University Council meetings are often witness to the incisive and efficient methods of the Chairman and Chancellor, K.B. O'Brien. Along with a thorough knowledge of all the procedural technicalities he comes down harshly on wafflers and incompetents. Last Monday he was true to form, with student representative Peter Thrush being on the receiving end.

Under Starter's Orders

The meeting started with the election of Chancellor and Pro-Chancellor. As with most things of this nature the elections were but a formality. In the blinking of an eyelid K.B. O'Brien was re-elected as Chancellor for a further three years, and Mr Walter Scott was elected Pro-Chancellor for 12 months.

After a quick formality motion concerning the purchase of a piddling number of shares in Winstones Ltd. [one of the weeks budget specials almost], Council moved onto staff salaries.

There was nothing exciting in that either except for the fact that the Vice-Chancellor would now receive an annual salary of $27,428 plus a cost of living allowance of $365 per year. At this stage I couldn't help but compare his $1 per day cost of living allowance with the paltry $2 per week that students were given.

A quick glance at a report of the Standing Committee On Student Accommodation suggested that there may be a trend away from students living in flats to living in Everton hall type hostels. Not that any of it can be substantiated yet. It was on this matter that Professor Gould showed why he was made the Acting Vice-Chancellor. He proceeded for 5 minutes to say more and more about less and less until he had succeeded in losing everyone. It was a poetic lesson on how to say nothing in public without really trying.

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.

Dirty Washing

The Chancellor had to put him right on this one as welt. The fact was that if he had been there he would have tied the vote and the chairman would have used his casting vote. [As far as we can ascertain the Chancellor would have voted against the motion and thus the restrictions would have been lost]. In the same breath Thrush said that he had been villified by the student press for not attending the meeting [once again as if anyone was interested]. As one person close to us remarked it was not really surprising, given his perfromance that day. Thrush's last words were "The students object".

Peter Winter, making his debur at Coun meetings, had a bad start. He began talking about the very subject that had been ruled out of order by the Chancellor, that of the pre-requisites. He, like Thrush, was all at sea having some confusing moments as he attempted to play maths with numbers on who might come to law faculty and those who might fail, and those who last to the bitter end and pass. The ideas were there even if they did come out strangely. Then in came two of the seasoned performers on the academics' side. Professor Could and Mr Johnston. The latter is the chairman of the Academic Committee and launched into the time worn argument of saying that there had been no student voices against these measures even though the students had been represented by various student reps all the way through the system. John McGrath, former Studass President and lawyer, voiced his objections to the cuts on the same grounds as he had the previous meeting. Quite obviously no-one wanted to traverse all the old ground. It came to the vote and the student motion went down 6 votes to 9 [a greater margin than at the previous meeting]. The afternoon tea break came as a godsend.

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[unclear: Overs student] cutbacks

[unclear: The l] matter of substance was the [unclear: Acting-Chancellor's] report. The most [unclear: impor matter] as far as students were [unclear: conce was] item five, the report of the [unclear: Profers Boards] Overseas Student [unclear: Comm At] the same time a Students [unclear: Associ motion] calling for Council [unclear: suppo ainst] the cutbacks on Overseas [unclear: stude nd] urging the Overseas Students [unclear: Admis Committee] [OSAC] to fill the [unclear: quote by] the university was to be [unclear: discus The] recommendations of the [unclear: prof B Committee] were passed after [unclear: the Ch an] of the Committee, Stuart Johnston spoke to the report. The recommendations include one calling on the NZ Vice Chancellors Committee to set up its own standing committee on overseas students to co-ordinate and rationalise university policy on the whole area. The other recommendations were that the new committee if set up should direct its view towards various issues such as the length of student permits, the English language tests, and the need for on-going language courses.

Then came the Students Association motion. All Council members had been given an informative and factual background paper prepared by the NZUSA Research Office. In addition many members had been seen beforehand to gain their support.

David Cuthbert [Former President of. Canterbury and NZUSA and now Governor General's representative on Council] moved an amendment which more clearly expressed the intent of the motion. After that amendment was passed Professor McCreary moved a second amendment that dallied around with the wording somewhat without changing too much of the meaning. Then it was a dispute over wording. In the original motion a word had been left out

Chancellor asked Thrush what the wording should have been he admitted that a word was missing and then quite unneccessarily said "in fact I couldn't vote for it myself in its present form". For the second time in the same meeting [unclear: pained l] expressions were seen around the room. In spite of Thrush the motion in all its amendments was put and carried.

There remained little else for the public to witness. A few degrees were confirmed, accounts passed for payment, a pat on the back for the Acting Vice Chancellor who was going back to being an academic and that was it. The press gathered their papers, the students left, and the meeting went into the part with the "Public Excluded".

Unmitigated Failure

From the student point of view this was a terrible meeting. Not just because we lost a motion on the Law Faculty restrictions. By the same token the passing of the overseas student motion was no mitigating factor. The great shame of this meeting was the performance of Peter Thrush the "senior" student rep on Council. To be blunt he was incompetent.

For a person who has had twelve months experience on Council Thrush looked like a novice. But then he hasn't been to all the meetings, and his reporting back to SRC has been less than adequate. It has always been a difficult task to maintain adequate student representatives at any level be it in the Association faculty or at Council. On the whole VUWSA has been blessed with competent reps at Council who have forcefully and diligently put forward the Association's point of view. However, at this meeting with two important issues the law faculty restrictions and cutbacks in overseas students being discussed, the credibility of VUWSA must have been close to rock bottom. The motions concerned were passed in spite of Peter Thrush not due to him.

Peter Winter did not make the greatest of debuts at this meeting. But then it was his first and the important thing is that VUWSA reps work together as a team with the experienced leading and helping the inexperienced. After last week's meeting it does not seem that Peter Winter will receive that help.