Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 41 No. 3. March 13 1978

Wayne off the Mark

Wayne off the Mark

Dear Sir,

This furore over the possible departure of Movick from New Zealand concerns me. The NZUSA is asking us to decide upon the merits of his case from the very few selected facts they have given us. I hope most of us are wise enough to realise no issue is as simple as they make this one out to be. I personally would want to know all the facts before making up my own mind on whether the Immigration Department's decision was just or unjust.

What concerns me most is that if Movick gets any advantage whatsoever from any student protests then this is grossly unfair to every overseas student who is not a member of the NZUSA executive. Why should Movick get preferred treatment merely because of his position?

Ah, somebody will say — you've left out the out the vital ingedient, the principle at slake, the one we invented last week. Well that "principle" is only a part of the gross over-simplification the NZUSA has made of this issue. It may be a good slogan, but that's all I'll say for it. And good only in the sense of being well designed for its job, to produce a gut reaction in favour of it.

Only a naive person would believe that the Immigration Dept was deliberately trying to interfere with NZUSA elections. That would be a sure fire way of creating the kind of public protest that bureaucrats and politicians alike avoid like the plague. What is more important is that if Movick is being sent from New Zealand according to the laws as normally administered, so that any person in an equal situation would get equal treatment, then no interference has taken place. Because in that case the department would merely be doing what it is supposed to be doing, deciding who should be permitted to remain in New Zealand. And if it doesn't include Movick, tough luck for the NZUSA.

Even allowing for the (unfortunate) student tendancy to see every issue in terms of black and white and every martyr as a Good Cause, the NZUSA have gone to extremes over this case. Their reaction reminds me of a child which has had something taken from it. "I want it — Gimmie!!"

Wayne Baker