Democracy at Massey

Massey was an interesting example of a totally undemocratic student union. It's four-member delegation was never together in one place at any one time, and its president Dougall Stewart was Massey delegate to four of the six commissions, as well as being cheif delegate at plenaries.

At the women's commission, Massey's delegate voted for a new policy on abortion. When asked whether Massey policy (supporting SPUC) contradicted the new policy, she replied that it did "but all the people I know around campus all agree that the old policy is rubbish". Surely a good way of deciding campus policy.

When a resolution looked as though it would be close vote, Dougall Stewart would suddenly find himself showered with free beers and cigarettes (and other favours that would make Nixon blush) because delegations knew that he personally held enough votes to get most motions through.

Otago and Auckland were very similar to this except they were a little more tactical in shooting their mouths off about "useless democracy".

Otago's executive decides policy on its campus as in practice does Auckalnd's (although they make reference to a SRC which has met two or three times this year).

But the motions put forward for discussion depend on the individuals who come to council from those particular campuses. For instance, at May Council Otago National Delegate Ross Denton made up about a dozen motions about the environment which had obviously neither been discussed on campus, or were intended to be discussed.

Canterbury is in a similar position to Auckland and Otago in its abhorrence of campus democracy (they, like Auckland, have an elected SRC which usually lapses for want of a quorum) although at council one or two principled delegates at least sought to discuss out their stands on issues in terms of existing policy. The Canterbury delegate to the Women's Commission managed to side-step policy by chairing the commissions meetins and hence not having to vote on issues.

Lincoln and Waikato are the smallest campuses, and even though decision-making structures such as SRCs are absent, they have both attempted, or in the case of Waikato, are attempting to make their associations as democratic as possible.

Both are small enough to avoid a very large gap between those who are elected to lead the association and the electors (there was a 50 percent turnout for elections on both campuses), and on both campuses there are a number of staff-student departmental committees which function as a basis for student action in the education area.