we’re not interested in their ideas at the mo, thanks anyway.
Who the fuck do they think they are?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Jeeze $400,000/hour x 24 = $9,600,000/day x 365 = $3,504,000,000/year / 4,000,000 = $876 each per annum.
What price democracy? Fuckin cheap really when you look at it that way.
Beats the alternatives eh.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 8:19 pm
It’s only when parliament sits Johnboy. Thank God they enjoy their leisure time, it’s cheaper when they don’t work, now why doesn’t that surprise me.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Not working is becoming a national institution Bob.
Thank God you will be up at 4 am tomorrow so I can stay in bed.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 8:29 pm
Okay, these people who think that it’s not that important that the VSM legislation passes – you are right. In the grand scheme of things, it is not. But that is exactly why this filibuster is so ridiculous. So your solution is “oh well they care about it more than we do, so they should just have their way”? Really?!
I think filibusters are awesome – if they are for a good and worthy cause. This is not a good and worthy cause. This is about the right of students to choose whether they belong to a union or not. It is such a pathetic petty thing to you and I, and it should be to any party aspiring to government, but for some reason, this is Labour’s Alamo. It is their last stand. It is so freaking important that they force students to belong to an organisation they don’t want to belong to, and pay that organisation hundreds of dollars for the privilege, that they will talk about their Mum for ten minutes a time and table amendments to where the apostrophe goes in the short title.
This is bollocks. Sure, oppose a GST increase. That is a Big Thing. Oppose a benefit rise. An asset sale. These are things that I think should happen, but that any self-respecting left wing opposition should work to stop. Is this what they care about? Fuck no. They care about whether you are forced to give your money to a student union. Really important stuff! OMG! What would happen if students didn’t do that?! The end of the world, no less! So freaking important! Compulsory membership of organisations run by petulant, privileged children.
And now people commenting say – let them do it! It’s not important! Well no it is not. But that is the point. That is exactly why we should fight this thing – precisely because it is not important and because the people who are using it as an issue are just disgusting and out of touch. If we highlight that, we win, and we win big. We point out the absurdity of an opposition who won’t filibuster GST rises, but will filibuster on behalf of some 21yo bureaucrat who is barely familiar with real live vaginas.
I am sick of people who get their way because they care more about an issue than I do. The opposite should be true. VSM is lame, it is a minor blip on the policy arse of the National Party, but Labour are so out of touch with New Zealand that they actually think people will applaud them for filibustering this crap. That people care and that it is crucial to their lives, and that working class stiffs who are drawing the dole and can’t find work because Michael Cullen and Bill English sucked all of the capital out of the economy will rally to their side on behalf of the scarfies who went to Dio and Kings and have suburban bedrooms in Parnell with Mummy and Daddy. Yeah. Nice one Labour. You dumb deluded, privileged, overfed, middle-class, chardonnay-sipping, Waiheke party-going arseholes.
You may not think this filibuster is worth fighting, but if we fight this one, we win, and we win big. Because our opponents could not be more wrong, wrong-footed, or more utterly stupid.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 8:47 pm
talking about filibustering and wasting money .. has anyone heard about where Chris Carter is?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 8:55 pm
Blair M,
Anyone trying to fillibuster government within our parliament gets hit with urgency – only private members bills are vulnerable.
The Labour point appears to be to campaign for the student vote and highlight the lack of government support for ACT on this.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 9:09 pm
The Labour point appears to be to campaign for the student vote…
LOL.
Wow, by that logic National is going after the beneficiary vote!
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 9:12 pm
SPC
Vote:You say that Labour are campaigning for the student vote.
But Labour want to compulsorily extract cash from students for student unions, rather than make such contributions voluntary.
Why are we spending money on trying to educate people who are so dumb that they will accept compulsion over voluntary actions. How will they ever comprehend logic in their Psychology 101 papers?
There is old story that you can take a whore to opera but you can’t make her think.
Somehow we must get our young students to think.
June 3rd, 2011 at 9:21 pm
scrubone
Labour cannot argue their case to for a more collectivist approach than their political oppoonents to students without supporting compulsory student unions …
And one can add, so why are the National and ACT parties not working more effectively to get this bill passed before the election …
Labour says because getting rid of the unions places more costs on universities that would have to be met by the government.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 10:04 pm
So Labour have made it very clear what their priorities are. Do they try this with GST, benefits, healthcare, education?
No.
They do it to protect their mates in the compulsory student unions who get millions of dollars a year given to them which are used to help fight campaigns for Labour. OUSA have just voted to oppose several National initiatives and Labour know that this sort of help is invaluable for their campaigns, especially as it won’t be counted in their election returns (like the millions our trade unions spend to fight for Labour).
It’s silly buggers and we all know it. The longer they hold out the more happy I will be when it finally passes and we can forget about a time when professional student politicians were able to spend millions helping out their socialist mates.
I’d be interested in all the other significant bills National have signed into law over the last 3 years and compare their importance to this bill.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 10:15 pm
SPC (991) Says:
“The Labour point appears to be to campaign for the student vote”
No hard data but they might be shooting themselves in the foot here.
Vote:Labour THINKS they are campaining for the student vote.
How many students are actually in favour of compulsory union fees?
June 3rd, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Labour aren’t campaigning for the student vote, they’re campaigning for the millions of dollars of Labour propaganda that students are forced to fund every year.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 10:49 pm
Peter you say “they’re campaigning for the millions of dollars of Labour propaganda that students are forced to fund every year”. You needed to add “by way of taxpayer funded student loans” to your statement because that is what is happening in reality.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 10:52 pm
Other Andy
They are campaigning for the vote and given their collectivist philosophy they have little option but to link support for compulsory unions to their core philosophy – no one (not even they) would claim that this is universally popular – but then death and taxes are not popular either. Similarly political opponents oppose compulsory unions as part of affirming their own core philosophy.
The result of voluntary fee paying is universities taking over service provision and increase fees to all students – this means extra student loan funding costs to government.
With the status quo students at least have some nominal say in their service delivery – rather than as supplicants to their university.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 10:57 pm
peter and gazza
There is only the illusion of choice about paying for the service fees – because as soon as the compulsory unions go the services are taken over by the university and they transfer the cost onto the tuition fees. It all ends up on the student loan one way or the other.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 10:58 pm
How much do the combined student unions give to Liarbore peter?
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 11:05 pm
SPC. You miss my point. If the unions go then their contributions to the labour party re-election war chest will cease. I don’t give a toss about the genuine services & benefits provided to the students its the portion of their union fees that go to labour that’s the nub of the issue.
Vote:June 3rd, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Gazza
Is there any evidence of contributions to the Labour re-election war chest – say from past campaigns? These would have to be noted in union accounts.
I would have thought that student unions like other unions and other organisations that campaign spent their own money and in support of their own interests (as third parties).
Vote:June 4th, 2011 at 3:12 am
Fisiani. Brilliant.
Vote:June 4th, 2011 at 7:56 am
SPC, as I havent been a uni student for a few years I do not have access to recent or current financial reports. I think that its fair to assume that a portion of students membership fees are put into the labour party coffers either directly or indirectly. Perhaps a current member would like to confirm or refute that.
Vote:June 4th, 2011 at 8:11 am
SPC (996) Says:
The result of voluntary fee paying is universities taking over service provision and increase fees to all students – this means extra student loan funding costs to government.
Services?
Vote:What services are provided by University Students’ Associations?
A radio station and a student newspaper?
If the so called services of the University Students’ Associations would disappear tomorrow, very few students would notice. Any services offered by those University Students’ Associations that were vital (Can you name a few vital services?) could be set up on a user pays basis.
Finally..if those services were so vital and fantastic, the University Students’ Associations membership would not have to be compulsory, students would be happy to join.
June 4th, 2011 at 8:37 am
It is a $450,000 waste for every hour as Parliament is not doing anything productive for 5 hours every fortnight. If they were filibusting the actual VSM bill they would be fine, but what they are doing is setting a dangerous precedent. Don Brash saw this type of behaviour as a waste of time so didn’t let his MPs waste time on bills National agreed with.
However, when National are back in opposition they may start filibusting every bill to stop government bills passing, and slowing Parliament to a complete halt.
Vote:June 4th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
The filibusting in this case is during Private Members’ bills time. The trade off here is that if VSM was posponed until the election, then not other Private Member’s bills would have time to be tabled. As most of these are opposition initiated bills then this is just another Labour own goal.
When I was a student I always said that student associations provided many good things but I disagreed with their politics. Student Associations were often run by angry people with difficult personalities which put a lot of people off ever wanting to run for council, or let alone vote or take an interest in what they say. The University put out a newspaper which usually contained socialist crap. If it was not being political it was telling us about the art of fisting or how to pierce ones genitals. The only time I heard the student radio was when walking past the Student Union building. It was never worth listening to.
On another point, what would happen if students on mass decided to stop paying their student association fees or decided to set up and run alternative associations that were more interested in services and less interested in politics? Would the university withhold the grades from half its student body? It would be intersting to see.
Vote:June 6th, 2011 at 4:21 am
SPC, are you deliberately playing silly buggers? Student associations do not have to disclose what they give to support parties of the left. They simply call it “campaigns” or something else that doesn’t require having to explain to the student body where it goes. NZUSA are even more blatant and campaign openly for Labour and the Greens and don’t even openly show their annual accounts to members.
Student unions will never support a party of the right. I have seen my ex association (OUSA) spend an awful amount of time and resources helping out Labour and the Greens. Student newspapers are so cravenly left wing as well, and students have to pay to fund them in order to get a degree. Students won’t miss being forced to fund for papers, rubbish radio stations and subsidising awful food for others. The services that help others like advocacy only cost a small amount and can be done by volunteer law students anyway.
The more Labour hold out the more they will be shafting their own friends in the unions.
Vote: