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Movick: The [unclear: fight] continues

The James Movick affair has been one big bureaucratic ball sup from start to finish. The amount of time wasted by Government and the Immigration Division of the Labour Department, the blatantly contradictory and misleading information supplied to NZUSA right down the line and the general exploitation by Government of the absence of any proper appeal procedure have all been paramount in creating the present situation.

Way Kick in August last year when James was elected to the position of NZUSA's International Vice - President it was realised that complications might occur with his permit. NZUSA began inquiries to find out just what sort of permit James would need, and by October it appeared that the Education Advisory Committee (EAC) was the body to be approached. On 21st October a letter was written to the EAC asking for a date to be set down for James' case to be heard. That letter asked for a special student permit to be granted.

By the end of 1977 no answer had been received and James' permit ran out. Not until 16th January did the department bother to inform NZUSA of what was happening at their end. In a letter from Mr. Cross, the Director of the Immigration Division, NZUSA were told that James would be unlikely to be allowed to stay in the country, even though no principle had been decided upon and no procedure laid down for appeal.

By the 10th February a meeting had finally been arranged with the Interdepartmental Committee, the body it then seemed had immediate jurisdiction over the case. At this meeting NZUSA were told by Cross that no decision on James had been made.

The next day NZUSA received a letter dated 9th February in which Cross stated the Minister of Immigration, Frank Gill, had ruled that James must leave the country. This letter was quite specific in quoting Gill. The decision came from Gill and had not been made at any department level.

This is important. In matters of immigration the Minister is required to be guided by no statute, and is free to use his discretion as he pleases. There is no right of appeal against his decision, either to any specifically constituted body or to the courts. This procedure places immigration quite outside the accepted tenor of New Zealand law. However James was given time to appeal and he duly lodged one with the EAC.

It was not learned until sometime later that a principal was to be established in regard to overseas students taking up full-time office with a students' association. This was that overseas students could take up office but only if they had made satisfactory academic progress. The definition of "satisfactory" was left to the Minister, and the principle had been established independently from and would not apply to James' case. It was becoming more and more apparent that the Government wanted James out of the country for political reasons.

On 23rd February NZUSA received two letters from the Interdepartmental Committee telling them that if James wanted to stay he would have to apply for a special work permit. So the appeal to the EAC (which advises on academic permits) was withdrawn. This left NZUSA in a quandry. Where were they supposed to go next?

It wasn't until Friday 3rd March, just six days before James was due to be arrested and deported, that they managed to get an interview with Gill. At that meeting Gill was unable to get out of his mind the question of James' academic record yet reiterated that James should be applying for a work permit!

That night he went on television claiming that James had been excluded from further study at Victoria University: a patent lie considering that not only does does Vic have no procedure for exclusion on academic grounds but also that the Council had not even discussed it.

On Monday, after a forum at which solid support was expressed by Vic students for James a number of students staged a protest outside the offices of the Immigration. Later they went to see Gill.

At this meeting Gill made an extraordinary announcement: James was supposed to be applying for a special "interregnum" in his student permit. He e-should never have withdrawn his appeal to the EAC, and this had been clear all along! With two days to go Gill had completely changed the whole situation. And of course, he added that he remained firm.

Even if James was granted a hearing by the EAC he would have to leave before Wednesday. If the appeal was successful it would then still be at the Minister's discretion whether James could come back to New Zealand. On top of this, the EAC is only allowed to hear an appeal on academic grounds. Thus the Minister has passed the buck to a body which has no authority to accept it. Catch 22.

Gill wants James out of the country. Even though a hearing with the EAC has been set down for today (Monday March 13) you can bet your bottom dollar that whatever the outcome James will be again told to leave and if he does he won't be allowed back in. The only way we can win this case, establishing both that government has no place in the internal affairs of NZUSA and that overseas students should have the same full rights of participation as local students, is to support James as he remains in the country. If we desert him we desert our own union. We must take the lead.

Simon Wilson

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Last Monday the University Council repealed its decision not to support James Movick. Armed with better documentation, a reworded motion and new information, VUWSA had asked that a special meeting be convened for this purpose. The first decision went against James 11—10, with the Chancellor, Mr. K.B. O'Brien deciding the outcome with his casting vote. This time the vote was 10—9 in favour of the motion. While the Council as a whole is to be commended for this decision the conduct of some of its members bears investigation.

O'Brien himself again had a leading role to play. He stated at the outset, and reiterated many times, that he was going to leave the matter entirely in the hands of the Council. "I'm going to go right down the line on this one," was a favourite comment. Yet time and again he took it upon himself to press his opinions and seemed to consider it a personal responsibility to defend the Government's actions.

O'Brien has a peculiar way of looking at things. He declared that "Council should be very reluctant to get involved in any way in the internal workings of its own students association." In the light of clear Government interference in student affairs this sounds rather like a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees

O'Brien based his stand on two main points. Firstly, he considered the whole business with the EAC to be "peripheral". Elements of it are, but it is certainly not peripheral that Gill has used the EAC to deliberately confuse the issue and slow progress to the stage where the time has all but run out. He did not however fail to score points in the EAC side of things when it suited him, and was even able at one stage to coin the meaningless phrase "technical irrelevancy."

The other avenue pursued by O'Brien was James' status as a student. The last minute decision by Gill that James is supposed to apply for an interregnum to his student permit seemed to be just what he was waiting for. How can I here be an interregnum, he asked, when James would not be allowed to continue his studies in 1979 any way An interregnum must come in the middle of something?

Semantic quibbling was also indulged in by Alan Nightingale, the man in charge of Hunter developments. He wanted to know, in view of the fact that officers of NZUSA are not students, how it was that they were being asked to support an extension of a student permit for a non-student. As if we called the shots.

O'Brien also stated that "by definition Mr. Movick is in a different' position to anybody who doesn't require a permit to remain in this country." Quite so, but that is exactly the case we are arguing, that this "definition" should not restrict James' activities in NZUSA: One must ask just what the implications of O'Brien's definition are: how much do we accept the fact that overseas students are at the mercy of ulterior government reasonaing?

At least O'Brien's conduct was predictable. Professor Geering who had originally voted in favour of James, came up with some farcical reasoning to support his decision to vote no this time. He started off admitting that the Council had a responsibility for student welfare, but considered that because there was no new evidence the case should not have been reopened. The extent to which Gill has been misleading NZUSA, which has only recently become clear, was not new evidence enough it seemed.

He then went on to suggest that the case was now weaker, mainly because of the student permit revelations. Like O'Brien, he fell neatly into the trap set up by the Government. But more was to come. Geering made the incredible statement that there had been "no attempt at interference in the internal affairs of NZUSA. Government have never said Mr. Movick cannot hold office; only that he cannot do it in New Zealand."

Geering finished up by saying he would have supported James if the submission had been made on the grounds of the obvious student support James enjoyed, and if he really was the only person to do the job. The principles at stake didn't interest him.

The exact nature of those principles was a matter for some discussion. Some members thought it was their duty to stay out of government affairs. Others, like Professor McCrcary put it very simply. So far as he was concerned, James had the support of a "substantial number of students" and that was that. Miss. Hyman was prepared to accept that the issue should not be clouded with academic considerations. Student rep Peter Winter emphasised this but managed to get in the fact that James had an excellent record with the University of the South Pacific. "James is no dummy,' commented Peter.

Vice-Chancellor Danny Taylor indicated that now it had been made clear the Council was being asked for support in one specific case with a specific time limit attached, he would change over and vote for the motion.

It looked towards the end that the vote was going to go against James. O'Brien, perhaps feeling confident, went so far as to state that the reason for the long delay before NZUSA was informed of the Government's moves might have been that the Minister had taken the matter to heart and was looking for a way to allow James to stay!

But at last came the vote. The voice count was confused, O'Brien called for a division himself, and the hands went up. To his credit it must be admitted that when the results was in he lent back in his chair and smilingly admitted defeat. Dr. McMillan, the city City Council rep who had not said a word throughout, asked for his no-vote to be recorded.

Simon Wilson