“Business As Usual” OUSA Budget Dropped

Posted 10:10pm Saturday 4th October 2025

OUSA’s budget for 2026 has dropped. You might read “budget” and feel your eyes glaze over. But just as your budget is crucial to stretching StudyLink payments across keeping a roof over your head, avoiding scurvy, and storing away a little extra for barista-made treats or a box on Read more...

Editorial: Get Behind the Rental Warrant of Fitness

Posted 9:54pm Saturday 4th October 2025

Cars can be dangerous to your wellbeing. If they have a dodgy wheel bearing, thin tyres, a cracked windscreen or a dying battery, they don’t pass their warrant of fitness. It’s too dangerous to drive. Before you’re allowed to have your car on the road, you have to fix the Read more...

POLSA Debate Team Says Scarfie Culture is Out

Posted 12:17am Monday 29th September 2025

Should Scarfie culture be officially recognised as intangible cultural heritage? Three Greens politicians, Mickey Treadwell, Francisco Hernandez and Rosie Finnie, think yes. But in a debate hosted by the Otago Politics Students Association (POLSA) at the Business School on Friday September 19, three Read more...

Editorial: I Love Fat Bear Week

Posted 10:53pm Sunday 28th September 2025

It was Fat Bear Week last week. As the newly elected Exec for 2026 cheersed to a successful campaign period and the marvel that is Canva premium, I was reading the profiles of 11 chunky bears from bed with a tear in my eye – of gunk from the conjunctivitis I’d contracted, but you know. Read more...

Alumni Fly From Afar to Settle 20-Year-Old Boozy Bet

Posted 5:55pm Sunday 21st September 2025

Born out of a drunken argument over who was slower, Otago alumni Blake Plummer and Jolyon Swinburn agreed to race in a marathon at age 40. The boys cracked open a cold one as they told Critic Te Ārohi the story of a 20-year-old bet that brought them back to their alma mater for the Read more...

Editorial: I’d Say We’re Pretty Lucky

Posted 5:40pm Sunday 21st September 2025

I don’t know about you, but these past couple of weeks have left me reeling. Both on campus, in wider Ōtepoti, in national and international news (I won’t linger on this one too long), it’s as if whoever runs the simulation has turned up the dial to “hard” and left Read more...

Debatable: Can short-form media do major news stories justice?

Posted 5:38pm Sunday 21st September 2025

For Attention spans are cooked, the world is moving at lightning speed, and you only have so much time to dedicate to keeping up with current affairs before we’re onto the next bombshell moment. You can barely sit down for a piss without refreshing your phone, and expecting students to Read more...

Fiery Exec Campaigns “Healthy Democracy”

Posted 9:27pm Thursday 18th September 2025

It’s election season for the OUSA Executive. With 20 candidates vying for a position in 2026, three lunch-time forums were held last week to provide the opportunity for candidates to share their policies. Knowing most students don’t have the capacity to sit through six hours of Read more...

Background Checking Wanna-be Mayors

Posted 1:02pm Monday 15th September 2025

If you’ve gone on a cruise out of town lately, you’ll have clocked the shocking array of roadside billboards begging for that sweet democratic #1 ranking. Last week, OUSA hosted the candidates for the upcoming local body elections in a series of forums, held in the Main Common Room at Read more...

Editorial: A Challenge to the Uni’s Monopoly on Scones

Posted 10:38am Sunday 7th September 2025

I learned why the supermarket duopoly is making butter a luxury grocery item last week. Features Editor Hanna patiently explained to me how competition is important to ensure that prices meet demand, and why there being two major supermarkets in Aotearoa means prices inflate to the point of there Read more...