News

The New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) conference has ended with OUSA unable to secure enough votes to amend the notice period required to withdraw from the body.

OUSA attended the last two days of the four-day conference, participating in only a single workshop before voting on the NZUSA Presidents for next year, and the various motions put to the body. By virtue of having the largest number of students OUSA has the most votes of any member organisation, controlling 14 of the total of 86 votes.
   OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan told Critic “there was only one workshop that we saw any value in attending, and that was the one concerned with the internal review we requested this year. Unfortunately when we got there NZUSA hadn’t even drafted terms of reference for the issue.”
   The most important part of the conference from OUSA’s standpoint came during the final day when motions, which must be circulated a month prior to the conference, were voted on. OUSA had introduced a motion to amend the notice period required to withdraw from NZUSA from twelve months to three. The motion failed to pass, falling 14 votes short of the required 44. 
   Geoghegan had argued that since “our membership levies pay for the organisation we should be able to withdraw without this onerous notice period.” However many smaller associations were against the change, on the grounds that it would create the possibility of financial instability. 
   It was indicated that there might have been sufficient support to change to a six-month period, however due to the rule that motions affecting the constitution must be circulated one month prior to the conference no vote could be taken.
   Geoghegan said that this was because “smaller associations get disproportionate benefits from NZUSA. We are paying over $90 000 and effectively getting less out of membership than some who are paying only $7000.” The lack of vote on the six-month suggestion, which Geoghegan said was “substantively the same,” could be seen as the protection of entrenched interests.
   When Geoghegan suggested that NZUSA move to a flat fee structure, rather than the student numbers-based structure currently employed, the meeting got tense. It was even argued that this would be a breach of the NZUSA Constitution, though this claim was ultimately discovered to be unfounded. The idea did however “get other Presidents to start to realise where we were coming from,” Geoghegan said.
   One of the two candidates supported by OUSA, Max Hardy, the President of Victoria University of Wellington Student’s Association (VUWSA) was elected to co-President of NZUSA. Current NZUSA Co-President David Do was re-elected to serve a second term, despite not being supported by OUSA. The unsuccessful candidate who received OUSA’s support was Jo Hymers of the Association of Students at UCOL.
   Geoghegan told Critic, “We supported Max because he has a good idea how an organisation like OUSA runs, given his involvement with VUWSA, and he seems receptive to new ideas.” In contrast, when asked what she thought of Do’s successful re-election bid, Geoghegan was much less complimentary, sating “we asked him what he planned to do about VSM and he said that he hadn’t really thought about it – that’s not a good sign.”
   When asked about her feelings on the conference as a whole Geoghegan was frank, telling Critic that “we all felt like we hadn’t achieved much and that really there wasn’t much point to it.”