In an effort to catch the house-wives market. Victoria University has introduced what is believed to be a world first: [unclear: serialised] SRC's, Last week saw the continuing story of The Many Motions, part 2. The wet weather had driven the crowds, lemming like, indoors so that there was a very sizable crowd to be cajoled, abused and amused by chairperson Andrew Tees.

A rather remarkable matter was brought up by Simon Wilson at the beginning of the meeting. I am of course telling you nothing new when I say the library is rather short of space. One way to alleviate the problem would be for the staff club room, currently situated on the third floor, to move out. The staff are, however, refusing to move out until they get new accommodation accommodation that is with a view of the harbour. Naturally, no student would wish to deprive our hard working academic oracles of any creature comforts, but the attitude of the staff hardly seems in keeping with the seriousness of the situation. Remember, boys and girls, we all have to make these little sacrifices.

A Meeting with Merv

Tees, our ex-officio member of the National Executive of NZUSA, then told us about the meeting they held with Merv Wellington over the weekend. He said this meeting was rather unsatisfactory. They had sought an assurance from Merv that the financial position of training college students would not be discussed until negotiations concerning the Standard Tertiary Bursary had been concluded. Gandar had given the assurance, but Wellington was unable to renew this assurance. Merv also [unclear: vetoed] NZUSA's recommendation that the abatement be removed for students over the age of 20. But this is early days yet folks. Don't forget there will be a Bursaries March on April 11.

More elections were then held, and these continued in a desultory way through out the meeting. Political bribery and corruption reared its ugly head here. All contestants for a position received a toffee, and those successful received a chocolate chew. Very yummy. It also attracted the contestants, and by the end of the meeting candidates for every position except that of Overseas Student Officer had been forthcoming.

By this time it was one oclock and it was time to start discussing a few motions that had been left over from the previous meeting. Things started a bit quietly with a Tees/ Massof motion that read;

Not even the stupidest of souls could find anything to say against this motion, and it was duly passed.

To Sell or not to Sell

Time for motion number 2. A product of the Tees/Edwards consortium, it read 'That this SRC recommends that if adequate alternative financial arrangements can be made for the debts and liabilities of NZUSA, that NZUSA should retain ownership of Student Union House, at 32 Blair Street, Wellington.

This is not the first time that this kind of thing has come up at an SRC. Last year a motion was passed saying the building should be sold, but then changing it's mind is one of the many liberties that SRC takes upon itself. Andrew said he was opposed to selling the building because it was the only concrete asset NZUSA has, and if it was sold, all the proceeds would be gobbled up by ever hungry debts. The "alternative financial arrangements" would be the taking out [unclear: of] a $75,000 mortgage on the building which would incorporate all the existing debts.

Gerard Winter, who seemed to regard this SRC as a marvellous opportunity to shbot his mouth off on just about every subject (whether it was on the subject under debate or not), spoke next, saying that NZUSA was an organisation that consumed large amounts of our money and gave absolutely nothing to us in return. What assurances have we, he asked, that NZUSA will be able to find a financial backer. And [unclear: secondly], how do we know that NZUSA will remain intact for very much longer (at this time, Canterbury was debating whether or not to pull out of the organisation - it infact decided last week to remain in NZUSA Tees explained that it was silly to recommend selling the building now when the price we would get would probably be much lower than the real value of the building. Inspired by Andrew's stirring rhetoric the masses passed the motion with no further ado.

And on to Politics

But the big crunch had now arrived, in the form of a motion moved by Lindy Cassidy and seconded by Simon Wilson that read, in its amended form:

"That this Association condemns the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea and the Chinese attack on Vietnam and calls for the withdrawas of all forces within their territories.

This motion gave us an opportunity to observe the two branches of left wing thinking and also to see depths to which the bias of the chair can sink. During Lindy's opening speech, she was given shit from the audience, yet Tees made no attempt to bring the meeting to order. If, however, the speaker conformed to Tees' own rather contorted political outlook, every effort was made to maintain order.

The discussion on this motion progressed for the next hour along several distinct lines. On the one hand were the movers of this motion and their supporters who took the view that this was an unpardonable incursion on the sovereign rights of a country to decide its own political future, and was a blatant move by the Soviet Union to extend its sphere of influence in the area and in the world in general.

The pretense that it was a popular uprising by the peoples of Kampuchea was rubbished by these speakers, pointing out that there was no evidence of any popular support, many of the invading forces could not speak Khmer, and the Liberation group that purported to be staging this overthrow had been formed only 22 days before the invasion, hardly enough time for an organisation to get together the resources to stage a revolution. If this was a popular revolt, why are there still pockets of intense fighting continuing in the country. We were told that we must support this peoples fight against the expansionist aims of Vietnam, an everyone here has a moral duty to oppose this new imperialism just as against the U.S. in the past.

Against this view we had those who regard Vietnam as a beleagured country surrounded by hostile enemies and crippled by western economic embargses. The Vietnamese invasion was really an act of self-defence, and was anyway justified by the atrocities (alleged) that the Government of Kampuchea was carrying out on its civilian population.

Another facet to the question was presented in the form of protests that we should be condemning all forms of aggression, and that killing and war, regardless of the circumstances were unjustifiable. While the emotions expressed are undeniably excellent, they fail to take into account the realities of the situation. Under some circumstances, people can only take so much and the only practical way to get any change is through violence. Unpalatable but true.

On with the Ostrich Brigade

And seperate from all this political discussion were the people who wished to pretend the whole situation didn't exist, and accordingly hid their heads in the sand. They waved their hands in the air, gave passionate and fluent speeches, and had the obvious and blatant support of the chairperson of the meeting. They also talked a lot of horseshit. Their main argument seemed to be that the SRC was not representative of student opinion, and it was wrong that it should go down as policy when it wasn't democratically decided. They didn't seem to realise that this is a "fault" inherent in the structure of SRC's, but one that is easily remedied. All that is needed is for students to come and air their views.

Their other complaint was that no-one was going to take any notice of what the students of this institution were saying anyway. If they are genuinely so caught up in their own affairs that they are not interested in the fact that other people in the world are being persecuted and subjugated by others, then I guess they have a point. Myself, I'm glad this motion was passed, and the sooner certain elements of the university recognise that they do not live in isolation in this world the better. But don't listen to me. Come along to the next SRC and tell us your views.

Andrew Beach