NZUSA President tackes OSAC man.

Mr P.G. Morris, Secretary of the Overseas Students Admissions Committee obscures the issues involved in the Government's cutback of private overseas student numbers with his tortuous interpretations of the Universities Amendment Act 1970 and his pedantic explanation of the Government's control over public expenditure

Mr Morris convenietnly ignores the facts that the Government's stated reasons for changing official policy on the admission of private overseas students are incapable of being sustained in any convincing fashion and that the views of the universities were ignored by the Government in quite a caviller fashion when the changes to the policy were made.

While it may be Mr Morris's opinion that the Government should be given carte blanche to make important policy decisions without considering the opinions of those most affected, this view is certainly not shared by others.

Your readers may be interested to know (as I am sure Mr Morris knows already) that in a speech in Parliament during debate on the Immigration Estimates on 21 October last year, the Minister of Immigration (Mr Gill) admitted the Government's fallings on this regard when he said:

"Traditionally the Minister of Immigration did not make unilateral decisions. There had certainly been prima fade evidence that consultation with university authorities bad not been as good or as effective as it should have been......".

NZUSA'S primary concern in this whole matter is to try and resist attempts to undercut a valuable from o international educational aid which benefits New Zealanders as well as the recipients. Surely even Mr Morris will agree that the presence here of overseas students is a positive contribution to greater understanding between New Zealanders and people of Third World countries as well as assisting developing nations whose tertiary educational facilities are far less advanced than our own.