Features

Critic Editor Ben Thomson and OUSA Correspondent Julia Hollingsworth sat down with the four presidential hopefuls and grilled them about all of the important issues.



































Matt McKillop

Where are you from?
Timaru

What’s your degree?
LLB and BSc

What Hall did you go to?
St Margarets, unfortunately

On a scale of 1 to 10, how serious do you take yourself?
Uh, I dunno, maybe a 6. I’ve already posted a video of MacGyver on my facebook page if that’s any indication

What political leader do you aspire to be like?
Barack Obama. There are lots of people that I’m impressed by. Meteria Turia is probably the most impressive one for me. She did a law degree while she was alone by herself with two children, and now she’s an MP, it’s pretty impressive.

Who did you vote for in the last national election?
Green Party

Did you vote in the last OUSA election, and who for?
Yes. I can’t remember, I think it might have been Harriet.

Did you vote in the referendum and how did you vote?
Yes. I voted yes for both.

Are you enrolled in Dunedin for the local body elections?
Yes.

Who is the tertiary education minister?
Uh, Steven…no. Um Steven Joyce.

What’s your biggest weakness?
Um… I got a huge nose. Look how big my nose is!

Who’s your Hero?
Captain planet.

What do you think the role of the president is?
Being the approachable public face of OUSA, being the driving force for OUSA’s core functions which I view as being welfare, representation, yeah.

What about the business side of it?
Well yeah, serving on board of directors obviously. Trying to protect OUSA’s commercial assets.

Are you aware of what assets OUSA has?
Yeah. There’s the university book shop, they’ve got a large share of unipol, there’s clubs and socs, the union building, and I think they own most of the land and stuff. And they own Planet Media and radio one.. no that’s part of planet media.

What do you think you can offer in terms of being president?
Competency. Obviously if we are going to talk about experience on the OUSA executive I can’t compete with Harriet. But I think Harriet’s demonstrated that she’s not really up to doing major constitutional over hall as she set out to do. And if that is the big achievement that she’s going to try and push, I don’t think it’s much of an achievement at all if she can’t do it right.

What are you thoughts on VSM? How will you deal with the challenge of it if it passes?
I am against VSM which is a pretty good start I guess for an OUSA president. The key thing is to preserve as many functions as possible of OUSA and.. obviously we would need to cut down on the free shit, wouldn’t we. But I think um we still need to retain the student media and hold onto all of our land assets, well our commercial assets rather and our um, intellectual properties as well, and just get back to really pushing the welfare functions of OUSA. And I think that these have been ignored over the last year to the detriment of the organization.

What do you mean by welfare function?
Well there’s a lot that OUSA promises year in year out but never achieves, and the thing that I really want to focus on this year is flatting, the quality of flats. It’s something I talk about on my facebook page. It’s something that they have these campaigns raising awareness about what you should ask for from your landlord, you know, you should ask for thermal curtains, and get a dehumidifier, and the quality of flats never improves. Nothing changes except the rent people pay in my eyes over the five years I’ve been here.

So how will you do it?
What I want to do …. There’s this voluntary rating scheme, stars, um, it’s not very well subscribed to by flats that would get poor ratings, surprisingly, so in my eyes we need to lobby the accommodation office to make star ratings compulsory for flats to get onto the flat list, to create that competition between landlords so they’ll improve the flats without us having to you know get students to ask for things. And also with the private letting agents, we can have a scheme where if they were to comply with this rating scheme we could certify them in some way.

Some people have proposed passing an Act instead, would that be effective?
It would be effective, and that’s something that um, that young green’s guy, Gareth Hughes has been pushing, and I like totally agree with that, but I think the things OUSA can achieve in Dunedin is this. If there’s a national campaign to raise standards I think we should jump on board but I think our focus should be at the local level. Harriet’s proposed having a local bill passed through parliament which is not a realistic option either because local bills are not really to deal with nationwide issues. That’s not just happening in Dunedin, that’s happening everywhere.

What would you cut from OUSA if VSM passed?
Um, I don’t know it’s a hard question. Obviously keeping everything that makes money is the key part. I hate the idea of the association being a commercial enterprise, but under VSM we need more cash. I dunno, I guess areas where the University could pick up the slack more easily in terms of advocacy for individual students. It’s a tough question, there’s nothing I want to get rid of really.

Next year will be a tough year to be president, so why next year of all years?
I value what OUSA has done for me so much over the last 5 years, and I just don’t want to see them go. 

Are you prepared for all the abuse?
I feel pretty abused over the last week, so sure!

What are your thoughts on the executive structure and how will you deal with the challenge of implementing it?
Given that so much policy is unknown right now its such a mess. I do support the idea of a smaller exec. I’m worried that people in the current exec might not be as willing to make changes if it doesn’t work, if they get back in. They’ll be more wedded to their vision, obviously I’m talking about H of what OUSA’s exec should look like. I think review has to continue, have to keep reviewing quality of that structure. Prefer it doesn’t’ get bigger, but if unworkable, have to see what changes we can make.

On Facebook, you claimed the referendum was not legally binding. What did you mean?
 The referendum is binding. But there was a const put up at start which we were voting on, and there was one at end which was not the same. So somewhere in the middle it changed. This is the problem. 

How would you rectify the problem?
You would have to hold another referendum. On the changes to the constitution. I don’t want to re-litigate the downsizing of the exec, I just want to stop people who might want to sue OUSA. People might want to judicially review that, and OUSA can’t afford the litigation. Ignoring the fact is really irresponsible for our finances really.

But didn’t Harriet get legal advice saying the referendum was legal?
I disagree. I think that the legal advice said there was no substantive differences. You know what people get like when they have an axe to grind, they get interested in all possible solutions. 

Will students get behind another referendum?
I hope so! They have to. We can just add it in during an SGM as a notified motion. The other thing is that the new const still mentions SGMs, littered with references to conduct of these meetings. Now that they’re online, any reference doesn’t make sense, and it’s still there.

Will you over hall the constitution?
Not the word. What people voted for was a smaller exec and SGM online. The smaller exec achieved, the SGM it’s hard to say that it’s been achieved because there’s so much uncertainty that these provisions in the constitution follow. The referendum was poorly executed

What do you think of limited entry to university?
If I was the government of NZ I wouldn’t want to limit entry. But if I was a president of student association I would want best outcome for members I have not members I could have. We don’t have much choice if we want to maintain high quality degrees for students. I think even Harriet voted in favor of limited entry at senate.

If you had to cut another department, which would it be?
I can’t, that’s too hard a choice to make. Everything has value. A liberal arts degree is still valuable even if there’s no set career path.

Who is your main competition?
Harriet. She is the competition and all of the issue. It’s a shame, but I think she did all of this to herself.

Scarfies- discuss.
Have fun, go nuts, don’t give our uni a bad name

Is the uni actively trying to shut down “scarfie culture”?
Yes. It’s pretty blatant. Purchasing of Gardies without having any idea of what it’s going to be used for is just a blatant dig at the entire lifestyle

Is this bad?
Yes. The riots and things, is just moronic

Is this devaluing OU degrees?
Yes, reporting on them isn’t helping either. 

Can you see where the University coming from?
Yeah, just think they’re going to move it elsewhere. Problem isn’t a place and a bar, it’s a drinking culture and an attitude to police that not all students have. Just a few bad eggs.

Why are you running for president straight off the bat?
I only became interested in student politics when Edwin Darlow was president, I thought he was terrible. It’s always interested me from afar. 

Full time, shit pay?
I’m happy with that. I want to preserve OUSA at all costs.

Any aspirations in national politics? What do you want to be when you grow up?
No. I dunno. A kitchen hand.






Mitch

Where are you from?
New Plymouth

What’s your degree?
LLB and BCom

What Hall did you go to?
Unicol

On a scale of 1 to 10, how seriously do you take yourself?
Uh, about a 5.

What political leader do you aspire to be like?
Um. I’m going with the cliché Barack Obama. 

Who did you vote for in the last national election?
National

Did you vote in the last OUSA election, and who for?
Harriet. I don’t think the vote of no confidence is the way for OUSA to go forward. 

Did you vote in the referendum and how did you vote?
I did. I voted to downsize the executive and move SGMs online. I thought they were both good ideas but from an outsider’s perspective they looked rushed. Students should have been given a better voice. Online’s definitely the way forward but it needs to be promoted in the right way and run in an unbiased manner.

Are you enrolled in Dunedin for the local body elections?
I believe so.

Who is the tertiary education minister?
Uh…I’m not quite sure.

What’s your biggest weakness?
Um, I’d say probably in a sense I don’t take things too seriously sometimes, I like to have a good joke. That could be seen as a weakness.

Who’s your Hero?
Ryan Nelson. It’s been great to see him lead a country. 

What do you think the role of the president is?
Basically, the president’s role is at the top, it’s to oversee everything that goes on. They’ve got to have at least an idea of what’s going on at all times. They need to be seen and they need to be seen to be listening. They need to be out and about and doing the hard yards as well. At the moment, they’ve got a lack of communication with the mainstream student body. That starts at the top in the president’s role.

How will you get students more interested in OUSA?
To get people to care is the main thing, and the way you do that is to get people involved and knowing what the organization does. A lot of people honestly don’t know what OUSA does. If you’ve got someone at the top who can explain the benefits, that gets that message out there.

How will you make them care?
Just being honest and approachable type of person. Need to get out there and talk to students en masse and really kinda enforce that as the student’s best interests. To get them to care enough to vote, OUSA needs to get a bit creative. Simple things like a little newsletter that goes out to people around the library. Procrastination is a huge thing around the student body, I’m sure you can get them to read a little thing on what OUSA’s done in the past month.

What do you think you can offer in terms of being president?
I’ve pretty strong leadership skills, and I’ve been lucky enough to work for a large organization, in an oil company, Shell Todd (thankfully not BP). I was in their business management team. I think I can translate that business accruement into the president’s role and look for OUSA going forward.

Why do you want to be president?
It started off because I was talking to my mates and that and everyone got the opinion that especially with last year with only one person running for president, how can an org that has so many members only have one person running for president? And what OUSA could do better. I’m the kind of person that likes to talk about things but I’d rather do things. So I put myself out there, I’d like to promote students and stuff like that.

Is it a problem that you haven’t been in exec before?
Um, I wouldn’t say it’s a problem, I’d say it’s a learning curve that I’d have to overcome. Obviously experience helps, but I’d say enthusiasm and a willingness to learn coupled with an understanding of how a large organization works will work in my favor.

Why are you running for president straight off the bat?
I think the changes need to be implemented from the top. With the current exec, it’s under threat of just carrying on the way it is, and I think for that to change, the change needs to occur at the top, and I think that’s why I decided to run for the president’s role.

Do you think Harriet has done a good job?
I think she’s had good ideas that she’s implemented. Obviously the SGM and the executive were good ideas. But I think the way she’s run that, well, not here specifically but the executive which she obviously has to take accountability for, just from an outsider’s perspective, it looked rushed and it looked ill thought out. It didn’t capture the student imagination and get people involved the way it should have. I think that’s probably what she’ll be remembered for.

She’ll be remembered for the changes or the fact that they happened in such a messy way?
I’d say both. She obviously was the one to bring them in but obviously from my interpretation of the votes, it seemed that students wanted a change and I think there were a lot of students out there that didn’t feel their thoughts were heard during the change process. I think a better idea would have been to ask the students what would be their ideal way to have the exec set up.

How will you deal with the challenge of implementing the new executive structure?
It’s going to be a big issue facing the president in 2011. The key point is the minority groups feel the most concerned about how the exec is set up. As the president, you need to be seen to be the one out there listening to them, getting their opinion and then bringing that back to the exec meeting. 

What are you thoughts on VSM? How will you deal with the challenge of it if it passes?
Obviously I’m against the bill. Should it pass OUSA’s going to have to be prepared to move forward with the times. Again this relates back to the communication with the members. I think if members know what OUSA does for them, they’ll want to ve part of the association. It’s about going out there and being proactive from the start and trying to get that message out there about what OUSA does and how OUSA can help all the members out there.

2011 will be a tricky year for the president. Do you think you can handle all the abuse?
Short answer- yes. It’s not a popularity contest being president, it’s about getting things done. Obviously you’ve got to listen to what your members want and that as well. I’d be more than prepared to handle all the abuse. I’m quite comfortable with myself and what I could do.

What would you cut from OUSA if VSM passed?
From a Financial standpoint, first of all kinda looking at what generates money for OUSA. Obviously Student Services are quite key to OUSA, and a lot of what OUSA does. I think a lot of students kinda, although don’t use them to their full advantage, don’t realize they’re there until they actually need them, and taking them away wouldn’t be a good thing. Some things would have to go. The aquatic centre and unipol would be first on my list. 

What would you keep?
Student Services is the big one, that’s quite key in keeping students comfortable and well informed.

What do you mean by “student services”?
Free tenancy advice, all the other things that go with that kind of thing. 

What are your feelings about limiting entry to university?
I believe the university should be a place where everyone can come and further their educations. So I would be against limited entry as a concept. Everyone should at least have the right to have a crack in the first entry and if they’re good enough to move on and further their education yeah I think that’s a fundamental right of New Zealanders really.

Which department would you cut if you had to?
Uh, well in an ideal world you wouldn’t get rid of any more departments I guess. I think that they all do a good job and that’s the unique thing about Otago that we do have quite a few different departments in it and that’s what brings a lot of different students to the region and makes the unique student culture that is. 

Scarfies- discuss.
I think the term scarfies has become, I wouldn’t say a derogatory term, but it definitely has gone down hill in the last few years with the old undie riots and what not like that. Otago student culture is so unique and I think that’s its great selling point. Students aren’t just a group within a major city, we’re more of a community. You know, the fact that pretty much all of north Dunedin is inhabited by students is quite unique and I think that’s something that needs to be protected. Dunedin’s one of the last universities where you can be a student and just enjoy being a student, you don’t have to grow up with the real world too fast, you kinda have that little step in between. The university itself would be losing a point of sale if they were to further clamp down on the student drinking culture. 

How does promoting scarfie culture fit in with working to better relations with the DCC?
Oh, I’m not promoting binge drinking by any means, if anything quite the opposite. I don’t think student culture is all about drinking, I believe it’s like the community and creating friendships. It’s about creating memories, and those don’t obviously all involve drinking. The council itself needs to be more proactive in how they treat students. In relation to the undie events, they kinda like turned their head and ignored the issues, they stuck their head in the sand if you will.

How will you improve relations with the city?
The perception of students need to change. Students are seen as hooligans, and it’s the bad press, and I think that needs to change, I think what needs to be emphasized is the students who enjoy themselves and are just out to have a good time.

Do you think there is any weight to the claim the University is shutting down scarfie culture?
Uh, I believe it has some weight, I believe the University are trying to protect their image, they don’t want to sully the Otago degree. I don’t think that’s their sole goal by any means just to take out the scarfie. 

Who is your main competition in the election?
Uh, personally I’d say it’s always going to be a difficult task overcoming the incumbent. I think she does have an advantage in that she’s experienced. She does have a few relations established with things. But I think that they can be overcome. Her and Matt. He’s got a lot of strong points

What is your point of difference from Matt?
Key point of diff, the fact that I’ve been in a business environment in the last two years gives me a strong leg to stand on. 

Do you back your chances?
Yep, I back my chances.




Dan Stride


Where are you from?
Greymouth then Palmerston North

What’s your degree?
Completed a double BA Hons in History and Maths, BSc in computer science. Currently post grad diploma in English and LLB

What Hall did you go to?
I flatted

On a scale of 1 to 10, how serious do you take yourself?
I take my job very seriously, I don’t take myself too seriously. Probably 4.

What political leader do you aspire to be like?
Franklin de Roosevelt

Who did you vote for in the last national election?
Labour

Did you vote in the last OUSA election, and who for?
Yes, I voted no confidence.

Did you vote in the referendum and how did you vote?
Yes, I voted no on both options. 

Are you enrolled in Dunedin for the local body elections?
Yes.

Who is the tertiary education minister?
Steven Joyce, aka the Penguin.

What’s your biggest weakness?
A certain obsessiveness with getting details right. 

Who’s your Hero?
Damn tough question actually. J. R. R. Tolkein, he’s my favorite author.

What do you think the role of the president is?
It is not your job to micromanage everyone on the exec, the supreme ruling body is not the president, it is the executive. I don’t subscribe to the cult of the presidency. I believe in a more decentralization of power.

Do you think the two new candidates are buying into the idolization of presidency by bypassing the lower exec roles?
Always get people who run because it sounds good, and not realize what it involves. 

What do you think you can offer in terms of being president?
Sanity. Harriet when she first took over, was a breath of fresh air. It was the Barack Obama effect- with the predecessor that bad, you couldn’t help but look good. For the first 5 months, you had a president who was actually listening to people. To this day, she is still light years above Edwin. Then it stopped being about uniting the exec and started being about pushing radical agendas. OUSA is not a business, it is inefficient, largely messy, and democratic. And it works. I think the current government also has almost an unhealthy obsession with legacy as well. To think that the system you are implementing now will stand for the rest of time, it just doesn’t work like that. I like to think I would calm everything down, because we are rushing towards an apocalyptic obsession with trying to restructure. I can also offer a great deal of political savvy.

Was the end goal of the referendum good?
Review was warranted. I’ve got no problem with any review. I did come up with an alternative suggestion but they were dismissed as not being radical enough basically. It would have consisted of an exec of 15, still the smallest exec in 7 years, basically just getting rid of the divisional reps and gaining two general reps. To compensate for that, you would have a beefed up committee structure, such as educom.

What were the procedural problems in your eyes?
I would like to say what I would have done if I was in Harriet’s shows. I would have organized a non binding and thus non scary referendum to coincide with the election itself, that way all candidates get to have their say on this. I would take the mandate out of the result, and then spend 3 months drafting up the requisite policy changes, then I would take it to an SGM in October. By then everyone would have been a lot less scared by it. I think  the whole thing was handled very bad. Harriet has given us a half broken system. 

Why a non-binding election?
Seeking student opinion, an opinion seeking survey pretty much. It would be a process of education, candidates would get to vote on it. Making const amendments by referendum is a bad idea. Unless you guarantee that you have the requisite debates, you run into the problem that we had where you have people voting and not knowing what they were voting for.

A lot voted, but is it indicative?
Significant, but there was a lack of understanding. 

How will you deal with the challenge of fleshing out the Constitutional structure?
There are still legal issues that have to be addressed. One of these is one that Kyle Matthews picked up on- did we actually amend our referendum at all considering the question didn’t actually mention the constitution. The online SGM, which is again my pet peeve. It sounds good in theory, in practice however, if you try to move everything online then you get into really awkward legal situations, because OUSA is an incorporated society, and we actually have to have an annual general meeting which approves financial statements. Now if we can’t have an annual general meeting to approve these things because a referenda isn’t an SGM, this has really profound consequences, because if we loose our incorporated society status, we loose our charitable status too, which means we start paying tax. So we loose 100,000s of dollars.

Would you undo the constitutional changes?
I would certainly try to undo or at least amend online SGM policy. The thing is, I actually have nothing against the principle of having more referenda, because I think SGMs were problematic, it’s just I think you have to be careful that you’re not replacing a small group who actually knew what they were talking about with a broader and much much much more passive and knowledgeable group of people. I would try to appeal or at least highly amend the SGM. In terms of the const structure, I would give it a chance. Let’s see how it operates in practice, if it doesn’t work, we can review it next year.

How much of a chance would you give it?
It kinda depends on how effective the subcommitees are in terms of attracting interest. If no one puts their hand up to be on the subcommities, basically we have a situation where the work of 17 is being done by the 10 on the exec. At that point, you would have to say it hasn’t worked we will have to revert. I believe in giving systems a chance.

What would you keep and what would you get rid of if VSM passed?
It very much depends on the nature of the VSM bill. The nature of it is to stop the university contracting to OUSA. I believe that student support is the one we absolutely have to die in a ditch for because without we are not a students association. Any changes we make are jumping the gun. The other thing to note is that next year is election year and the bill would not take effect until start of 2012. If the government backs the VSM bill, OUSA has one last chance to stop this thing from happening to us. Any changes we make before the election should be ones that are quickly reversible because if there is a change of government next year then the limbs we cut off have to be quickly replaceable.


What do you think of limited entry to university?
I don’t blame the university for what they are doing, It’s the fault of the government. They have basically been put between a rock and a hard place on this. Any system has to take into account that people from lower decile backgrounds will be disadvantaged under a non-exemption based limited entry system. I’m the first member of my family ever to go to university. My father was a school caretaker, my grandfather was a welsh coalminer. I regard it as an immense privilege. In limited entry, if we were taking just straight marks going into university would penalize people from lower decile backgrounds, and would hurt people down the social ladder. If OUSA doesn’t stand up for have-nots, who will

Is OUSA responsible for the students and the prospective students?
Both I believe. Harriet likes to talk of focusing OUSA on core business, its an interesting question on what counts as core business. On the 90 day bill, most students work so it’s a student issue despite being about employment law.

If you had to cut another department, which would it be?
Tourism

Are you happy about how Harriet has been as President?
For the first 5 months she was a breath of fresh air. Now it feels like she is so determined to get what she wants that she doesn’t care about the consequences. I still have deep respect for her as a person. I would work very gladly with her, after all we are both adults, we can both get along.

If Harriet wasn’t running would you still run?
Good question, I think I would probably have investigated who was running and whether I’d have confidence in them. Undecided. The other thing is, she was to all intents and purposes uncontested. I don’t think that’s a healthy thing for student democracy

Do you think Harriet will work with you?
I’d like to think so. I’m not overly amused that a president who’s running on experience is basically handpicking two of her friends to run. 

Who is your main competition?
Incumbents in student politics are very tough, so yes I would say that Harriet would be my main competition. I don’t want to imply she’s insane. I just want OUSA, before it jumps into things, to sit back, have a cup of tea, and just reassess. People mistake the Harriet versus me thing as a personal thing, it’s not personal at all. I think what we’re seeing is actually a clash of world views. Harriet comes from a Commerce background, she’s very interested in efficiency and outcomes. My background is in Humanities. Our chief role is representation. Yes it’s not an efficient way of making decisions, but it’s about the inclusiveness of the decision making process. If you wanted real efficiency, you would just have an executive consisting of one. Year zeroing attempts in history- I’m familiar with them, and how they’ve ended badly. Using a crisis to push your agenda is something that has a very unfortunate historical precedent.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Fundamentally undecided. My future in in academia, I just love the university environment.

Scarfies- discuss.
Students account for around 20% of the population. The DCC likes having the university here as it’s the major economic hob of the city, and I do think the city needs to come to terms with students. On the other hand, the students need to come to terms with hey guys you actually need to be responsible for your own actions, you can’t just go around smashing bottles everywhere and ruining life for everyone else.

Is the scarfie culture under threat?
To be honest I’m not actually sure that it’s actually existed in its stereotypical form for many many years, or if it ever existed at all. I do think the move to internal assessments has really really hurt the student culture in terms of students spending their time doing 10% essays rather than interacting with others, which I think is a worrying development. People talk about student apathy, well I would blame internal assessment and the lack of common lunch hour. 

Is the University trying to clamp down on scarfie culture?
Skegg has been a very good VC, I have the utmost respect for him. He is lightyears ahead of Vogelberg. I do think they have an unhealthy obsession with student drinking habits because lets face it, we’re students, we drink. And as anyone who has seen my OUSA office knows, I certainly conform