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Salient. Victoria University Students' Association Newspaper. Vol 42 No. 1. February 26 1979

[Introduction]

The administrative body of NZUSA is the National Executive. Below is an account of he first National Executive meeting for 1979.

For purposes of simplicity, NZUSA can be regarded as having four separate levels; as far as membership goes, it consists of every university student in the country; at the policy making level it has a council which meets twice yearly (in the May and August vacations) of elected delegates from the seven constituent associations (Auckland, Waikato, Massey, Victoria, Canterbury, Lincoln, Canterbury and Otago) who spend four days in earnest debate; at the representative level it has three full-time elected officers (Chris Gosling—President, Grant Liddell - Education and; Welfare Vice-President and Jim Brown - General Vice - President), and two part-time elected officers (Lamorna Rogers - Co-ordinator of the Women's Rights Rights Action Committee (WRAC) and Choong Tet Sieu - Co-ordinator of the National Overseas Students' Action Committee (NOSAC) as well as several appointed staff; two research officers (Peter Franks and Ian Powell), a Secretary-Accountant (Dianne Short) and two typists.

On the whole National Executives have never been quite sure what their powers and responsibilities are and are not. They generally delve too far into matters which should more properly be left to the NZUSA Council.

While Council sets the policy for the Association, there are a variety of administrative decisions that must be made [unclear: betwen] the Councils, and rather than entrust these to the hands of the National Officers, NZUSA created a National Executive, meeting about once every six weeks, to make these non-policy decisions: staff appointments, various financial decisions, to supervise such items of expenditure as toll calls, travel of National Officers and all the other miscellinia that organisations like NZUSA seem to inevitably generate. The National Executive consists of the Presidents of the seven on constituent associations and the three lull-time National Officers. So for 1979 the NZUSA National Executive is:
  • Janet Roth - Auckland University Students' Association (AUSA)
  • Clemency Rogers - Waikato Students' Union (WSA)
  • Felicite Jardine - Massey University Student's Association (MUSA)
  • Andrew Tecs - Victoria University of Wellington Students Association (VUWSA)
  • Tony Stuart - University of Canterbury Students' Association (UCSA)
  • Deryke Shaw - Lincoln College Students' Association (LCSA)
  • Paul Gourlie - Otago University Students' Association (OUSA)
plus the three National Officers.

On the whole National Executives have never been quite sure what their powers and responsibilities are and are not. They generally delve too far into matters which should be more properly left to the NZUSA Councils. Being comprised of the Presidents of the constituent associations, they tend to try to represent the interests of their individual campuses rather than operating as an administrative body for NZUSA. This attitude was clearly revealed at the first National Executive Meeting of 1979 held in Wellington on 13 and 14 February.

The reason the meeting ran over two days rather than the usual one, was that on the second day, the Executive was due to meet the University Grants Committee (which controls the money spent on Universities) to discuss NZUSA's submission on the financing of universities over the next five years - as this is the basis on which money is doled out to the universities. However as the press (as we in Salient like to style ourselves!) were excluded from the meeting and the submission itself is confidential, this report can only deal with the first part of the meeting. Nevertheless this was not without its moments.