I think DPF nails most of the arguments for supporting voluntary membership of student associations:
I said to the select committee, and have said for over a decade that if you wish to keep compulsory student associations, then as a minimum Parliament should act to put in place some safeguards for students. Grant and Labour never ever did anything about this during their last nine years in office. If they had, then some of the pressure for VSM would have subsided. They only have themselves to blame – they gave their mates a legislative power to have compulsory fees, and refused to put in place any safeguards for students, as we have for ratepayers and their Councils.
If Grant was sincere about his analogy, then he would agree to some or all of the safeguards above. But never once has Labour shown any concern for those students who have been forced to fund incompetent and even corrupt student associations, against their will. VSM is one answer to the problem, but there were others. I’m not saying I’d prefer the other options to VSM, but Labour has refused to meaningfully engage with Student Choice on any of their concerns.
To be a bit more specific about these problems, students associations have a huge, ongoing issue with criminal activity – generally fraud – and very low election turnouts: usually around the 5% mark. You can make a principled argument for compulsory association if the organisations are working as designed and serving a vital function, but not for associations that most students don’t even notice the existence of, until they hit the headlines because all that money they were compelled to pay has been stolen. Again.
The broader issue here is that this is a mistake the political left makes over and over again: if you introduce a policy and it comes from good intentions, but you implement it poorly, or it breaks and you refuse to fix it, then whenever the right get into power they can just shut it down with no political cost.
i went to otago in the late 80s i like most students just paid the damed fee and got on with life.If the had just let the few act supporters leave and not make them donate their money to some socalist charity this problem would have gone away
Comment by graham lowe — August 5, 2011 @ 7:18 am
But we all know that Labour supports the Student Union status quo because it is a nice little feeder and funder for their party.
Comment by will — August 5, 2011 @ 7:27 am
I think part of the problems is that Student Associations are not good at promoting the stuff they do that’s taken for granted. Uni gym subsidies for example. I was at Massey in the 90′s when this was debated last time and Musa published a list of all the things they subsidize from their fees and people on campus were astounded by how much value they got.
Of course it’s then the association’s job to make sure people know where their money goes too.
Comment by Greville — August 5, 2011 @ 9:00 am
genuine question: when did the fees become compulsory? i seem to remember having to pay them as far back as the early 90s.
how is current labour responsible for that?
Comment by che tibby — August 5, 2011 @ 9:15 am
I paid them in the early 70s, a complete rort as we were only on the campus for half the year
Comment by Raymond A Francis — August 5, 2011 @ 9:43 am
Che – it’s about current Labour because they’ve just killed off every private member’s bill for this period (via filibuster) to preserve the compulsion.
Comment by Rick Rowling — August 5, 2011 @ 9:47 am
I was around Victoria in the mid-2000s (not as a student, but in touch with goings-on) and when they published a list, it included things they didn’t fund, and which they ran and made a profit from (so wouldn’t be under threat if finance became restricted).
I think membership became compulsory a very long time ago – like first Labour Government(?) – and fees may have been at the same time, but I’m not sure.
There have always been little issues around things, but I believe the current problems stem from the 1980s, when universities were de-regulated and study was opened up to anyone. As institutions grew, students’ associations grew and also corporatised.
Comment by Graeme Edgeler — August 5, 2011 @ 9:50 am
Worth noting that Graeme did more than anybody to try and clean up the worst excesses of compulsion at Victoria, serving on the Executive as Treasurer for (two?) years, getting the books in order, constraining excessive spending, and making sure that Association actually did most of the things it said it did.
After he left, shit went downhill very rapidly. The Maori Students’ Association, which was constitutionally guaranteed 10% of VUWSA’s revenues (Edge will correct me if I am wrong) essentially became defunct (for many years they could not even maintain incorporated society status as they could not hold a SGM or AGM with quorum), and one or two individuals defrauded the association for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I believe it is to VUWSA’s eternal discredit that almost nothing was done to prevent a recurrence of this, even after one of the individuals was jailed.
By 2007/2008 VUWSA executive members were defacing artwork in the aassociation offices (on a drunken spree one night one of the exec members went around painting “love” and “free” and “happy” and other such words over art owned by VUWSA, some of it very valuable). Repainting the walls cost several thousands dollars. One executive member spent several thousand dollars calling psychic hotlines. Perhaps the worst incident was when the then outgoing VUWSA President (who now works as an adviser to Charles Chauvel) decided to “soup up” the old van owned by VUWSA and get it repainted and generally improved. The cost was around $20k. He did not seek executive approval for this, he just went and did it. When the new Executive took over the following year, they found themselves with the Bill. Knowing it would look bad, they decided to pay it and “hush it up” so nobody found out about it.
There are countless more stories which anyone vaguely active in politics at Vic in the mid to late 2000s could tell you about. VUWSA is an absolute joke, amd until VSM arrives, nothing will change.
Comment by fortunefavoursthebrave — August 5, 2011 @ 10:24 am
I wouldn’t have such a problem with the legislation if it didn’t expressly seek to prohibit Universities from deciding for themselves that the best way to run student services is to charge a universal services fee and then hand that money over to a representative body, chosen by all those students enrolled at the University, to manage and distribute on its behalf. That strikes me as being an entirely rational way for a University to provide and manage the sorts of extra-academic activities that students expect to be provided … with prospective students having the freedom to decide whether or not they wish to enter the contract by enrolling at that institution.
In other words, freedom of association is being protected here by interfering with all Universities’ right to contract with students as they think best to accomplish their goals. Why should that be?
Comment by Grassed Up — August 5, 2011 @ 10:25 am
I noticed on twitter an argument between Grant R and DPF about the connections between students’ associations and Labour. Grant seemed to be indicating there wern’t many; DPF took the oppposite view.
One can argue as to whether the ex student politicans/presidents who are current, very recent or about-to-be MPs (Andrew Little, Darren Hughes, Lees Galloway, Robertson, Hipkins) is a large number or small, but the biggest contribution students’ associations make to Labour is through their activists. A large number of EAs and out of office support staff for Labour MPs are ex student politicians. It is pretty clear there is a production line from a student union, to staffer, to MP – Grant and Chippie are in the vanguard of this. It will get worse unless we get VSM.
Comment by fortunefavoursthebrave — August 5, 2011 @ 10:28 am
@rick. ah, i thought so.
from subsequent comments about bad behaviour i wonder, how will VSM improve this? is the rationale that less money will result in less bad behaviour?
Comment by che tibby — August 5, 2011 @ 10:30 am
Che – Students’ Associations have appalling accountability for students because there is essentially no ability for students to leave if they are unhappy with the services being provided, or if the leadership of the association is incompetent. They have to pay up anyway. In a voluntary system, student politicians would have to start acting responsibly and actually deliver services to students, otherwise their customers – the students – will say bugger off and leave.
Students’ associations will therefore be like every other voluntary body in New Zealand.
Comment by fortunefavoursthebrave — August 5, 2011 @ 10:41 am
sure. in *reality* though, students will opt to not spend the money, services will decline, and students will b!tch about paying full fees to go to the dr…
Comment by che tibby — August 5, 2011 @ 10:47 am
The argument that because VUWSA has not been run well in recent years we should disband the whole lot is patent rubbish. Every Polytech and University in the country has a students association, and by and large they are well run and provide a fantastic range of services to their students.
The real issue is a bunch of totally represerntative ACT on campus types, assisted by a forty something year old man with a well known blog and a seriously dodgy fixation on students, are ideologically determined to destroy what they perceive to be some sort of afront to their ideology.
Comment by Sanctuary — August 5, 2011 @ 10:49 am
Che – students’ associations do not subsidise doctors’ visits. Universities do.
_Some_ students will opt not to spend money, sure. That would be the students who don’t wish to pay $130 (or more) per year to an association they don’t use. They would rather not cross-subsidise students paying only $20 for Shihad tickets, or buying new oars for the rowing clubs, or giving money to J day, etc.
Comment by fortunefavoursthebrave — August 5, 2011 @ 10:52 am
Sanctuary – if they provide such a fantastic range of services to their students then lots of people will join up in a voluntary environment, AND the accountability on the student executives will be stronger, AND students who don’t wish to be told to vote for the Alliance every election with their own money will be much more able to opt out, keep their money, and ignore all of the malarkey.
It’s distressing you think that the fundamental right of freedom of association is some sort of ideological fixation. Do you also say that about free speech campaigners, or those who campaign against torture? Oh those Amnesty International people, so ideologically determined to destroy torture worldwide… terrible.
Comment by fortunefavoursthebrave — August 5, 2011 @ 10:55 am
@fortunefavoursthebrave “It’s distressing you think that the fundamental right of freedom of association is some sort of ideological fixation…”
i see we’ve flushed out one ACT on campus concerned troll.
Comment by Sanctuary — August 5, 2011 @ 10:57 am
in *reality* though, students will opt to not spend the money, services will decline, and students will b!tch about paying full fees to go to the dr…
I don’t know about Auckland, or elsewhere, but at Victoria, Student Health is funded by the University-operated student services levy, and has nothing to do with the Students’ Association.
This levy also assists in the funding for student learning support, the accommodation service and the careers service. The levy (or it might be the university activities levy, I’m not sure) funds the gym and related services as well.
Comment by Graeme Edgeler — August 5, 2011 @ 10:59 am
Oh I get it, only Act on Campus is concerned about freedom of association. My mistake.
Comment by fortunefavoursthebrave — August 5, 2011 @ 11:17 am
In terms of “when did it become compulsory” — it was around 2000. When I was an undergrad between 1997 and 2001, there was a period of time where student unions were not required to be compulsory, and the student body could decide (via an election) whether or not the union was compulsory to join or not. Around 1998 we had an election like that at Waikato and voluntary student union was the outcome. The next year the rumour was 30 people joined and the union was fucked. But then I guess with labour getting back in they made student union membership compulsory again.
Comment by mjl — August 5, 2011 @ 11:22 am
The thing for me is: if students’ associations can’t prevent its own officers from perpetrating frauds and rorts and funding idiotic vanity projects, and if (with compulsory membership of thousands) they can’t defend their own democratic institutions from hijack by a few dozen organised zealots, and if (with compulsory membership of thousands) they can’t raise protests that cause the whole repeal movement to grind to a halt, they don’t deserve to persist.
I think student unions, properly run, are extremely valuable, and I think the ‘freedom of association’ reasoning behind the repeal is flimsy and overblown. But the fact is that student unions have failed to defend their privileged position, and are consequently getting what they deserve. It’s a shame, but on balance I prefer a society where dysfunctional nepotism is punished, not rewarded.
L
Comment by Lew — August 5, 2011 @ 11:48 am
if they provide such a fantastic range of services to their students then lots of people will join up in a voluntary environment
Ah. Very reasonable. That’ll be why NACT supports voluntary taxation for farmers and the rich. Soon they’ll extend it to everyone I suppose, being so reasonable ‘n all.
Comment by ak — August 5, 2011 @ 11:49 am
mjl: ” But then I guess with labour getting back in they made student union membership compulsory again.”
Or not. The law at present is exactly as you described it when you were an undergrad – individual student bodies may choose whether to have compulsory associations or not. Which is why Auckland University doesn’t have one, whilst Otago and elsewhere do
Comment by Andrew Geddis — August 5, 2011 @ 11:52 am
“if they provide such a fantastic range of services to their students then lots of people will join up in a voluntary environment”
Except, of course, for the free-rider problem … which is why Auckland University levies all students a services fee, a chunk of which is given to AUSA to provide services to all students. In other words, students still pay for these services – it’s just they do so to the University proper rather than to “their” association.
Comment by Andrew Geddis — August 5, 2011 @ 11:55 am
@MJL: sort of. The original status quo were that all student unions had compulsory membership. Then around 1997ish a law was passed saying that they could hold referendums on whether to go voluntary. Auckland and (I think) Waikato did this and, due in part to the massive corruption of AUSA over the previous few years, the vote at Auckland was for voluntary. Then when Labour got back in they repealed the law, but associations which had already become voluntary got to stay that way.
I agree with Danyl’s point. I also hope that right-wingers are actually standing candidates in student elections, because it’s a bit cheap to complain about left-wing capture of student unions if they don’t.
I also don’t see how VSM would stop student politicians going on to candidacy with the Labour Party.
Comment by helenalex — August 5, 2011 @ 11:59 am
Except, of course, for the free-rider problem … which is why Auckland University levies all students a services fee, a chunk of which is given to AUSA to provide services to all students.
Free-rider problem? The one that is largely solved by asking people for a copy of their membership card before letting them use free services?
In other words, students still pay for these services – it’s just they do so to the University proper rather than to “their” association.
Because this isn’t about the money (for me, anyway). The way Auckland does it might not save students money, but that extra cost is something we should be willing to bear in a free society in order to uphold fundamental rights. The court system would be cheaper if we didn’t have jury trials for serious charges, but fair trials are important, and we pay for it.
I don’t have an issue with devolved student government, I cannot see how it impacts on freedom of association in any way. But forcing students to be members of an entirely distinct private organisation does. And because the aims of this could be met through a less rights-restricting means, it is an unreasonable limit.
Comment by Graeme Edgeler — August 5, 2011 @ 12:05 pm
fortunefavoursthebrave: “One executive member spent several thousand dollars calling psychic hotlines.”
I wonder if it was the same exec member who lived in the Kelburn flat above us, and burned a sandwich in the midst of overgrown scrub part way up the 50+ steps that formed the only entrance/exit to the house. It was some kind of boyfriend-cleansing ritual. Early on she also decided she wanted a piano soon after shifting in, which would’ve been fine if she hadn’t left it trapped in the middle of the steps for 3 months when it didn’t fit. Even that might have been tolerable if she hadn’t decided to try and pull it apart to get it down in pieces, leaving a giant heavy mass with trip-wires sprouting in all directions. Pretty terrible in the dark.
I guess that’s what happens when there’s virtually no turnout to elections.
Comment by MikeM — August 5, 2011 @ 12:16 pm
The problem with universities levying a fee on students to provide a lot of the services student associations have traditionally done is that universities are, in some ways, less accountable. For example, at Auckland Uni which has had VSM for a very long time the student association is quite weak. Right now the university is acting to make it harder and harder to host any kind of political or potentially controversial debate on campus. They are questionining the right of students to host quite legitimate events such as (for example) the Rebiya Kadeer tour which Keith Locke hosted last year in which she spoke about the persecution of Uyghur people in China. The university tried to ban it as being controversial (or possibly because they have lots of foreign students from China who pay very high fees?).
Similarly, the student association will probably not host a political debate on campus during election year (because the university says that each event involving any MP has to be hosted by an academic and individually approved by the registrar who can say no if he believes the subject matter is too controversial) . The student association doesn’t have it’s own venues on campus (except for a few very old shabby rooms) or the money to book another venue elsewhere. So the university (which, you know, is meant to encourage debate on controversial topics, independent thinking etc) will essentially be able to suppress most political activity during election year. Maybe that situation wouldn’t change if the student association didn’t have VSM – but I can’t help thinking they might be a in better position to protest this if they did.
Comment by Amy — August 5, 2011 @ 12:28 pm
the University-operated student services levy
So assuming this continues (and is raised to make up for the shortfall from University student associations) then you end up in pretty much the same boat no? Except possibly those funds are administered by University-appointed personnel rather than elected. Which by the sounds of things will vastly improve governance and accountability…
Comment by garethw — August 5, 2011 @ 12:33 pm
@helenalex Waikato voted VSM in the late 90s, but membership is now compulsory.
Comment by mjl — August 5, 2011 @ 1:14 pm
Labour/Greens proposed a very reasonable compromise that would allow the Act on Campus lot to opt out and receive a refund. However National/ACT would not compromise at all.
The other reason Nats/ACT hate them is there people almost never get on. They had a very well organised and funded team at Vic a few years ago and still got thrashed.
Comment by Luke — August 5, 2011 @ 1:36 pm
If students at an institution want their Association to be voluntary, they can require the institution’s Council to hold a vote on that matter. See ss 229B&C of the Education Act 1989 (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1989/0080/latest/DLM175959.html?search=ts_act_education_resel&p=1&sr=1)
@mlj: That’s because Waikato students voted to return to compulsory membership, after seeing how voluntary membership works in practice.
@Graeme Edgeler: It’s not feasible to restrict all student association activities/benefits to “members only”. A small sample from down here – readership of Critic, shopping at Radio One market days, attendance at OUSA organised talks and participating in events like Orientation/re-Orientation, benefitting from OUSA representation and advocacy inside university processes and beyond. These things are so necessary to the “campus life” of Otago that if OUSA ceases to exist, it will be necessary for the University to invent it. Hence, I predict VSM will simply see the University taking the money from students, deeming the voluntary “new-OUSA” to be the representative organ of all students, and giving it money to carry on much as before. The difference, of course, is that the University will hold the purse strings, and so ultimately dictate what the new-OUSA can/cannot do – while those who opt-out of the “new-OUSA” will continue to fund it whilst losing any right to participate in the circumscribed decision making left to students.
But hey – I guess that’s better.
Comment by Andrew Geddis — August 5, 2011 @ 1:40 pm
…but membership is now compulsory.
A fact attributable not to some totalitarian edict from the previous govt, but to Andrew’s statement above:
…individual student bodies may choose whether to have compulsory associations or not.
Anytime Waikato students want membership to go back to being voluntary, all they have to do is vote for it.
Comment by Psycho Milt — August 5, 2011 @ 1:40 pm
Hence, I predict VSM will simply see the University taking the money from students, deeming the voluntary “new-OUSA” to be the representative organ of all students, and giving it money to carry on much as before. The difference, of course, is that the University will hold the purse strings, and so ultimately dictate what the new-OUSA can/cannot do – while those who opt-out of the “new-OUSA” will continue to fund it whilst losing any right to participate in the circumscribed decision making left to students.
I hold the same expectations of Massey. As you say, if it doesn’t exist the University will have to invent it.
Comment by Psycho Milt — August 5, 2011 @ 1:43 pm
Anytime Waikato students want membership to go back to being voluntary, all they have to do is vote for it.
My experience is that most students don’t know that their association exists, let alone that they pay for it, or that they can vote for who runs it or that they can try and make their membership voluntary. Last turn out for the VUWSA executive election was 6%.
Comment by danylmc — August 5, 2011 @ 1:46 pm
So? That’s an indicator of just exactly how important this issue is to students.
Comment by Psycho Milt — August 5, 2011 @ 1:48 pm
So? That’s an indicator of just exactly how important this issue is to students.
Sure – but that cuts both ways. It means the government can scrap the associations with no political cost.
Comment by danylmc — August 5, 2011 @ 1:50 pm
Andrew – a few simple answers to your queries about how Otago might fare in a VSM environment:
Critic – start charging directly for it. People who read it, pay for it. You know, like most other magazines in the country. This would also have the effect of estimating reader numbers far more accurately, making the editors more responsive to student opinion.
Radio One market days – not sure how this is even anything to do with the nature of the membership of a SA. If Radio One wants to run a market day and sell stuff, good. If they run it at a loss subsidised by students who don’t attend, how is that a good thing?
attendance at OUSA organised talks not sure what the cost of this even is – room hire? Presumably given for free by the university anyway. If there’s catering costs, charge gold coin entry.
Events like Orientation/re-Orientation – this is a classic. O-weeks all around the country lose money hand over fist, because Students’ Association throw hundreds of thousands of dollars getting bands and comedians etc to come and play, and they don’t recoup the costs, because they subsidise the ticket prices down to ridiculous levels. Shihad played one year at Vic (Shihad!) and the tickets were $20. It sold out, unsurprisingly, and lots of people couldn’t go. But I guess a few people got really cheap Shihad tickets on most other Vic students. Good for them. The O Week still lost a bucketload
The simple answer to O Week is for a voluntary membership students’ association to run Orientation properly, and make people pay for the events they want to go to.
OUSA representation and advocacy inside university processes and beyond – this is the tricky one, I think. It’s about the one good thing students’ associations do. One option is for students’ associations to charge money for this service to members, but a much higher fee for non-members. That incentivises people to join.
As to the bars etc that some students’ associations own – these should be run on a user pays basis, otherwise it is just other students cross-subsidising the alcoholism of some students. Maybe SAs could (as they do in Australia), offer $2 off drinks for SA members, and full price for those who aren’t.
Comment by fortunefavoursthebrave — August 5, 2011 @ 2:55 pm
I’d be happy with this if students could also opt out of paying for the VCs car, house and overseas travel. Also the sports field, and I guess a lot of students wouldn’t mind opting out of the library.
Also, I object to the Business Roundtable. When paying companies, I should be able to deduct an appopriate amount for their contributions, otherwise I’m just being conscripted to support them.
Comment by Rich d'Rich — August 5, 2011 @ 3:10 pm
Why don’t you go to the BRT website, find out which companies/people are members, and take your business elsewhere? Nothing stopping you doing that.
Comment by fortunefavoursthebrave — August 5, 2011 @ 3:27 pm
The BRT only has invited individuals as members, not companies (that said bet their companies pay the >$30k bills )
Comment by insider — August 5, 2011 @ 3:37 pm
The broader issue here is that this is a mistake the political left makes over and over again: if you introduce a policy and it comes from good intentions, but you implement it poorly, or it breaks and you refuse to fix it, then whenever the right get into power they can just shut it down with no political cost.
So what’s the mistake the left makes again, exactly? Implementing policies poorly? Well, I guess they should stop doing that then!
Comment by Hugh — August 5, 2011 @ 3:55 pm
The mistake is continuing their defence of poorly-implemented policy beyond the point where it harms their general credibility, and suggests that they like implementing policy that sounds nice without consideration for whether it’s actually any good. Bad policy initiatives, no matter how well-intentioned, need to be reformed or, if they can’t be, they need to be scrapped in favour of something better. If the left doesn’t do it, you can be damned sure the right will.
L
Comment by Lew — August 5, 2011 @ 4:15 pm
When paying companies, I should be able to deduct an appopriate amount for their contributions, otherwise I’m just being conscripted to support them.
I have been trying to deduct 33% of what I pay for anything for years in order to voice my concern around involuntary contributions to the IRD.
No luck yet.
Comment by Gregor W — August 5, 2011 @ 4:18 pm
The problem is, saying “Well we still think it was a good idea to implement this policy but through no fault of ours it’s been implemented badly so we now support ending or radically altering it” will just get sold to the public as a flip-flop.
Comment by Hugh — August 5, 2011 @ 4:26 pm
That could happen, if it were handled badly, yes. Which would be usual.
L
Comment by Lew — August 5, 2011 @ 4:33 pm
Hugh wrote: “So what’s the mistake the left makes again, exactly? Implementing policies poorly? Well, I guess they should stop doing that then!”
isn’t that exactly the point Danyl was trying to make?
Comment by Kahikatea — August 5, 2011 @ 4:33 pm
Lew, what would be a way to handle it well? You often complain about the lack of Labour’s finesse at handling public opinion but I think this is an occasion where the only way to be media savvy is not to do certain things, rather than to do them and just spin them well.
Kahikatea, I think it is his point, but I think it’s kind of an asinine point since it basically boils down to “Don’t do bad things”.
Comment by Hugh — August 5, 2011 @ 4:39 pm
Kahikatea, I think it is his point, but I think it’s kind of an asinine point since it basically boils down to “Don’t do bad things”.
In politics this is actually a radical idea. Politicians tend to think that doing something for noble reasons is more important than doing it properly.
Comment by danylmc — August 5, 2011 @ 4:44 pm
…and that’s because the glory part of the process (getting on the tele) is heaps easier and way better for poll ratings than the actual implementation properly so it works part.
Comment by abel the amish — August 5, 2011 @ 4:50 pm
Danyl, do you really think a politician would argue that proposition with you if you put it to them?
Comment by Hugh — August 5, 2011 @ 4:58 pm
“Kahikatea, I think it is his point, but I think it’s kind of an asinine point since it basically boils down to “Don’t do bad things”.”
no, I think it boils down to ‘if people don’t like the policy you implemented, check whether it’s because of a mistake in the implementation, and fix that mistake, rather than leaving it as an excuse for someone who disagrees with your aim to get rid of the programme altogether’
Comment by Kahikatea — August 5, 2011 @ 5:00 pm
or, if you want to be cliched about it, ‘anything that’s worth doing is worth doing well’
Comment by Kahikatea — August 5, 2011 @ 5:01 pm
…again that requires some hard, non-glory type, work stuff.
Comment by abel the amish — August 5, 2011 @ 5:01 pm
Hugh, glad you asked. The worst and most egregious offences by student unions (and VUWSA in particular) occurred during the Clark government. That would have been a great opportunity to take student unions to task, saying “we support student unions as an important part of university life, but not when they act like this. To ensure the continuing confidence of students and the public in student unions, we must require them to act more responsibly”. There are any number of possible measures the government could have taken, short of stripping SAs of their membership, that would have imposed some measure of discipline on them.
By the time you’re in opposition, as Labour have found over and over again this past three years, it’s too late.
L
Comment by Lew — August 5, 2011 @ 5:03 pm
Then we’re back to the fact that the public would parse this as a mistake.
It’s nice to have wonky detail work and a technocratic eye to implementation separate from intent. It’s also nice to have savvy media representation and a concern for selling your policies to the public, again, separate from intent. The problem is, “smoothly implemented” and “presented well” sometimes conflict with one another, and I think this is one such case. I mean, VSM does not actually seem to be something Labour are getting flak for (perhaps only because they’re getting flak for a lot of other, bigger things), but let’s presume Labour decided to start reviewing, oh, Working for Families to find flaws in the way it’s been implemented. The National attack line would be a simple “Labour invented Working for Families LOL!” and any explanation that Labour could come up with would have an uphill battle to compete with such a simple, direct narrative.
Comment by Hugh — August 5, 2011 @ 5:07 pm
They might parse this as a mistake, yes — but as a worse mistake than “student unions are awesome, LOL, pay no attention to the thousands of $ spent on psychic hotlines”? Because the appropriate counterfactual is not “no real downside”, it’s “the end of student unions as we know them”.
L
Comment by Lew — August 5, 2011 @ 5:13 pm
@Andrew: how good are SOULS at organising things? I understand they have membership cards which sell out? Do they organise things around the law school? I’m lead to believe law tutorials are (or at least were) run by this fine (voluntary) organisation? And that they run events like the Law School Ball and Law Camp that help create a wonderful atmosphere within the Law School of the University of Otago?
I don’t know what market days are (is it pay money to set up a stall to hock off your stuff? if so charge differential fees, if it’s outsiders attend and pay money to OUSA to hock their stuff to students, well, OUSA can keep doing this, and keeping making a profit which it can spend to the benefit of its members), but I do know that when Salient commenced publication, which I believe was prior the the Students’ Association of Victoria College being compulsory, that there was a small fee to purchase it.
I also understand that Critic existed before there were compulsory students’ associations.
Orientation and re-orientation are pretty simple: at Vic, there is a student price and a non-student price for gigs. A members’ price and non-members’ price could work similarly, and indeed does or has at the VUW Law Students’ Society and almost certainly has at SOULS.
Student representation does not require a students’ association as the process in the Education Act around student representation on the Council shows. There is no reason why law law students simply cannot be asked as law students (rather than members of any external body) who they want to represent them on the Law Faculty Board, in a larger, but analagous way to how staff (whether union or not) are represented on the Council.
Most countries simply do not have anything like the law we have in New Zealand, but many universities in other countries have healthy student cultures (while other universities in the same countries do not). If Otago wants to foster a strong student culture, there are myriad ways it can do that without requiring membership of an external organisation.
In the end, yes, I do think it will be better. It will certainly be different, and the changes will happen faster than in the more usual evolutionary way (which slowly led to how we are here). There will be teething problems, but these will work themselves out over time: the long lead-in that we’ve had should help; if it’s a concern, then a longer one could have been pushed for (I said as much in my submission on the bill).
Comment by Graeme Edgeler — August 5, 2011 @ 5:16 pm
To ensure the continuing confidence of students and the public in student unions, we must require them to act more responsibly”
Given that what they did was already illegal, what would this actually mean?
“student unions are awesome, LOL, pay no attention to the thousands of $ spent on psychic hotlines”
Strawman. I’m pretty sure there is a middle position between “They’re flawless” and “They need to be disestablished”.
Comment by Hugh — August 5, 2011 @ 5:19 pm
In politics this is actually a radical idea. Politicians tend to think that doing something for noble reasons is more important than doing it properly.
Danyl, do you really think a politician would argue that proposition with you if you put it to them?
They might not admit it, but things like Boot Camps, National Standards, car crushing, instant banning or kronic and other drug policies etc. etc. are pretty good evidence that it’s true.
Comment by Graeme Edgeler — August 5, 2011 @ 5:20 pm
It was illegal, yes, but it was also a function of the impunity that comes from receiving large revenues as of right with little or no formal oversight. All I’m suggesting, Hugh, is that Labour should have taken the opportunity to occupy some sort of middle position.
L
Comment by Lew — August 5, 2011 @ 5:22 pm
To be honest, to me the middle position is “This individual/s should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but I am not going to try to legislate further to prevent this sort of thing when we have a perfectly functioning legal system and courts, and also, why are you asking me about this? I’m a government minister, not a judge or a defense lawyer”.
I mean you could run around passing a bunch of legislation tightening oversight in student unions, but that’s always hard to do in democratic institutions (strangely, even harder when the nominal democracy is rendered flacid by apathy), doesn’t tend to excite the public, would probably cause anger among students, and really just creates another range of structures that are equally prone to individual failures – cue a story ten years down the line about how a member of the Student Union Accountability Oversight Department was caught using a phone sex line and oh no! What is the government going to do about it?
Comment by Hugh — August 5, 2011 @ 5:29 pm
“cue a story ten years down the line about how a member of the Student Union Accountability Oversight Department was caught using a phone sex line and oh no! What is the government going to do about it?”
Unless the Accountability Oversight Department was an elected body, it would not need to have the sort of autonomy that would make this difficult to deal with. It could be directly accountable to the CEO of the ministry of something-or-other.
Comment by Kahikatea — August 5, 2011 @ 5:46 pm
Graeme noted: but I do know that when Salient commenced publication, which I believe was prior the the Students’ Association of Victoria College being compulsory, that there was a small fee to purchase it.
Really? If only. The main thing I remember about Salient was it being an easy source of staples for when I threw together an essay on the day it was due. The print run must have been at least five times as big as it needed to be, but that did allow for people to pick up new ones over and over again before chucking them, and eventually they would’ve gotten through a few of the articles or psychotic letters to the editor or psychotic letters from the editor.
Comment by MikeM — August 5, 2011 @ 5:53 pm
I remember in 2003 Salient started adding extra pages just to have room to publish all the letters they were receiving arguing about Palestine and the Iraq War.
I guess they were excited to have that level of engagement with their magazine, but it was the worst use of paper I’ve ever seen.
Comment by Hugh — August 5, 2011 @ 5:54 pm
Hugh, it depends if your objective is mainly to maximise optics or to ensure the future of the student associations. My argument is that by privileging the former (refusing to criticise their allies) they’ve endangered the latter; that with competent handling Labour could have traded off a minor scandal back in the mid-oughties against a more substantial scandal now, as an opposition in election year, with the imminent demise of student unions as we know them.
Now you’ll probably go “oh, but who could have known all that back then?” — the point is that it’s nearly *always* best to ensure that your allies are competent and functional and don’t do things that could reflect badly on you; and that you help them be as competent and disciplined as possible. Part of the responsibility of Labour’s cosy relationship with student unions ought to have been smacking them down when they misbehaved.
L
Comment by Lew — August 5, 2011 @ 6:37 pm
Wait, is the argument here that if Labour had formed a Committee to Oversee VUWSA’s 0900 Calls, then ACT would not have derided this as bureaucratic bloat and used this as Exhibit A for the necessity of their VSM Bill?
(I know this is not the actual argument but I’m not sure how the actual argument differs from this.)
Comment by bradluen — August 5, 2011 @ 7:18 pm
I didn’t have a lot of direct interaction with the student association when I was studying, but I did get to see one benefit that it did provide to a flatmate. She had been having problems with a lecturer, in a kind of harassment that was entirely inappropriate. She approached the Welfare Officer at the SA, who acted as an advocate (very effectively) for my flatmate in meetings and correspondence with the Department and University. It was just one small example of what the Welfare Officer did. There always seemed to be a small number of students waiting to see her. Obviously, my flatmate didn’t anticipate that she would need the direct help of the SA when she was paying her compulsory fee at the beginning of the year. But when she needed help, it was available for her, and I was more than happy to see part of my compulsory fee going to support her and others like her.
Comment by Johnno — August 5, 2011 @ 9:52 pm
Lew, what specific policy measures should the Labour government have taken in the mid 2000s to ensure better governance in students’ associations, while still maintaining the independence of those associations? How would improved governance have helped defend students’ associations against a political crusade mainly driven by the fact that (a) Act needs to keep its student activists happy, and (b) National needs to keep Act happy? (Actually to be even blunter I’d argue this is a GLC situation, and the right thing to do is not bleat about how yes Livingstone was a tit, but to say that this is a direct attack by the government on groups that oppose it politically.)
Sure, I think that there’s been a real lack of leadership on this issue, and all. But really, VSM is a politician’s issue, and what matters to politicians is not wonky good governance issues, it’s petty tribalism.
Comment by Keir — August 5, 2011 @ 11:57 pm
Keir, in terms of actual policy, it wouldn’t have mattered much — just something to take the heat out of the argument that SAs are the sole domain of louche dysfunctional career fraudsters with ties to the political left. There are possibilites for actual meaningful reform, such as requiring stronger oversight, &c, but the problem that’s given rise to the anti-VSM crusade isn’t about policy, it’s about politics.
Probably nothing would have kept ACT happy, but keeping ACT happy shoudl never be an objective for the left. The purpose of any countermeasures should be to increase the downside risk of National supporting any attacks on the left. If Labour had made some tolerably worthwhile discipline stick to SAs, the core argument that SAs act with impunity would have had less credence. VSM is already incredibly unpopular; it wouldn’t take much to push it over the edge into the ‘too much of a risk’ class. As it stands a meaningful number of moderates, myself included, see the end of VSM as unfortunate but earned.
L
Comment by Lew — August 6, 2011 @ 1:26 am
Is anyone here actually a student?
Despite being ideologically prone to prefer compulsory membership (mostly because of the free-rider thing), I have sympathy for VSM proponents – hell, I certainly don’t like or attend most O-week events, and yeah, it sucks that I pay for noise I don’t always want. However, it’s important to look at the bigger picture.
Advocacy services are harder to run on a pay-by-choice basis. It’s all very well to say “just get non-members to pay more when they encounter a problem,” but forcing students to pay beforehand means they won’t have to worry about having enough money to pay for it at the time they need advocacy. Students are bloody awful at budgeting for the unexpected (to be fair, most people are). Also, it makes things really bloody difficult for the people running the advocacy services, because you have no guaranteed budget at the beginning of the year – you can’t generally get someone on call. This applies to organising student clubs too – you need to employ people to do this, but you can’t really do that with money dribbling in unpredictably. Also as an actual student I’d like to point out that not all SAs are terrible: the UCSA (Canterbury) has been really excellent at organising clubs, and as a club president I can’t imagine going it alone – it would be utter chaos.
There’s also an economies of scale/efficiency problem with VSM. Sure its great for people who don’t pay for the things they don’t use, but then with fewer members you either need to raise fees to cover set up costs, or sacrifice things altogether that otherwise would have been used. Raising fees is hardly going to attract membership, and non-members paying even more is naive. You can hope that student organisations will therefore “create more desirable events/provide useful services” but how is that meant to happen in the first place when people flag joining? Also, remember you’re dealing with people living off $200 a week. It’s much easier to slap a compulsory membership on the student loan at the beginning of the year than to try and budget for the various things SAs provide. Take student magazines for example (which would be unable to make any ad revenue because the bloody thing now costs money and no one buys it). I hate that I’m effectively defending CANTA, but I guess I’d still rather take some of the bad with some of the good than have nothing.
The last problem I have is that it foists voluntary membership (ha, the irony) on SAs that are otherwise functioning well, and would die with VSM. Even if most SAs are terrible, why screw up the ones that are fine? As things stand (as I understand it), if the UCSA for example (which I consider ok at the moment) suddenly went all Vic on us, students could vote for voluntary membership. If students don’t know about that, then that’s their own problem. Also it indicates they might not care, BUT they would probably care if the above scenarios played themselves out as a result of VSM. I’m not too worried since I finish next year, but it’ll suck for the years that get screwed by this.
Perhaps one compromise in all this could be to have compulsory membership, but each student/member gets to choose how much of their membership fee goes toward each service.
Comment by Zo Zhou — August 6, 2011 @ 1:27 am
I quite liked the AU system where by they had to go around getting people to enrol, i.e. it was voluntary but Auckland Uni paid AUSA to run some services. Sure it meant some things got cut, but the things students cared most about got funded, and funded better.
My 3c
Comment by Jeffery Rosie — August 6, 2011 @ 1:45 am
Zo, I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of those present, while we may not be students, have been students in the not-too distant past.
You make some good points about the difficulty of financing services in advance, but at the same time I think some of what you say doesn’t make sense. Why would the awesome SAs like Canterbury (I don’t remember it being so brilliant but I’ll take your word for it that it’s improved) die with voluntary membership? If it’s brilliant, why would people not join voluntarily?
Comment by Hugh — August 6, 2011 @ 3:20 am
The UCSA is pretty rubbish. VSM will make little to no difference financially, though, because the UCSA already charges no fees.
In fact the idea that students’ associations are collections of fraudsters is vanishingly rare. Any idea about students’ associations is vanishingly rare. The group of people who have well-defined ideas about SAs is, roughly speaking, very politically aware university graduates. Apart from that, students have a vague affection coupled with irritation, and most other people haven’t a clue. So I am very wary of any argument that says that by enacting some changes to the good governance of SAs (and I should note that you still haven’t proposed any concrete proposals) you would change the fact that this is an insider’s issue, driven by insiders.
The problem that has given rise to the pro-VSM crusade is that young right-wingers hate students’ associations with a passion. Old right-wingers do to. Why? Well, because SAs are left-wing. Basically. So I don’t see that there’s much to change there.
Comment by Keir — August 6, 2011 @ 12:22 pm
Hugh: That comment meant no disrespect, it’s just that it’s a bit easier talking about student life when you’re still living it. Most of the “if it’s so awesome they’d join it voluntarily” comments are based on a view that assumes a) students are well off enough to save so that they can afford to pay for SA services on a whim, b) students think about the importance of SA services, like the right to complain to a class rep, when they’re presented with the option of signing up, and c) students know what SAs provide (Keir, I totally agree that most students don’t know much about SAs, myself included!). These are all faulty assumptions, in my experience. If these assumptions do not hold true, students will not voluntarily pay for membership (understandably, because they don’t even know what that membership provides), which will also impact on non-members when operating costs increase, as they be unable to afford to pay on an as-needed basis (usually because they’ve spent their money unwisely, but that’s what happens when children are effectively expected to magically start behaving responsibly when they leave home/start Uni).
I’m not saying problems don’t exist with the current system, I just don’t think VSM on its own will effectively address those problems. If people are so worried about corruption, how is VSM going to address that? Ok, so fewer people will be ripped off, but if the people in charge are still corrupt, then services will still be poorly provided. Perhaps if VSM was also coupled with a compulsory test that you have to pass about what SAs do, I’d feel more comfortable about it (I say this *partly* in jest…).
Comment by Zo Zhou — August 7, 2011 @ 2:44 pm
Zo, I don’t entirely follow your reasoning. If students are well off enough to pay a compulsory fee at the beginning of the year, they’re well off enough to pay a voluntary fee at the same time too. VSM doesn’t propose changing the method by which fees are collected, except to allow an opt out. You may be right about b) or c), but I’m a little queasy about the idea that we need a law to force students to do something that’s in their best interests because they’re too foolish or naive to sign up for it voluntarily. I mean that’s a bit of a slippery slope, don’t you think? Most people aren’t aware of how much of a health benefit they’d receive from dietary supplements but I think passing a law forcing them to take them would make a lot of people queasy.
The theory behind VSM reducing abuses is that the student unions would have an incentive to clean up their acts in order to attract members. Whether this would work, I’m not sure – with reduced budgets there might not be much money available to fund a “hey, join the Student Union, we’re awesome” campaign, and good works don’t always effectively get the word out there, so to speak. Having said that even if the culture of phone sex calls persists, at least it’d be done with access to a much smaller pool of money, and students who aren’t comfortable with the “if you don’t like it, vote them out” model can always vote with their feet.
Comment by Hugh — August 7, 2011 @ 3:10 pm
H: They usually put the compulsory fee on their student loan, so they don’t actually have to pay for it out of their allowance. Also, if you know it’s going to be compulsory, it’s easier to budget for it as a student than if, suddenly halfway through the year, you realise you need to pay for something but have no way to do so. Also, if you want to use slippery slope arguments, then hey, I could say if we go with VSM, eventually that “could” lead to voluntary high school, or even primary, education. Until that chain of events is proven, the slippery slope argument is just that – slippery, and just pure speculation. On the other hand, VSM has shown to be damaging to SAs in the past, so why go there again (although if there are successful examples I’d be interested in how effectively they work)?
Furthermore, others here have pointed out that, if students are so outraged, they can vote for voluntary membership. The fact that they haven’t demonstrates either that: they are happy with the current arrangement, and actually VSM is being foisted on them, OR that actually, they ARE foolish and naive and therefore we need to make it compulsory because it’s in their best interests.
Lastly, there is NO evidence (logically or practically) that shows VSM will change the culture of corruption. That culture is the central problem, VSM to me seems a scapegoat. As I said, sure, fewer people are being ripped off, but the MAJORITY of students will be now short of basic services they should have a right to.
Comment by Zo Zhou — August 8, 2011 @ 1:51 pm
Lastly, there is NO evidence (logically or practically) that shows VSM will change the culture of corruption. That culture is the central problem, VSM to me seems a scapegoat.
Out of curiosity (and without meaning to imply it would actually work), what would be the legality and issues if a group wanted to create a competing student union at a university, maybe one that was built around better practices for reducing corruption and self-satisfying actions for a small number of wannabe political students?
I’m guessing it couldn’t easily be done right now because the existing student’s associations already have a foot in the door for getting compulsory funding and ensuring that all on-campus clubs must be affiliated, etc. Some associations, at least (if what I’ve seen in the past is anything to go by), would probably blow half their cash on undermining and broadly insulting any perceived competing associations.
Comment by MikeM — August 8, 2011 @ 2:06 pm
I guess maybe I’m just saying it could still be compulsory to join a student union, but maybe the students get to choose which one they want to represent them in any given year.
Comment by MikeM — August 8, 2011 @ 2:09 pm
Furthermore, others here have pointed out that, if students are so outraged, they can vote for voluntary membership.
Yes and no.
1. You need a referendum. To get a referendum, you need a petition. The last attempt to get a petition at vic ended when someone opposed to VSM went up to the table where VSMers were collecting signatures, took their petition, and tore it up into little pieces.
2. The referendum is run by the university. You need the university to behave fairly on the referendum. The last referendum on VSM/CSM at Waikato was held as a result of petition to make it compulsory. The university held the referendum during university study week, with one day’s official notice of the vote.
3. Other human rights aren’t subject to a collective veto. It wouldn’t matter that everyone on your street decided everyone on the street should be a Catholic, that matter is up to each individual. Some students did vote for VSM … why were they still forced to be members?
Comment by Graeme Edgeler — August 8, 2011 @ 2:12 pm
Referring to J’s comment #72: I don’t see why anyone would be happy with their SA having to pay people to try and sign up members. First of all, students get enough of that “sign up” crap already (from O week, Christian groups, and banks). It’s worse than walking through a mall dodging those people trying to sell you hand cream. Second, I’d rather pay my SA so they could exclusively focus on actual events/beneficial initiatives. Third, it’s important that SAs remain relatively independent from the Uni in terms of funding, because they’re meant to advocate for students, particularly when the Uni has wronged them. Fourth, see paragraph 2 in my last comment.
Comment by Zo Zhou — August 8, 2011 @ 2:13 pm
G: “Some students did vote for VSM … why were they still forced to be members?” Let’s use the analogy of the upcoming MMP referendum. If, down the track, a small group of people voted for FPP for example, but then eventually most people decided, after weighing up the pros and cons, that they really just wanted a few changes to MMP, not a change to FPP, does that give the people who voted for FPP to not pay tax? If your answer to that is yes, I think ideologically we’re too far apart to have a reasoned debate. Granted it’s not a perfect analogy though, and in the vic case, as you pointed out, the anti-VSM person who tore up the petition was a jerk.
Thanks for expanding on the realities of voting for VSM by university though. I definitely think there needs to be more clarification of this whole issue, so that the actual problems with SAs are addressed. I’m still unconvinced that VSM will solve the problems people seem to have with SAs.
Comment by Zo Zhou — August 8, 2011 @ 2:30 pm
Granted it’s not a perfect analogy though, and in the vic case, as you pointed out, the anti-VSM person who tore up the petition was a jerk.
Quite a successful jerk it seems.
Comment by MikeM — August 8, 2011 @ 2:38 pm