Gareth Hughes (Green Party), David Clark (Labour), Michael Woodhouse (National) and Hilary Calvert (ACT Party) took part in a debate on VSM - among other issues - on Friday July 15 at the Gazebo Lounge.
The politicians were given five minutes to introduce themselves at the beginning of the debate, a timeslot which many of the politicians used to highlight their policies. Calvert, whose opening sentence was interrupted by an audible “hiss”, took a different tack, however, instead inciting students to imagine themselves beginning a society in the Roman forum. Unfortunately, Calvert’s complex metaphor was lost on much of the audience, causing one audience member to question “is it ACT party policy that only rich land-owning men should vote, and I guess, us, as the slaves in your analogy, should get what’s coming to us?”
The politicians were split evenly on the subject of VSM, with Woodhouse and Calvert predictably supporting VSM, while Hughes and Clark argued against it.
Calvert claimed that continuing OUSA in a VSM climate would be easy, and stated “what I’m hearing here is that students can’t back themselves enough to make their own decisions”.
Michael Woodhouse, described by Calvert as “always right”, posed a question to the audience; “Can anybody explain to me the paradox of why, if the student association membership is so cool and great and everyone loves it, the students associations themselves are so scared of VSM?”
“Sadly, they seem a little more concerned with waving flags and locking themselves up in prisons than with saying ‘how can we promote the value of membership to the students?’”
When asked why National hadn’t done more to ensure that the services would continue to exist, Woodhouse responded “I’ll be vague on answering the question…Sometimes there’s some give and take on policy…I don’t personally support the bill as it is…Perhaps Labour could suggest it [changes to the bill] to ACT”.
Clarke noted that student associations form an important part of student life and asked, “why would you change that?”. Hughes agreed, stating that at the moment students have the ability to choose between having an opt-in or opt-out system for their student association. “How many students do you know that have a couple of hundred dollars burning a hole in their pocked at the beginning of the year to voluntarily join a student association?”
Among the other issues discussed were Labour’s Capital Gains Tax, National’s move to make over 55s ineligible for student loans, class inequality and other changes to tertiary education. On the subject of the student loan changes, Hughes commented “education isn’t a cost, it’s an investment in our people, in our future”.
Around seventy students attended to ask questions and hear the politicians speak, a relatively high turnout in comparison to other recent political debates held at the University.
Crowd Divided on VSM, United Against Hilary
