Passing Out

Most Presidents write their reports at the end of the year for consumption for the next Year's Annual General Meeting. However, I thought I'd write a few impressions of this and but year's experiences now so that the people who have contributed to the development and activity of the Students' Association can be thanked and those that haven't can be reminded (castigated?).

The primary role of the Students' Association it to look after the welfare and education of its members. This means, on the one hand, providing services and facilities such as SASRAC, Alms, cafe food, the efficient running of the Union Building and recreation centre. On the other hand it means fighting for a decent bursary, campaigning for compulsory lecturer training, lighter workloads and less onerous forms of assessment.

In the context of a broader definition of the word welfare, it also means closely monitoring Governmental activities, particularly the restrictions placed on civil liberties, for example, the SIS Act, Misuse of Drugs legislation and the Contraception, Sterilization and Abortion Act.

Another essential role of the Students' Association is to represent the opinions of its members, whether that is over the Wellington City Council's decision to build a Town Hall or over the invasion of Zaire. In order to represent the opinions of students, policy must be decided in the most democratic way possible.

Recently there have been attacks on the ability of the Student Representative Council, to adequately represent student views. Though I agree that it would be desirable that more students attended these meetings, at least students have an opportunity to decide Association policy. Not only does SRC give any student member the right to speak, vote, and move motions, it also gives students a forum where they can hear two sides and thus decide policy in an informed way. No other decision-making method that has been put forward can be as democratic.