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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 8. April 17 1978

Movick

Movick

Probably the last chapter of a tragic story for the students of New Zealand came last Thursday, April 13, when James Movick flew out of Auckland on his way back to Fiji.

James was expelled from New Zealand on a decree issued by the Minister of Immigration. The series of incidents in the carrying out of his decree were characterised by a number of legal irregularities and bureaucratic bungles. Salient has covered these in detail throughout the procedings. (see the first four issues of this year)

Two important points have emerged over this expulsion of a national student leader. The first is the lengths to which a Minister of the Crown is prepared to go to carry out a selective case against an elected official of a representative body. It is no secret that Gill was embarassed by the work done by NZUSA on the overseas student cutbacks which he had engineered. James Movick was the main driving force in this campaign.

The Minister of Immigration in New Zealand has supreme power and is not subject to appeal if he decides to throw a particular person or group of persons out of the country. NZUSA has resolved to take the case to the Court of Appeal, as an attempt to test the powers of the Minister of and how far these can extend. James Movick is not the first overseas student to be caught by these extra-legal provisions. Many overseas students are asked to leave the country every year, many of whom are half way through their courses.

The second major aspect of the incident is the effect that the loss of James Movick will have on NZUSA and the New Zealand student movement in general. James was a particularly effective worker in the organisation both as an administrator and a dynamic political leader. Overseas students will lose most as a result of the loss of James. In him they had an exemplary spokesperson. Because of the internal situations in their home countries, overseas students are restricted in what they say and do. To have James in NZUSA National Office, they had a voice to express their problems in this country and at home.

In a more general sense, NZUSA as organisation will suffer greatly from the loss. At a time when the organisation is coming under [unclear: fieice] attack from within and without, James was one of its stoutest and most respected defenders of its policy and work.

Hopefully, the situation will help prompt student leaders to sit up, look at the realities of NZUSA, and resolve to build the organisation up once again.

It is now unlikely that James will take up the position he was elected for. He has left before being prosecuted as an overstayer to allow him the right to re-enter the country at some later time. A court case this week will ratify the fact that he has left the country so that legal proceedings will go no further. There should be no problems.

Putting James himself aside, the whole case has been a sorry affair for New Zealand justice. It reflects on the state of the country itself—the [unclear: flagrat] denial of the traditional liberties of New Zealanders and temporary residents. It would be trite to call for Gill to resign as Minister. It would also place the problem at the feet of one man and not at the present system of government where it belongs.

David Murray