The National Party's Pre-Election Performance

While the National Party was in opposition, NZUSA discussed student bursaries with Mr L.W. Gandar, who is now Minister of Education, and from early 1975 National actively raised the bursaries issue in Parliament.

National was particularly critical of the Standard Tertiary Bursary, and soon after the budget had been announced, it appeared that a National Government would scrap the Labour scheme. However, later in the year the party changed its mind after students had made it quite clear that, despite the inadequacies of the Standard Tertiary Bursary, they regarded it as a significant advance.