No Perks?

Sir— I would like to enquire why it is considered necessary by Exec. to waste about £150 of Student money in giving free trips to Winter Tournament to a favoured few.

Ten lucky people will be flown to Dunedin at Student expense. This compares with Exec's generosity to competitors at the Tournament. They get one quarter of their second-class train fare from Christchurch to Dunedin subsidised by the Students' Association.

It appears to me that these trips are merely a perk to enable the ten people to have an all-expenses-paid holiday.

Ostensibly four of these ten are delegates to the NZUSA Conference. From a study of Salient No. 5 it appears that the only thing that happened at the Summer Conference was that delegates awarded themselves a new tie, the tie presumably being awarded at student expense.

If NZUSA must exist surely all that is necessary is that the presidents of the various students' associations should meet. These presidents should also be prepared to travel to the Tournament in the same way as all competitors.

Two other delegates are supposed to attend meetings of the New Zealand Student Press Council. Although much was made after Easter Tournament of the reform being carried out in this moribund organisation, apparently nothing has been done. It would, therefore, seem that this Press Council has no functions whatsoever and should be abolished completely. If Salient is as desperately hard-up as was claimed at the AGM then the money spent on air fares for these delegates would be far better spent on the actual paper—perhaps in printing a proper Election Issue rather than the extremely roughly cyclostyled sheet put out this year under that name? Two other delegates are to the NZU Sports Council. Their travelling to Tournament may be defensible but why they cannot go by boat and train with the competitors completely escapes me.

The last two delegates are to Arts Festival and there may also be some logic in their attendance, but surely the same travelling arrangements could apply to them as to the members of the plays being put on.

Thus it would seem that the delegates to conferences at the Tournament could be cut from 10 to 5 and the cost to students, even if the full fares are paid out from perhaps £150, if they fly to about £35 if they travel by boat and rail.

Is it really too much to expect that the Students' Association Executive will have the courage to cut out these trips and therefore cut out some of the cushy perks, thereby saving students' money.— I am etc.

Ian Harland.

[To suggest that all NZUSA did at Summer Conference was to award themselves a new tie is at best facetious. Ignorance of what NZUSA does leads this correspondent to suggest erroneously that only the presidents of the students' associations need meet.

Although Mr. Harland has given up some time to help with the running of the Students' Association (as Returning Officer) he must realise that those who spend a considerable amount of time over the year to help students' associations deserve more than 25 per cent paid of their fare to Tournaments.

It should also be remembered that a great deal of time is spent by delegates to Tournament in conference—not just for the gratification of their individual egos.

Finally. Mr. Harland should know the facts before he criticises Salient's cyclostyled election issue. As Returning Officer he might be interested to know that Salient was not consulted to enable the election to fit in with our previously set publication dates and our printer's capacity.

Therefore at the last minute Salient staff had to get copy, type out and cyclostyle the election material. This task should not be taken lightly, as Mr. Harland is prone to do. (Ed.) ]