Off Campus

Here the Association should function as an agent of social renewal. This requires the expression and promotion of progressive social and political attitudes. If such attitudes are to carry the support of the student body, it is crucial that there be an effective policy-making organ that enjoys the confidence of students. Our present policy organ is the Students Representation Council (SRC), which burst into being last year.

The open membership of the SRC (all students attending may vote) aims to induce participatory (as distinct from representative) democracy. While open membership invites dominance of meetings by the few (to the point where any confidence in the SRC could be lost), it also gives all students an opportunity to participate in decisionmaking in a way that will ensure that whatever consensus exists is represented in decisions taken. If we can make participatory democracy work, in this isolated society at least, we may reach the ideal of restoring to the individual some small sense of his dignity and power. This sense, which forms the basis of democratic theory, has long been lost in democratic practice.

Last year, the SRC never received support from the Executive until it was too late for this support to be meaningful. That mistake must not be repeated. Until such time as the SRC shows itself to be incapable of maintaining the confidence of the student body, it should be encouraged with vitality. However, if we are to be judged worthy social critics, the SRC must be thorough. It is worse than useless, for example, to pass motions urging the legalisation of pot in the absence of a detailed and balanced report. Towards the end of last year, the SRC established a sub-committee to prepare just such a report. Should we be shown merely to have scratched the surface of issues on which the SRC makes recommendations, our effectiveness will be jeopardised.

At times, social and political attitudes are best expressed through the New Zealand University Students' Association, the national student union. NZUSA, with a membership of over 30,000 students, commands greater political weight than do each of the individual Associations. NZUSA is potentially a highly effective political pressure group, particularly in matters relating to education (in which field NZUSA employs a full-time Research Officer). There is also potential in other areas—last year, NZUSA's representations on the Security Intelligence Bill were recognised in the House to have signigicantly affected the final enactment. Yet there remains the danger that NZUSA could become an old boys club of ex-student politicians. It could begin to operate on a different wavelength from the students it represents. That this may occur was evident last year when NZUSA apologised to Messrs Holyoake and Kirk for the rhubarb handed out at the Compass debate.

Either through NZUSA or independently, our Association must be involved in some international questions. A university atmosphere breeds concern for world problems such as poverty, racial discrimination and war. Some students feel that the Association should not concern itself with these matters but we must reject such moral myopia. What student is not alarmed on being reminded that the present world population, which evolved over thousands of years, is projected to double in 35 years? And why should this Association not express its alarm that the problems associated with this population growth are not being faced? Let us continue to direct the Association to be an agent of social concern, armed with youth, vitality and idealism, reaffirming the good, rejecting the bad and hoping like hell that we have the wisdom to distinguish between the two.