Law Faculty Restrictions

Then came the matter that many thought would add a bit of life and tension to the Council meeting. The student representatives, Peter Winter and Peter Thrush were moving a motion concerning the recently announced law faculty number restrictions. It was Thrush who began to speak to the motion :

"That Council rescind its decision of June 27th to introduce restrictions on the number of law students admitted to second year courses in the Law Faculty". Even before the debate got going O'Brien was in. He asked what was the motion that they were trying to rescind. There had been several motions passed and thus Thrush's motion was unclear to him and probably most of council. This was where the disasters for Peter Thrush [and of course the Students Association which he represents] began. Thrush stumbled around but was saved by the Chancellor who provided the motion numbers for him. It was finally sorted out and the Chancellor said that he was willing to accept that the student motion was directed towards the specific motion which approved the limitations in principle. "Was that all" the Chancellor asked Thrush. "Well we had also thought of talking about the prerequisites that were also passed at the last meeting". Here the relatively tolerant Chancellor made it quite plain that he would not accept discussion that motion, thus Thrush would have to confine himself to speaking about the limitations in enrolments. Unfortunately Peter Thrush didn't seem to be able to take the hint. "We have a section in the Association constitution that says that nothing shall be void . . . . "Thrush never got a chance to finish the sentence. Like a jet struck by a missle he was shot down by a thundering "I'm not interested in your Constitution". The students who were there and even some of the Council members looked visibly shaken. Not so much for what the Chancellor had said, but the fact that a student representative could be so inept. That was the beginning of the end. Thrush attempted to say something in support of the motion, but he was hopeessly inadequate. He went on about how students had held large meetings in the Law Faculty, and in the Students Association and had strongly denounced the restrictions; and how they objected to them; This set a bad precedent. He was as convincing as the Government has been on bursaries. Then he came out with what must have been the strangest statement to be heard from a student rep. for quite some time. He said that he had not been present at the last Council meeting because he had been on a field trip to Nelson [as if anyone at the meeting was in the slightest bit interested], and that if he had been there, then the law restrictions would not have gone through.