However they have struck a dirty deal with the university, where VUW will fund them using taxpayer and student money so they can function even if no students wish to join them. This is obviously a sign that VUW is awash in surplus funds and doesn’t need any further taxpayer contributions.

For let’s have a look at how the 2012 VUWSA President plans to use VUWSA assets funded by taxpayers and students:

Now you can’t blame the VUWSA flunkies entirely for this. They have had years of a culture of entitlement where they see VUWSA assets as being available for their personal political activites.

Whom I blame is the Council and Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University. The whole idea behind VSM is to give bodies like VUWSA an incentive to provide better representation and services to students. Handing over a large cheque every year with next to no accountability, means they are unlikely to change.

If I was the new Minister of Tertiary Education, I’d be thanking the Council and VC of VUW for making their job much much easier. If at anytime in the next four years before the Govt gets the books back into surplus VUW asks for more money, then it is an easy “No” as they obviously have lots to spare. Of course some of the academic staff may get upset that they’ll go four years without a payrise, just so VUWSA gets to keep its van for trips to Young Labour conferences.

UPDATE: VUWSA President-Elect Bridie Hood has e-mailed to clarify:

I just wanted to clarify a few of the issues mentioned in your blog post this morning entitled ‘VUWSA Not Learning’.

As has been mentioned in the comments section, all VUWSA Affiliated Clubs are able to access the VUWSA Van for use. Most of the youth political groups are affiliated VUWSA clubs (including VicLabour, VicNats, Greens@Vic, Act on Campus etc), and those which are not have the opportunity to become so. The process is transparent and fair. VUWSA does not privilege any particular groups simply by dint of their political affiliation. 

 As stated on the VUWSA website (http://www.vuwsa.org.nz/other-services/van-and-trailer-hire/) there is a $90 per day fee to use the Van and clubs must also pay for petrol.This is not a service fully funded by the University and/or VUWSA. It is, however, offered at a cheaper rate than other companies such as Hertz and Rent-a-Dent to allow clubs to participate in events.

Regarding my comment on the Young Labour Summer School event page, I was suggesting that VicLabour could hire out the VUWSA van (if it was available) so they could travel to the event at a lower cost than flying.

I’m disappointed to see that a personal facebook post has been interpreted in such a way.Anyone who knows me and knows my work at VUWSA knows that I would never use a VUWSA resource, such as the van, for my own personal gain.

Please let me know if you have any questions on this issue and I am happy to discuss VUWSA policy with you if the need arises. I hope you find the time next year to come and visit us, I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the changes that have been made over the last few years.

A fair response by Bridie, and I accept there was no intention of private gain. I do think there is a wider issue about using income gained through compulsory means to benefit the small minority who are involved in clubs and socs. I’d have no problem with that, if there was a voluntary membership fee and that was one of the “perks” of joining. But the whole idea with VSM is that compulsory sources of income should be used only for essential student services such as a class rep system, a union building.

But full marks to Bridie for the tone of her response.

Wellington students are having a party on Wednesday to highlight what could be lost if ACT’s Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill passes.

Oh this is too good to be true. They are going to spend compulsorily acquired money on a party to protest they will not be able to force students to fund their parties in the future.

On Wednesday student radio station the VBC 88.3FM would host a gig at the San Francisco Bath House to highlight concerns that the bill would gut funding to students’ associations and clubs like the VBC.

The gig was organised by the VBC, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) and the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA). Bands Glass Vaults, Jetsam Isles and Albert Mikoaj would play.

Oh how nice of NZUSA to help out.

VUWSA President Max Hardy said the bill would cripple the VBC.

“Wellingtonians have enjoyed the support VBC provides to local Wellington music culture through giving local bands air time and holding regular gigs. It’s important they know the student radio station could be at risk due to the government’s actions.”

A little history lesson is needed here. Radio Active is a very popular and successful radio station in Wellington. It has around 45,000 listeners. It was owned by VUWSA but they ran it so incompetently it mae huge losses and almost bankrupted them.

In 198993 it was sold to some of the staff, and it has been very successful ever since – and with no compulsory fees.

For some unknown reasons VUWSA decided it was competent to become a broadcaster again and in 20076 set up VBC, and both VUWSA and the university itself subsidise it. god knows why – it certainly shows that universities have too much money, if they use taxpayer money to fund a radio station.

If one did a survey of students, I suspect you would find far far more listen to Radio Active than VBC.

Amazing – I’ve been going to Vic since 2004 and never been asked to comment on the services VUWSA provides before. Amazing what VSM can achieve – they actually have to check that they’re relevant to students!

What she is referring to is a online survey VUWSA have commissioned from TNS. The survey says:

This survey is your chance to direct VUWSA about which services you think are important and how well you think they are performing.

It is great VUWSA are doing something they have never done before – asked students what they think on issues and on what VUWSA should be doing. This is exactly what VSM is about – giving an incentive for student associations to be responsive to their members.

Labour and Greens are 100% committed to repealing VSM, so that students will lose any choice over joining a student association, and so VUWSA can go back to ignoring students – rather than asking them their opinions.

I encourage all Vic students to take part of the VUWSA survey. If Labour win the next election, they may never ever again be asked their opinion – this may be your only chance.

I would also encourage all other associations to consisder doing such a survey also- it may help you survive. Asking your members what they think is the first step in a process towards becoming responsive, accountable and eventually valuable.

Read this story in the Dominion Post about VUWSA and VSM. Nowhere at all do they even cover the proposed illegal meeting on Friday, and the huge controversy over the retrospective declaring of the Wednesday meeting as invalid.

On the blogs you have been given first hand accounts of what happened, and even video coverage so people can make their minds up. In the traditional newspaper, you get just this:

Victoria University student president Jasmine Freemantle said the motion had since been declared void by VUWSA’s lawyer.

And this is reported without giving their readers any hint of the c0ntroversy involved in what they did.

And here is the irony – the Dom Post reports that the meeting was attended by a large group of students, yet doesn’t record any scepticism about the fact it was also declared inquorate.

Maybe it was in the original story, and a sub-editor took it out. But the story as published is woefully lacking in covering what is a very controversial situation. It doesn’t give both sides of the story – it just repeats the assertion by the VUWSA President as fact.

It has been brought to Salient’s attention that VUWSA will hold another SRC meeting this Friday at 11am in the Mount Street Bar.

Notification of the SRC meeting was placed on the VUWSA noticeboard on Wednesday afternoon. [Photographic evidence to the right. JJW]

The notice says that the meeting will be held “pursuant to part IV s. 2 (3-4) of the VUWSA Constitution.”

However, part IV s. 2 (4) of the VUWSA Constitution says that “such special meeting shall be held no sooner than three (3) office days and not later than ten (10) office days after the date of receipt of a requisition [for a meeting], or resolution by the executive.”

Fewer than 48 hours will have passed between the notification of the SRC, and the meeting actually being held, directly contravening the procedures outlined in the constitution.

So an illegal meeting, in breach of their own constitution, held in a bar at 11 am on a Friday (when all good students are hungover) is the first response of the compulsion lovers.

But it gets even better. After forceful representations about the illegality of the proposed Friday meeting (not that the forces of compulsion did the same thing at WSU – hold a vote with only a day or two’s notice) including a potential injunction, the compulsionaters have come up with an even better plan.

They have simply declared the Wednesday meeting void  on the grounds two VUWSA people declare a quorum count of 45, less than the required 50. Now note the resolution was passed with 80 people voting and a later quorum count (with one independent person) found there to be over 60 people present, and this count was done within the 30 minutes allowed in the constitution.

This is a prime example of how unaccountable some associations are. VUWSA never questioned the legitimacy of the Wednesday meeting, until after they realised they could not legally hold a repeal meeting on Friday.

UPDATE: A student captured the meeting on video, which is now on You Tube.  It is in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. You can easily see there are way way more than 50 people there. In fact I am told it was one of the most well attended SRCs in recent years.

I understand also that signatures are being gathered from around 60 people who will testify they attended the SRC at all times, and put their hand up for all quorum counts.

This means VUWSA is now obliged to put in a submission in support of the Bill, which will make student associations voluntary.

Jenna Raeburn was at the SRC and live blogged the multiple tactics used to try and prevent a vote – multiple quorum counts, competing motions etc.

There are going to be some very upset student politicians tonight.

Congratulations to those 45 students who took the time to turn up and vote, and most of all for being subtle enough about it, to pull off a superb tactical assault.

Salient understands the recent VUWSA by-election was declared invalid by an independent panel following a complaint by Act on Campus vice-president Peter McCaffrey.

Sources revealed the decision to Salient last week. The report had not been officially released at the time of print.

McCaffrey complained because of irregularities between online and paper ballots, and lax identification procedures with paper votes.

Upon receiving the complaint the election committee released a statement saying the irregularities’ while “not strictly in accordance with the VUWSA constitution” had “minimal” influence on the by-election.

The matter was passed onto an independent panel, comprised of former NZUSA president Joey Randall, former VUWSA Treasurer Graeme Edgeler and Senior Lecturer in Statistics Dr Richard Arnold, who have reportedly found the by-election to be invalid.

I am not surprised. In fact I was amazed that the election committee upheld the by-election. Not only were the electronic ballot papers in breach of the constitution by offering a no confidence option when it should not, you had different ballot papers online and offline.  These are not minor issues.

If the election is invalid, the decisions of the VUWSA exec over the past two months may not be legitimate. …

Neilson said the panel’s decision put the exec “in a tight position”. …

“It puts the voting strength on or below six, [which is] what’s required to make quorum,” he said.

Five new executive members—Max Hardy, Caitlin Dunham, Guy Williams, Zachary Dorner and Luke Cao—were elected in the by-election held from July 27 to 29.

What is that old saying about ability to organise a piss up in a brewery? And they get $2 million or so a year in compulsory fees.

I have a long history of women’s rights. In fact, my Dad was a women’s rights activist. My mum would have liked to be but she was too busy with domestic duties to be concerned with trivial tittle-tattle such as politics. Also, my dad wouldn’t let her. Wasn’t her place he said.

What do I stand for? Equality, liberty and FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM! Women are cool. Rights are cool. It follows, therefore, that women’s rights should be pretty cool as well. But what would I know, I’m just hypothesising.

To be honest, I got into this position rather unconventially. My flatmate somehow managed to bypass VUWSA and slip a cheeky wee application in without anyone, let alone me, knowing. Still, however, I’m a huge fan of democracy, student politics and velociraptors – so I’m only following through with this because I’m currently away at MGMT and have no way of removing my name from the ballot.

Take me where you will, democracy!

If you want to see me beat down a handful of feminists with no-effort (or support) on my own unauthorized behalf, then vote for me!

That, my friends, is women’s rights!

Lucy should win just for her sense of humour!

The first two WRO’s took off or resigned, so give Lucy a go!

The WP has tried to argue that I needed to consult with the Party and the Wellington branch before putting forward claims in collective negotiations. While it would be completely inappropriate for any VUWSA President to do such a thing in conjunction with their political party, such actions would be absolutely unprofessional in light of Unite’s relationship with the WP.

Now this sets up a real conflict of interest. Half the executive of the Workers Party are on the UNITE payroll or involved with UNITE. So what you have is UNITE through the Workers Party trying to control both the employee and the employer. The Workers Party basically says that if you are a member and the VUWSA President, you must give in to all the demands from UNITE.

Now since I blogged about this around two weeks ago, I’ve had a number of interesting documents fall my way, including details of the changes that Freemantle is trying to negotiate to the UNITE contract – these changes that are so anti-worker that she has been expelled for.

First of all is requiring consent for annual leave to be sought in writing in advance. My God – how draconian. I mean what is wrong with the employer just working out when you don’t turn up, that you are on annual leave?

Then we have the unlimited sick leave provision. Now this is not just sick leave for yourself. Or for your family members. But also for your pet. Yes unlimited sick leave for you if your pet is sick. So restricting sick leave to seven days a year is obviously just complete fascism.

Then we have the oppressive salaries. The VUWSA contract has automatic salary increases every year. Anyone can rise to the top of the scale – from the accounts clerk to the Salient Distributor.

The proposed top of the scale is $37.04 an hour – a fulltime salary of $72,500. This is not deemed high enough by the Workers Party who called it “Anti-worker and reactionary”. Even someone in their job for just a year, such as the Salient Editor gets $43,800. This may explain the lack of coverage of this issue in Salient

So the proposed change is that moving up the pay scale be considered as part of a performance review. And this is unacceptable to the Workers Party.

Somewhere in all this we should think of the poor Vic students. They are forced to join VUWSA and hand over $2 million a year to keep it going. They would like to think that they have an Association Executive that actually tries to get value for money out of the staff they fund. But when you have UNITE controlling the Workers Party, and the Workers Party trying to dictate to Executive members what they must agree to (or face expulsion), it is no wonder it is the student who gets done over.

As far as I know, the contract negotiations are stalled. So will UNITE call a strike over the right of staff to have unlimited sick leave for their pets?

Current VUWSA President Jasmine Freemantle has been expelled from the Workers Party. Freemantle contested the VUWSA election last year on a Workers Party platform. Since then, however, she has acted entirely as an individual rather than abiding by Workers Party policies and decisions.
A number of Workers Party principles have been breached, most particularly around the VUWSA Staff Collective Agreement which she drew up and which represented an attack on VUWSA employees’ rights, and around her role on Anzac Day where she failed to support action by WP members. In the case of Anzac Day, while she failed to consult in any way with the Party, she consulted with the RSA, seeking their endorsement of motions for a Student Representative Council.

Good God – she consulted the RSA – she must be lynched.

Since she was elected as president of VUWSA running on the WP platform, we believe she should resign from her position of President of VUWSA and seek re-election on her own record and platform.

Jasmine has done a very lengthy blog post on her experiences with the Workers Party, how members have treated her, the links to the UNITE union, the VUWSA involvement. It is worthy of scrutiny. Some extracts:

A particularly bad case involved an Auckland WP member and Unite Union activist. This specific member had made unreceptive advances to me off and on for a number of years. Mid last year he completely barraged me with text messages and phone calls at all hours of the night, demanding sex and revealing very upsetting and highly emotive details about his own personal life. This continued for quite some time, despite the fact that I alerted the Party’s leadership to the problem. After a few months of this carry on, I received a spate of drunken phone calls from him, which consisted of him yelling at me, “You’re not my comrade, not anymore”. When I asked why this was, he replied “You’re not my comrade because you’re fucking my mate” (in reference to the fact that I’d started going out with another Party member, Nick Kelly.)

This particular member had developed a drinking problem largely due to the stress and long hours created by his employment at Unite.

Surely UNITE, of all employers, would not be requiring staff to work long hours and work in a stressful workplace?

In 2008 Joel Cosgrove and VUWSA Campaigns Officer Sonny Thomas authored a “Consultation document for a revised structure of VUWSA business”, AKA their now infamous (at least within student politics circles) ‘Change Proposal’ report. Joel has admitted that this document was lifted from one written by Victoria University management who were restructuring and laying off a number of staff at the College of Education. According to Joel, the Change Proposal’s aim was “minimising financial risk” and “maximising efficiencies”. In practice this meant the contracting out of VUWSA’s clubs and activities to the University, and laying off at least 3 core VUWSA staff members – though other redundancies were also planned.

That was a very good proposal (in my opinion). I think I even endorsed it. I always thought it was Sonny’s, not Joel’s.

I anticipated that having one WP member handing over to another would result in a relatively smooth transition. Failing this I at least expected an adequate one. From the beginning of October to the end of December 2008 I worked full time (the first two months without pay) at VUWSA as the incoming President. The theory is that this time provides an opportunity for the outgoing President to train the incoming President in everything from operational matters to high level business.

From basics like working the fax machine through to arranging various meetings with the University, I soon found I either had to organise it myself or work out what was going on by asking others. Joel was no help at all.

Joel would often come into the office late, leave early and spend much of his time watching YouTube videos. Despite the VUWSA President being a full-time job, Joel habitually turned up about 10am and left again around 2pm. He spent most of his time in his office sleeping with his door locked. He would often tell me how he just wanted everyone (i.e. VUWSA staff, Executive members, students, etc) to leave him alone and stop “bugging” him.

And people wonder why I support VSM.

There was a mountain of outstanding admin, grievances and complicated issues left from the 2007-2008 period. When I checked the President’s landline and cellular messages I discovered that Joel hadn’t even bothered to check them since September 2008. I spent a depressing evening listening to literally hundreds of messages, a number of which were fairly urgent, including one from a highly distressed student that had been referred to VUWSA by a counselor.

Staggering.

For a number of years now Wellington’s Unite Union has been fairly stagnant. As already mentioned I was part of a Burger King organising campaign back in 2004 which fell over due to a lack of commitment and professionalism by the Union. For a number of years now Unite Wellington has opted to focus on soft sites, such as the SPCA and VUWSA.

Staff at VUWSA are fairly well paid, with many staff receiving at least double that of the President’s salary. This is despite VUWSA hardly being a wealthy students’ association (in fact VUWSA has run at a deficit in 5 out of the last 8 financial years, some of them quite hefty). VUWSA Presidents are almost always either Labour or left thereof. No VUWSA President and few Executive members want their year in office marred by a big fight with the staff.

The annual VUWSA staff collective negotiations are a case in point. What usually happens is that Unite goes in to negotiate the collective, the Executive quickly cave in – and the rest of the year Unite gets involved in the petty office politics at VUWSA instead of doing the real work of organising fast food workers.

While not agreeing politically with UNITE, I’ve actually respected what they have managed to achieve in the fast food sector, and have a hell of a lot of time for Matt McCarten. But this looks very messy.

Days into taking over the VUWSA presidency, it became extremely evident that basic office procedures were either dreadful, or completely non existent. It has been common practice for staff to not turn up to work days on end without any notification, then return and apply for annual leave. The concept of office hours was apparently completely foreign. Trying to get basic operating norms in place was greeted with hostility and threats of industrial action.

So Jasmine was expelled for trying to get staff to actually notify in advance when they take leave?

In early 2009 Wellington’s Unite organiser left, and was replaced by two new organisers: one being WP member Don Franks, the other an anarchist called Matt Jones.

I like the idea of an anarchist being an organiser

The WP has tried to argue that I needed to consult with the Party and the Wellington branch before putting forward claims in collective negotiations. While it would be completely inappropriate for any VUWSA President to do such a thing in conjunction with their political party, such actions would be absolutely unprofessional in light of Unite’s relationship with the WP.

Here we get into really serious issues – the Workers Party demanding they approve what the President puts forward. Could you imagien the outrage if a student association president was a National Party member, and National insisted on approving the industrial negotiating position?

It is very clear that the relationships between VUWSA, UNITE and Workers Party are very murky and unprofessional.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the WP’s Auckland branch are Unite organisers. As stated above, Don Franks is also an organiser in Wellington; a number of other WP members are Unite volunteers. Just under half of the national Steering Committee are on the Unite pay role or have close involvement with Unite. Anyone else noticed a conflict of interest?

Indeed.

By way of background: I caught Joel Cosgrove and Kassie Hartendorp running a copy of the draft staff collective through the VUWSA photocopy machine on Sunday 26 April. When I questioned them as to what they thought they were doing photocopying a document that they had no right of access to in the first place, they said it was none of my business. Joel then grabbed the documents and ran off. When I questioned Kassie as to what photocopy code she was using, she said she was using the women’s rights budget code (but that apparently she would pay it back).

Just gets worse.

If you have the time, I suggest you read the entire post. My politics are a world apart from Jasmine’s, but you have to feel sorry for all the crap she has to endure in just doing her job.

The New Zealand flag was set on fire today at a meeting called to resolve whether Victoria University students should lay a wreath on Anzac Day.

Joel Cosgrove, a former Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) president, burnt the flag after making a speech against New Zealand imperialism.

He and fellow Workers’ Party members Marika Pratley, a former VUWSA executive member, and Alastair Reith doused a New Zealand flag with an accelerant and lit it, student magazine Salient said.

Staff from the student bar swiftly put the fire out, and ejected Mr Cosgrove, who later said he had been served with a trespass order banning him from the Student Union building.

Interesting is this statement:

The Workers’ Party action was nothing to do with VUWSA, president Jasmine Freemantle said.

Yet Freemantle is a member of said party I understand – is she saying she knew nothing about it? UPDATE: I am told Freemantle resigned some time ago from the party.

The original Salient story is here.

First have a look at this story and comments at Salient about the VUWSA Exec refusing to lay a wreath for ANZAC Day. Scores of angry students – but you know not one of them is legally allowed to quit as a member and get his or her fee back – or refuse to join up and spend the fee joining a group they do wish to belong to.

The other going on is at Salient itself. I’m not going to cover the full story, as it is on Ethical Martini, but Salient (which is funded by VUWSA compulsory fees) threatened Dave at Big News with a defamation suit over a very trivial issue (involving someone from the Salient office spamming his site). Now student media of all groups should be the last to be trying to use defamation laws aggressively against people. Again – if they actually had to earn their money – not get given it by statute – this silliness would largely disappear. Fortunately Salient have withdrawn their threat of legal action.

If you want to give 200,000+ students a choice, then e-mail Minister of Education Anne Tolley and ask her to stick it on the agenda for 2009 or 2010.

Even worse I am told it is likely the VUWSA President will be burning a flag during the dawn service tomorrow.

Someone remind me again why National is continuing to force students to fund the muppets?

UPDATE: Sources tell me that due to her position, it is very unlikely the VUWSA President herself will burn any flag, but some of her comrades may do so. We’ll find out.

VUWSA has been somewhat dysfunctional for many years – little reliable budgeting and expenditure control. But his year’s executive have done a change proposal they are consulting on.

I’ll summarise the proposal below. Ironically it aims to solve many of the issues that a group of centre right students (known as the A-Team) unsucessfully campaigned on last year.

• Orientation costs of up to $180,000 to be reduced, especially in line with falling participation. Students are more interested in events in the CBD which have greater variety. VUWSA could coat-tail on some of these, negotiating ticket prices. Also look to partner with Cuba Street Carnival, Jazz Festival etc.
• Reinstate Team Victoria MOU between VUIW and VUWSA  to reduce duplication in clubs administration and facilities
• Relocate IT Support to VUW IT Services
• All the above are to focus VUWSA on core functions of advocacy
• Restructure the three full time staff roles of Advertising and Sponsorship Manager, Campus Activities Co-ordinator and Clubs Development Officer
• Recognise the Executive is not well placed to manage staff due to high turnover
• Proposed that they convert the latter two staff roles to contractors for specific roles such as an Events Organiser.
• Turn the Advertising and Sponsorship Manager into a Salient Business Manager
• Negotiate a SLA with VUW Student Union for clubs support

As I said, I am quite impressed with their analysis of a need to focus on core advocacy, to reduce staffing levels, and use a mixture of contractors and a relationship with VUW itself to provide other services to students.

I understand Sonny Thomas (VUWSA VP and Young Labour VP) was one of those involved in the plan, and is campaign for 2009 VUWSA President on the basis of implementing it (subject to consultation). I saw him at the Internet Debate last night and joked I was going to endorse him on Kiwiblog, this damning his campaign – he looked truly panicked at the possibility.  So I’ll restrict myself to merely endorsing the reform proposal and saying I hope that whoever wins, is willing to implement it.

As you failed to hold an Initial General Meeting this year, and have so far failed to hold an Annual General Meeting to pass last year’s budget, students have not been afforded the forums they need to discuss your structural issues.

Pah – democrarcy – who needs it.

We’re cool with you pulling pranks, like offering $10,000 to whoever arrests Condoleezza Rice, but you have to earn the right to pull these pranks by otherwise running your organisation well, and often you don’t.

I’m never cool with compulsory fees going on such pranks.

Although we don’t write about every little problem you encounter, given the lack of any general meeting this year, it’s worth discussing some of these issues now.

Here are two examples. At the end of last year, former President Geoff Hayward decided to spend over $22,222.22 (which is a much less funny number when it is students funds) to upgrade VUWSA’s van, with the support of current Education Vice-President Paul Brown. Although they did this without the proper authority, the payment could not be reversed and VUWSA was stuck with the bill.

Similarly, at the snow games party in late 2007, VUWSA held a competition in which they gave away a snowboard. However they failed to give the snowboard to the person who won it, and the winner subsequently took VUWSA to court at the beginning of this year. Hayward’s successor as President, Joel Cosgrove, then failed to turn up on the appointed court date. Good one guys.

This is what happens when you don’t have to work for your money.

The AUSA President, David Do, who offered the reward is an active Labour Party member and a former Princes Street Branch Chair. Maybe a journalist can ask Helen her view of her party members trying to get the US Secretary of State arrested? [UPDATE: David Do tells me he resigned his Labour Party membership last year]

I’ve been told that the even bigger dicks in VUWSA has gone and offered a $10,000 reward – if true this would be from compulsory student fees.

The Canterbury student politicians seem more sensible, quoting the UCSA Blog:

As a student association, is this really their core business? Does arresting Condi help students in any way?

It’s crazy shit like this, which casts doubt on the credibility of Student representatives/politicians, and really hampers the effectiveness of our core responsibility, which is to represent students at our respective Universities.

Meanwhile Whale Oil offers his own $5,000 reward for a citizen’s arrest:

Popular and competent blogger Whaleoil has followed the lead of the Auckland University Students Association in offering a $5000 reward for the arrest of a well known criminal who has recently entered New Zealand: Winston Peters.

Cameron notes:

“And just before Peter Low gets on the phone, the competition is not open to triad gangs,” adds Slater.

Heh. For the avoidance of doubt I will point out the post is satire, not a literal accusation of criminal behaviour!

If you do not approve of the jobs VUWSA does, you can not resign. If you are disgusted with the President – you can not resign. The President andor Exec members can treat students with absolute contempt because their funding is guaranteed.

And we see this in a story on the Salient blog (photos by Sean Gillespie), about the capping ceremony at Victoria. Capping is a big day for most students. They have worked three to five years or more to get their degree. It means a lot to them, and their families. It is not about the Professors or the people on stage – it is for the students – the very ones who fund VUWSA against their will often.

Now this photo is of the stage, and the one standing out is VUWSA President Joel Cosgrove. Now the issue isn’t actually being scruffy, even though I think that is a bit disrespectful. I had the privilege of serving on the Otago University Council and even though I hated suits would wear them when it was appropriate. Also as a Council member I was eligible to wear academic regalia even though I had no degree. I remember having a very cool purple hood. I never actually got around to finishing my degrees so my only graduation ceremonies was as a Council member. Anyway the not wearing regalia is not the issue. Salient notes:

At the parade on Thursday Cosgrove was wearing a suit. So why did he feel the need to wear the t-shirt on Friday’s ceremony? He could have chosen something more appropriate to the occasion, but the university should not have allowed him to sit on the stage at all.

This is a prime example of the complete lack of respect he holds for students.

This is the issue. That is just 100% inappropriate. Graduating students walking along the stage should not be confronted with a “I love my penis” t-shirt. The fact the t-shirt is part of a campaign for a good cause – sexual health checks – is irrelevant. It is about what is appropriate for the occasion. Cosgrove was not there as “Joel Cosgrove”. He was there as President of VUWSA.

Now some may say this is an issue over someone being a dickhead, not about VSM (Voluntary Student Membership). That you get dickheads everywhere. And yes that is true. You get dickheads everywhere and sometimes they get elected as President of VUWSA.

But the nature of compulsory membership does make the problem worse. It increases the chances of getting a student President who, like Joel seemingly, has a contempt for students. When they have no ability to resign in protest or even not join because they think everyone involved is a dickhead – well it is little surprise you get a student president who thinks it is appropriate to wear a penis t-shirt on stage at Capping.

Imagine how pissed off the graduating students are – this is one of the biggest days in their lives – they are walking across the stage receiving their degree and the person who is meant to be their representative, who they have been forced to fund paying him a full-time salary, is sitting them with a “I love my penis” t-shirt on.

It’s a bit of a pity that one of the graduating students didn’t have the presence of mind to grab the microphone as he walked past and say something like “On behalf of most of the students here today, I’d like to just say our President is a douche and we wish he wasn’t here being a douche”. They would have got a standing ovation I reckon.

But then as I was out enjoying a night on the town, I got a text mentioning that someone appeared to be stacking the poll and multiple voting for Labour and the Greens. I was not surprised as a near identical thing had happened almost a dozen times previously with other online political polls, as I last blogged about here.

I had set it to stop multiple voting on the basis of cookie, not IP address, so that more than one person in a large workplace (such as Parliament) could vote. But I did have it set to log voting by IP address, in case anyone set up a bot to automatically delete the cookie and multiple vote. Or if someone is a total loser, in case someone sat by a computer for a few hours manually deleting their cookie, and multiple voting.

So what do the logs say. Let us look at votes for Labour:

Out little poll hacker started work at 5.20 pm and was voting several times per minute. Votes for the Greens were also being cast during that time, so it was maybe six to eight votes per minute – almost certainly automated.

And they look to have stopped around 7.19 p.m.

In total they cast around 600 votes for Labour and 650 votes for the Greens.

Now VUWSA is the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association. They take over one million dollars a year in compulsory fees from Victoria students. Students will be no doubt pleased to hear the sort of activities they are forced to fund now includes stacking and multiple voting in online polls.

I hope Salient will make some inquiries of the Association, specifically which (presumably) executive or staff member was using the computer with that IP address. How many times have they done this before? Do they think it is compatible behaviour with being custodians of compulsory fees?

And their colleagues around the country will no doubt thank the person responsible for adding another example to the armory of those who support voluntary membership of student associations.

UPDATE: The VUWSA IP address seems to include the Salient computers, so maybe Salient should also interview its own staff or volunteers on who was using it.