Another reason for VSM
July 18th, 2011 at 4:30 pm by David FarrarNZPA report:
An Otago student is to spend two nights locked in a cage in freezing Dunedin to protest a proposed law that would make student union membership voluntary.
The Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, which is sponsored by ACT’s Heather Roy, is currently awaiting its final reading before Parliament,
Supporters say student unions are the only ones left that have compulsory membership, and end up being controlled by political activists who run partisan campaigns that do not represent members.
Opponents argue the bill will destroy valuable associations that provide services at universities and polytechs because most students are hard up and would not voluntarily pay fees.
Otago University Students’ Association student president Logan Edgar is today preparing to lock himself in a cage, on the university’s Union Lawn from 7pm, to protest the bill.
Sadly all Otago students are forced to pay Mr Edgar’s salary. Yep, they get no choice about it Hopefully in the not too distant future they will have the choice of saying you embarrass us with your idiot stunts, and we are not going to pay you to be a idiot any more.
Remember that Labour have made their top parliamentary priority stopping students from being able to stop funding dickheads. They want it to remain compulsory.
Related posts:
- National confirms support for VSM bill at first reading
- Why universities are against VSM
- Heather Roy on VSM
- Desperate spin from NZUSA
July 18th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
I remember these student union members back when I was at uni.
They did the stupidest stunts , thinking they were cool or something but they were just tossers.
I was too busy studying, drinking and having a good time to really give a crap about their antics. I never thought about the union fees , it was just part of the cost of Uni and when you’re young you generally don’t question these things.
Looking back now , it is quite outrageous.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Hose the fucker down while he’s there. Theieving bastards use our money to pay for “free subways” so they can get enough people to vote their bloody ifnlated pays to themselves.
Screw it I’ll do it myself, someone give me plane fare, this has angried up my blood agin.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Student politics?? Seriously…What the hell has happened to Otago University Students?? In my day we were more interested with $4.80 jugs downstairs Cook then chasing some skirt at the Bowler…
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
I suggest Edgar locks himself up for a full week
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
“locked in a cage in freezing Dunedin”
We’ve hardly had any freezing this winter, missed most of last weeks storm, and by the look of the forecast we will barely get any freezing over the next couple of days, but whatever makes a good story I guess.
I’ll bet he’s better wrapped than half the scarfies and particularly scarfesses doing the Thursday pub rounds. Bare legs and bare shoulders are common sights at night – but they’re probably a tougher breed, the pro-VSM-ers.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Given Parliament costs $450,000 an hour to run, perhaps a salary of a few minutes of parliaments time doesnt seem so bad after all. Students pay taxes too.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Freedom of association is a fundamental human right listed in the Declaration of Human Rights. Are there other human rights that Edgar will protest to abolish? Are we likely to see him locking himself in a cage next week to protest freedom of religion, or to protest racial equality?
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
What a fuckwit. And why on earth would he think that anyone would actually give a stuff?
Throw the key away and leave the stupid prick in his silly little cage.
“Students pay taxes too”
ppphhhhhhh
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
The bugger must be mad….. I’ve got a theory about how Dunedin got started. A bunch of people in Christchurch said, “Gee, I’m enjoying the religion and the poverty, but it just isn’t cold enough. Let’s go south”.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
I AM GOING TO LOCK MYSELF IN A CAGE TO PROTEST FREEDOM.
Derp.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
This is the guy that got beaten up by a couple of women who didn’t like him and his mate cycling two abreast.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10658191
I’m guessing the cage is for his own protection.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Where’s Murray? Any arsehole who admits to cycling two abreast on a public road deserves, no needs, to be locked in a cage & hosed down.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
‘Inside were some “farmer types”, who reacted to his story by telling him that he needed to give up cycling for “kung fu” if he was getting beaten up by “two sheilas”‘
That Herald article is gold. The “farmer types” are bang on.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
dog_eat_dog: Oh, it gets better. OUSA used a big boot in the anti-VSM propaganda.
Yes, they portrayed their own members as a powerful force just ready to crush the poor association if given their freedom.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 6:44 pm
The student is a hypocrite. They should wait until it’s been made compulsory to spend two freezing nights locked in a cage. Choosing to do this just isn’t right.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
@nasska – that was me. Just make sure I’m hosed down with a nice central Otago Pinot Noir please
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
It’s always a joy to piss off the moronic enemies of freedom, liberty and personal responsibility.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
> Sadly all Otago students are forced to pay Mr Edgar’s salary.
Give it a few more years and they’ll still be paying his salary – through their taxes when he gets into parliament on Labour’s list. That’s assuming he’s either from some minority group or gets involved with the right union.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
nasska:
Vote:- it gets colder in Christchurch
- Dunedin was founded in 1848
- the name of Christchurch was decided in 1848, it became a city in 1856
July 18th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
PG
Well, that blew that theory out of the water.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
There is an extremely scary part to all of this story.
Vote:Only ONE political party had enough guts to put forward a bill advocating voluntary student association membership.
Look at the current polling and they could possibly be dog tucker.
Come on New Zealanders; we need that party.
Otherwise we will all have shivers looking for a spine to run up.
July 18th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Hang the cretinous idiot’s cage off the Leith Street bridge. And pelt him with kitchen slops from the hostels.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Tauhei
I appreciate where you are coming from & it is true that they have done everything possible to bring the bill to this stage. It is a pity that they hadn’t worked equally hard at selling the brand & testing the water before heading into the coming election.
Don Brash’s financial credentials were sufficient to go to the electorate on a platform of economic reform. Instead of doing what small parties can do well & sticking to the knitting what little policy they have released is all over the place. They could do well to sit down & figure out who they want on board before they alienate 99% of potential voters.
And then the clanger…the inept, arrogant ego that is John Banks. South of the Bombay Hills he is toxic.
Without the party vote from the South there will be the Recycled Mouth from Auckland with a couple of list MPs hanging from his coattails… such will be ACT in four months time.
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
People on the left pulling narcissistic stunts. I guess nobody saw that coming. I bet it will be called off if it snows, or there’s a hard frost. Reason #958 to be pro VSM.
cheers
David Prosser
Vote:July 18th, 2011 at 11:48 pm
Locked in a cage…..hmmmmm……kind of symbolic….reminds you of all the students who are locked into union membership.
Vote:On that basis, from a pro-union perspective, this would have to be one of the most counterproductive stunts ever.
How much thought did he put into this? 3 seconds worth? Perhaps 4?
July 19th, 2011 at 6:41 am
Put his expensive carbon fibre bike in the cage with him…
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 7:11 am
Actually before we get too ‘frothy’ it might be worthwhile considering the virtues of restraint. For example this young man (perhaps in full neoprene/lycra) has chosen to make this protest and evidently he is so annoying that complete strangers feel compelled to attack him, but let’s not go half-cocked. We all know this will look splendid on his CV when he goes for Parliamant, and he’ll dine out on it for years.
But a suitable counter demonstration would be to erects some signs indicating what this guy earns a year and how students are paying for his stunt and would be so much more effective than turning it into a free-for-all involving rotten fruit and such. That would play into his rather devious little hands, I’d suggest, and he’d go crying to the media about it..
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 7:24 am
The president of the student association just said on tv3 that of 5000 submissions, 98% were opposed to the bill. He then talked about students being overwhelmingly opposed. Do those statements carry the same credibility as the analogy to a ratepyer refusing to pay rates because he hasn’t been to the library or a taxpayer refusing to pay rates because he hasn’t been to a hospital or does he have an overwhelmingly inflated sense of self-importance?
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 7:31 am
Acting up on campus – cage fights.
The Update at the bottom suggests both at fault.
Politicians of the future? If that’s an indication of their self control I hope not.
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 7:54 am
If Edgar isn’t buff, wearing a thong and shaking his booty I’m not really interested.
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 7:55 am
Why doesn’t the gocvernment just adopt this as a government bill and get it through that way? Act wont care if it is not passed as a member’s bill.
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Ok here I am in sunny Duneidn, home of my ancestors after they skipped out from India and headed home to Scotland (making a slight navigational error along the way).
I’ve decided to get a bigger gage, call it Thunderdoom and deal with this tool.
Someone gimmie a chainsaw, Imma fuck him up good.
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 8:28 am
Crag, I suspect he’ll be shaking his booty alright, but that’ll be the cold.
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 9:25 am
Brian, I heard this idiot Edgar on Moaning Report this morning. He claims that National has promised not to pass VSM legislation and the point of his cage protest is to hold National accountable for its promise in election year.
If that is true then it is no wonder National doesn’t seem to give a stuff that this bill is being stalled by the Labour Party.
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 9:56 am
smttc
National don’t care about the VSM bill, as they were quite happy with the legislation they passed last time they were in government – which left the matter up to students to decide.
Vote:July 19th, 2011 at 10:59 am
I heard this twat on 1ZB this morning talking to Susan Wood.
Vote:If he is representative of the academic quality that comes out of our places of higher learning, God help us all, the twerp came across as an unintelligable moron, barely able to string 3 words together. He also proved the case for VSM quite nicely I thought.
July 20th, 2011 at 6:10 am
Amnesty International will settle the issue. Doesn’t their founding document, their raison d’etre, the UN Declaration of Human Rights say quite clearly “No one may be compelled to join an organisation…” (Article 20)
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
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