Disaffiliation

The disaffiliation of Victoria from the New Zealand Universities Students' Association was also considered by the meeting.

Affiliation to a proposed National Union of Students was also debated but both matters were allowed to lie upon the table.

The president of the Wellington teachers college students' association, Mr. Steve O'Regan, who proposed the motion, said that NZU SA was going into a well-merited and foredoomed collapse.

A national union of students on a much broader base and with more political power would be a much more worthwhile organisation for Victoria to Join.

Such an organisation would include all students engaged in tertiary education. It would have a national membership of 50,000, making it a more effective pressure group than NZUSA.

Former executive treasurer, Tony Ashenden, said NZUSA was not acting in the best interests of its member student associations, and was financially irresponsible. He cited the large amount of unbudgeted expenditure incurred by NZUSA last year.

Defending his organisation, Alister Taylor, president of NZUSA, accused Mr. Ashenden of ignorance, He said Mr. Ashenden had no knowledge of past or present NZUSA activity or of who initiated the idea of a national union of students. Mr. Ashenden's statements were irrelevant and emotive. Mr. Taylor said.

Other items discussed at the meeting included the sending of NZUSA to Vietnam on a factfinding mission at their own expense, the installation of bidets in the men's common room, a compulsory monthly meeting of executive members with students, and the action of the South Vietnamese Government in recalling its students from abroad.