News

The Select Committee deciding the fate of student services has resolved to report back at the end of September, not the end of this month as it had originally planned.

The committee received a huge number of submissions regarding the bill, and preliminary counts appear to show a large opposition. 
The committee had been put together to report back on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, a bill introduced to Parliament by Sir Roger Douglas, with the intention of making all membership in Student Associations voluntary. 
An analysis of about half of the submissions indicates that the numbers are at least three to one against the bill, and also that those who asked to speak are five to one against the bill.
There have also been 4000 informal submissions made against the bill. 
David Do, co-President of NZUSA, was pleased with announcement. “This extension is a very helpful procedural win, because it gives us more time to lobby and persuade.”
The news proved another plus for NZUSA, which got a boost last year when they got the student associations to lobby the committee for an extension on the report date from the end of last year, to March 31 of this year. 
OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan is pleased to hear the result, but also has reservations.
“It is good to have more time to plan, but at the same time it extends uncertainty which means we can’t make a lot of key decisions and it isn’t very nice for staff who won’t know if they will have jobs or not.”
Support and opposition to the bill has generally been split along the Left/Right ideological divide.
The Young Nats wrote in their submission, “Students are the only group in society still forced to join a Union. The Young Nats believe students deserve the same choices as all other New Zealanders.”
The Green Party submitted in opposition, stating that the amendment’s intention, which seeks to guarantee the right of students to the freedom of association, is already provided in the Act’s current form, and that “The proposed amendment is unnecessary and damaging to a thriving tertiary education sector.”
Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin also opposed the bill, saying he didn’t believe the current system was “broke.”