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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 18. 26th July 1973

Don Carson — Sports Officer

Don Carson — Sports Officer

I am the present Sports Officer, an executive member of the Wellington Committee on Vietnam, chairman of the Student Anti-Imperialist Front, and a student representative on the Joint Committee Council.

My reason for first standing for Sports Officer was to provide student voters with the opportunity to elect a politically unified executive. Previous execs, hamstrung by conservative elements had become isolated from student opinion, such as in the case of PBEC. I took my election as a mandate to further the actions of groups who oppose such things as the Vietnam war and South African sporting contacts. This was not to mean that my intention was to ignore the sports aspect of my portfolio, I believe that I have fulfilled my obligations in this regard as Sports Officer and on Sports Committee. Non students are paying more in sports clubs, there is now a pool table in the former Hart room. I would continue such a sports policy.

Most students do not vote; I do not represent them or their interests. Such students are representative of an ignorance and selfishness that imagines that their total apathy has no connection with the plight of their fellow man suffering under colonialism and imperialism throughout the world. To them especially, such concepts are mere word playing.

Should I be re-elected I will regard it as a mandate from concerned students to strive for increased social change both within the university and in its external relations.

In the university the main problem is assessment. In-term assessment, regarded as the panacea for all ills has become the all year round rack. No progress can be made until all assessment techniques employed are scrapped. Students are in a powerless position, incapable of controlling the university in which their destinies and those of society are decided. The university car park in Waiteata Road is an example of almost feudal privilege enjoyed by the administration who never use their parks.

In external relations developments must be carefully fostered. Rama's tenant's furniture in the Union was symbolic of a new student era of forming working relationships with radical groups and organisations beyond the university.

Photo of Russell Johnson