On 'Heavies'

I dislike the label of student heavy' at least when it is applied seriously, because it has implications of ego-tripping and self engrondisement. People who seek office in students' association, whether at local or national level, ought to be there to represent their members and because they believe very strongly in the objects and policies of the association, as I do in the objects and policies of NZUSA. Obviously if ratbags find their way into student politics they should be exposed and disposed of, but it's more likely, given a vigilant rank-and-file, that they wouldn't get that far anyway.

As far as NZUSA officers are concerned, students should feel free to approach us if they think we can help them OR even if they just want to know what we're doing. After all students provide the funds to run NZUSA and are collectively represented by it. If we couldn't at least be friendly and approachable, we ought to be down the road.

(Last week s interview with John Blincoe contained a number of transcription inaccuracies. The most important of these have however, been clarified or corrected in this week's column. - Ed).

The silly season has come around again for Annual General Meetings. The Victoria AGM will be held this Wednesday, March 31st and no doubt people are approaching it with the same enthusiasm that one would approach a dose of measles. Nevertheless, the AGM is important because it not only gives an opportunity to see where all the money has gone in the last year but also to raise issues and make policy. Despite their boring natures, AGMs do attract a lot of attention.

One issue to be raised at this year's AGM is the proposed tour of South Africa. There are always those who say that to debate such issues is a waste of time and has no place in student affairs. That, to my mind, is a narrow view. It assumes that somehow students are not part of the real world and don't need to have opinions on what is going on outside the university. It is important that students do have opinions on what happens outside this narrow cloistered little backwater, and the South African issue is something that will require people to make their opinions be heard.

It is to be hoped that students will support the anti tour campaign, and give their support to the NZUSA campaign. Certainly the voting at the recent referendum at Massey was surprising, although anyone who has read the motions put forward will see that the question did not revolve around the principles of the tour going to South Africa, but whether active support should have been given to the anti tour campaign. This is my view invited a negative response from what is historicaly a conservative campus.

Other things happening around the country in our fellow consituent are the continuing campaign to pillory Don Carson, the NZUSA International Vice President, for his actions at the Asian Students Association meeting in Thailand last year. Although Carson narrowly survived a no confidence motion here at Victoria over the expulsion of the National Union of Israeli Students from ASA, he was not lucky at Canterbury where the AGM there decided to say that NZUSA should not remain a member of ASA until NUIS was readmitted. There were further motions which condemned the expulsion of NUIS and it would seem that students have shown that they are willing to assert themselves and hold national officers responsible for what they do in the name of New Zealand students. The real test will be in Auckland this week when the issue comes up for debate at their AGM, and where there is a reasonably strong pro-Israel lobby. It would seem that if Don Carson and the 1975 NZUSA national executive decision goes down there then we are set for a repeat of the debate on the Middle Fast similar to the ones held m 1974.

This can only be desirable and hopefully will result in NZUSA having a clear and definitive policy on the Middle Last.

— Gyles Beckford