Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 20. August 27 1979

NZUSA August Council

NZUSA August Council

Photo of NZUSA Council meeting

National Office:

  • President: Chris Gosling
  • Education and Welfare Vice President: Grant Liddell
  • General Vice President: Jim Brown
  • Research Officers: Ian Powell Mike Waghorne
  • Administrative Secretary: (vacant)
  • Managing Director STB: David Cuthbert
  • WRAC Co-ordinator: Lamorna Rogers
  • NOSAC Co-ordinator: Daniel Ngieng

Constituents:

  • Auckland (AUSA) Presidednt: Greg Pirie
  • Waikato (WSU) President: Clemency Rogers
  • Massey (MUSA) President: Felicite Jardine
  • Victoria (VUWSA) President: Caroline Massof (interim)
  • Canterbury (UCSA) President: Tony Stuart
  • Lincoln (LCSA) President: Deryk Shaw Otago (OUSA) President: Paul Gourlie

The second Council of NZUSA for 1979 was held at Auckland Univeristy during the August vacation. If May Council this year was the "Time for Action" Council, August Council could probably be described as the "Navel Gazing" Council. Four days of, generally, directionless debate that made no real effort to move forward to meet the threats that 1980 will undoubtedly hold for university students and education generally.

For the first time in five Councils NZUSA has not had a withdrawal threat looming over its head and seemed to react to this welcome relief by earnestly look inwards, examining its internal workings, the comprehensive nature of its policy rather than seeking to move forward to bring that policy to the members. There was a great fight to ensure that there was sufficient money for NZUSA to wage campaigns in the forthcoming year, but no real campaigns were planned, particularly regrettable as NZUSA has just come out of the most successful campaign in its history.

Council did, of course, have its interesting moments, none more so than the elections for the 1980 National Officers. Although all positions were contested by only one candidate, only the office of President was filled, by our own Simon Wilson, who countered the considerable opposition to his candidature at the beginning of Council, and was eventually elected by 37 votes to 5 no confidence, and by Denese Black who was elected WRAC Co-ordinator for 1980. The positions of Education and Welfare Vice-President and General Vice-President remained unfilled at the end of Council. Any candidates interested in these positions should contact Chris Gosling at NZUSA (ph 856-669) within the next three weeks.

In the following pages and in subsequent issues, Salient will be reporting on some of the events at Council—what happened, but more importantly, why it happened. It will not be comprehensive (one can't compress 4 18 hour days into a few articles in Salient) but it is hoped that it will give readers some insight into the workings of their national association.

Photo of Auckland University students protesting Bursary changes

Photo of Merv Wellington visiting Auckland University

A particularly stupid Minister of Education chooses a particularly stupid time to visit Auckland University.

One of the importat tasks to be done at each August Council of NZUSA is to set the budget for the following year. This is generally done late at night in smokey rooms by bleary eyed individuals. But enough of self-pity, the more important question is; just what does NZUSA spend all its money on?

Where the money comes from and where it goes

Unsurprisingly, the vast bulk of NZUSA,s income is from levies. $3.53 of your nest year's Students' Association fee goes directly to NZUSA. Multiply this by 39,000 fee paying students in New Zealand, plus a few sundry items of income, and NZUSA is budgetted to receive a total of $140,000 for the year ended 31 December 1980. The way this figure is expended is shown in the table at the end of this article.

Is it all necessary?

The obvious question to ask is whether all this money is necessary, indeed whether a national student organisation is necessary. Hopefully the Education Fightback campaign, and the reports of planned action will convince people that NZUSA is not idle. And if you want a national student organisation, you have to be prepared to pay for it.

NZUSA is presently underfinanced, not only in terms of its long term financial problems (which will be examined in an article in next week's issue), but also in terms of what it can do with its budgetted income. In the last two years some vigorous efforts have been made to increase the allocation for campaigns material (the figure for 1980 represents a 25% increase on the allocation for 1979). A particularly significant decision was almost taken at Council (it was only deferred because of some confusion on related issues) which was to build an inflation factor into the allocation for campaigns expenditure, so that it is not continually eroded. The practice in the past has been to allow the Administration side of the budget to increase with inflation, and then trim expenditure on campaigns materials to fit the income level. Hopefully this unhappy practice has been slopped.

An important point was made however by Phil Cronican from Otago, who spoke against this "guaranteed" budgetary allocation, saying that "just because you spend more money on a campaign doesn't necessarily mean that you get a better campaign." While this is true, there is another side to the coin. We spend a large amount of money running and staffing an organisation that can, as one of its functions, co-ordinate nationwide activity on a given issue. It seems absurd to accept this administrative expenditure as essential, but not make allocations that will enable the officers to perform that work. Rather like a Government that spends millions of dollars on university buildings but then will not provide a sufficient level of bursary assistance to allow students to attend them.

Another problem that NZUSA faces is that our National Office is understaffed. There is an urgent need for a fourth full-time National Officer. One suggestion is that there should be a Media Officer who would be responsible for administering NZUSA's publications such as its Handbook, the Overseas Students Handbook, the Tenancy Handbook etc., as well as the publication of a regular national student newspaper. Such a paper would give students a far greater opportunity to see what their national association is doing and to become involved in those activities that interest them. It's a lovely idea. But it can't be done with the existing level of income.

There is a tendency, even from those long involved with NZUSA, to develop an "us and them" syndrome, which clouds the real role of NZUSA. For example NZUSA has two full-time, professionally qualified Research Officers, both working for not inconsiderable salaries. With the "us and them" syndrome, people tend to question that NZUSA needs two such Research Officers, or that it needs to pay them the amount it does. But look at it another way. None of the constituent associations have the resources (or the necessary amount of research) to warrant employing such people, so in effect they have all clubbed together to employ two research staff between seven of them. The Research Officers involve themselves both in work that affects all members of NZUSA equally, such as the bursaries negotiations, as well as looking at particular problems on the individual campuses, such as the Social Work students as Massey University.

If you look at NZUSA in this light, a pooling of resources where they can best be, pooled, the cost of running NZUSA really represents a saving of money rather than an extravagance. However at times the "us and them" syndrome distorts this, and NZUSA and its members pay the price through a forced curtailing of activities.

Peter Beach.

Photo of people sitting at a table

F&A watches in horros as......