News

Student presidents around the country are calling for sweeping reforms to the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA), after the Waikato Students’ Union (WSU) notified its withdrawal from the organisation.

In a press release circulated on 22 August, the Presidents of OUSA, VUWSA and AUSA, the three largest contributors of NZUSA funding, said they would propose a series of reforms at the NZUSA Congress on 8 November. These include a more inclusive governance structure, a renewed focus on core services, and “a credible role in organising relevant, national campaigns on issues that matter to students.” The reforms are to be tabled on the same day as the NZUSA presidential election.

NZUSA has come under increasing fire in recent weeks. In an article published in Salient on 12 August, VUWSA President Rory McCourt openly criticised the organisation, claiming there were “valid” concerns with the way it was being run. Members of the VUWSA Executive cited NZUSA President Pete Hodkinson’s nationwide “Big Questions” tour as an example of where the body was going wrong, slamming the tour as irrelevant to students.

WSU President Aaron Letcher announced earlier this month that WSU would “temporarily withdraw” from NZUSA, withholding its remaining 2013 membership fee of $10,000. The move, which was made without consulting Waikato students, was criticised by McCourt, OUSA President Francisco Hernandez, and AUSA President Daniel Haines as a “rash and hasty decision.”

On Monday, a request from VUWSA member Nick Cross to hold a referendum on VUWSA’s membership to NZUSA was tabled at an Executive meeting. VUWSA will formally consider the request at their next meeting on Monday, although it is understood that the request is unlikely to be rejected.

Hernandez confirmed to Critic that OUSA will also hold a referendum on its continued membership of NZUSA. The referendum will take place alongside or after the OUSA elections in late September/early October. Without betraying his own views in the slightest, Hernandez said that the referendum would propose “that OUSA stay in NZUSA to take a strong leadership role in reforming it to be a strong student voice. Or something like that.”

He claimed that the moves to reform NZUSA had been “brewing for a long time,” but had only crystallised into a clear plan of action after the WSU withdrawal. Hernandez said that OUSA, VUWSA and AUSA were “seizing control of the reform process” away from WSU.

Hernandez confirmed that Letcher wished to remove NZUSA Executive Director Alistair Shaw, and convert the full-time President position into two part-time co-President positions, to be filled by Hernandez and McCourt for the remainder of 2013. As Hernandez is currently standing for the Dunedin City Council on top of his studies and OUSA duties, this plan is unlikely to come to fruition.

Hernandez believed that the recent scrutiny of NZUSA was due to the Young Nats, who he claimed had been stirring up discontent through student media. Hernandez then blamed his favourite dead horse, Voluntary Student Membership, for the lack of funding, and once again accused the Young Nats’ diabolical cabal of duplicity in the matter.

“It’s really funny, because the scenario that some people had been advocating for, which is Voluntary Student Membership … [brought] the changes that have led to students’ associations being weak, which has led to NZUSA being underfunded, which has led to it not being able to provide a strong national voice for reform,” he said. “And now they’re complaining that NZUSA is not a strong voice. It’s not a strong voice because they’ve de-funded it, they’ve de-funded the students’ associations that enabled it to be a strong voice.”

Critic will have further coverage of this story in issue 21, published 2 September.