National

by Kevin Swann (National delegate)

Looking back at August Council, I wonder just what the fuss was all about. Why? because as a person attending for the first time one tends to imagine what an N.Z.U.S.A. council should be like, despite the casual accounts from "seasoned council goers". I feel that the most positive effect on me in having attended the August Council is to gain an understanding, of just what N.Z.U.S.A. is.

As the National delegate, I am sure that irrespective of who went in this capacity, more of less the same policy motions would have been passed regardless. But in all fairness a large number of policy motions were approved that V.U.W.S.A. either sponsored or supported. For example; that the major policies for the General Vice President be research into the exposure of racism in New Zealand: active support for the aims and objects of the Campaign Against Foreign Control in New Zealand: recycling of wastes, non-essential products/packaging, review of future restrictions of power charges to industries e.g. Comalco. (cheap power): and opposition to the introduction of nuclear power without adequate research into the dangers of atomic power stations: and a report to be presented by the N.Z.U.S.A. President for the setting up of representative Overseas Student Body for each Campus.

Much of the time was spent amending, altering, or removing existing policies, and alter starting with 74 policy motions we ended four days later with 74 policy motions. It is appropriate at this point to note my impressions of N.Z.U.S.A. and that view is simply, that distance and lack of contact tend to distort images to the extent that the question was asked at the last S.R.C. "What is August Council?", For example, the "ferocious" Alick Shaw is merely a ruthlessly efficient chairperson, with a loud voice, and food has remarkable effects on other National Officers.

Concluding one ought to comment on the trend to criticise the officers of N.Z.U.S.A. and for that matter most Student Elected Bodies. It would appear that students like most representative bodies are largely the result of large scale apathy and small groups of people are left to do all the work, yet forgetting that these people are still human, and as far as being non-representative as most of their critics would have one to believe, these people are probably the only few who are actually achieving anything at all.