Amnesty Youth Otago (AYO) and the Politics Students Association (POLSA) have expressed concern to Critic Te Ārohi over OUSA’s new Political Action Committee (PAC), citing worries about inclusion and representation. PAC is supposedly a committee formed to assist Political Rep Jett Groshinski in policy submission writing on behalf of students, following in the wake of some questions about student consultation in the submission writing process. However, human-rights activist group AYO has been shunted from the roundtable, leaving POLSA alone and “concerned” about the inclusivity of PAC.
PAC is the newest addition to OUSA’s (very long) list of Exec-run committees. President Liam White told Critic Te Ārohi that PAC was born “somewhat to replace” the now-defunct Submissions Committee, which never formally met in 2024. The Submissions Committee was meant to directly report to, and advise, the Political Rep (which was Liam at the time), whose role heavily involves writing submissions on policies of concern to the student body.
A recent example of submission writing was the Exec’s Treaty Principles Bill submission in February this year. After Critic reported on the submission in March, a student penned a letter to the editor saying, “I take issue with the actions of the president and political rep of OUSA submitting on the treaty principles bill on behalf of OUSA [...] Whether we agree with the submission or not I feel we should oppose the weaponisation of the organisation that we pay for in the private interests of the executive.” Liam responded, “The consent to act on behalf of students comes from the elected student representatives who act on behalf of students and voiced their support for this submission.”
Alongside criticisms of undemocratic submission-writing, another catalyst for the creation of PAC was the lack of a committee for the Politics Rep, whereas every other Exec member has a committee associated with their roles. Liam noted that this was “weird” given the Political Rep would naturally require “the most consultation and feedback from people and engagement with the community” due to the nature of their 10-hour role.
Still in its infancy, PAC has met three times since March 20th (not including an attempted meeting last Thursday that did not meet quorum). Formally, only 9 out of 12 Executive members sit on the committee. Based on meeting minutes shown to Critic, so far they’ve covered what the priorities of PAC should be (with a student bar listed at the top) and who should be brought on board. Southern Young Labour (Jett and Liam are both exec members), Otago Campus Greens, POLSA, and Young Nats are listed under ‘potential partnerships’ discussed at the first meeting. Jett and Liam confirmed that they have approached all of these groups about the possibility of a partnership.
While Jett and Liam confirmed they’d reached out to the listed groups, in Jett’s first quarterly report submitted three days before the first PAC meeting, he also invited other interested groups to get in touch if they wanted to be involved. “There are positions available for people not involved within OUSA if you’re interested, please send me an email at political@ousa.org.nz,” he wrote. Earlier in the report, Jett had made it clear that he was interested in trying to work closer with groups that already write submissions “outside the traditional political clubs” such as the Tramping Club.
Amnesty Youth Otago (AYO) Co-President Jomana read the minutes and emailed Jett to ask for Amnesty to have a seat at the table on April 15th – and was met with silence for two weeks. In Jett’s eventual reply, he told Amnesty that PAC’s membership had already been finalised, and that he was “[unable] to make any further changes”.
In an interview with Critic Te Ārohi last week, we asked Jett and Liam whether membership was, in fact, finalised. Jett responded, “Nothing was technically finalised, in that sense.” Faced with the apparent inconsistency in communications to Amnesty, Liam said, “I think that was us trying to do a polite saying, ‘No.’” Mirroring a high-school white lie, the duo apparently felt that hanging out without the excluded AYO was kinder than saying, “No, we don't think you are the right kind of club for a political action committee.”
Critic took the receipts to AYO for their response. “We have mobilised and organised for almost every human rights cause in the book,” Jomana said. “In Aotearoa, we’ve spoken up about the Treaty Principles Bill, Pay Equity, prisoner voting, and more. Our political action is broad and allows us to be in many spaces with many hats.”
Jomana explained that Amnesty being on PAC would allow them to offer a human rights and student activist perspective on submission writing. “We’re not a passive club or a small club,” she told Critic. “We’re not aligned to a particular party – just to our own kaupapa based on human rights. Seats on this committee should be open to all activist and advocacy groups regardless of their affiliation if we are to truly get a nuanced and diverse student perspective.”
POLSA, one of the groups that seems to have a PAC seat, expressed disappointment in the lack of diversity of student voices around the table. In a statement provided to Critic, POLSA expressed their belief that any political forum on campus, “especially one that helps to inform submissions made on behalf of the student body must reflect a wide range of perspectives.” While they expressed their excitement to hold a position on PAC, they stressed the need for PAC to “include voices from across the political spectrum and from various student groups, and with the current proposed lineup, we don’t feel that this is possible.”
Upon learning about POLSA and Amnesty’s concerns about PAC, Liam (while wearing his POLSA hoodie) said, “I think the point that doesn't come through this is that the Political Action Committee doesn't make any decisions about the political orientation of OUSA. That comes from the elected representative of the OUSA Executive. So the Political Action Committee actually doesn't do any of that strategic thinking.”
A little confused about what the actual function of PAC was, Liam explained that “all [the PAC] does is say, ‘Okay, cool, we need to host a sausage sizzle. Who can come?’ That sort of operational stuff.” Diving into PAC minutes to get a feel of what they were actually talking about, Critic found that not a sausage was minuted.
Their most recent meeting discusses an Otago Regional Council submission drafted by Jett. This submission appeared to have only been accepted by PAC when amendments by Jett were made, suggesting that PAC may have the authority to do more than cook up snags in neon green aprons. “It was actually one of the best submissions we’ve ever done,” Liam boasted, speaking to PAC’s role in the ORC submission.
The concerns from AYO and POLSA have created a rocky start for PAC so far. Muddled communication about PAC’s function and members raises concerns about its transparency. While they straighten out their story and perhaps turn on email notifications on their phones, Critic Te Ārohi eagerly awaits the first organised sausage sizzle.