OUSA says payment last to national body

Paul Hunt
Paul Hunt
Otago's student association says a $20,000 months-overdue bill to the national student body is the last money it will give the ''ineffective'' organisation.

But former Otago students are warning the demise of the national body could be a fatal blow to the student voice in New Zealand.

Dunedin North Labour MP David Clark said there was ''a real risk to the interests of students'' if the New Zealand Union of Students' Associations (NZUSA) folded.

''If [NZUSA's] constituent members can't be big enough to work together for the greater student good, it places wider student interests in jeopardy,'' the Otago alumnus said.

In a statement yesterday, the Otago University Students' Association said it would pay the fee ''to ensure ill feeling does not prevent the development of an alternative model'' to NZUSA.

But OUSA president Paul Hunt said NZUSA had been ''ineffective [and] distracted by sideshows ... for many years''.

NZUSA president Rory McCourt said while he ''welcomed'' the $21,275 payment, ''the real test is whether OUSA will actually engage in building a stronger student movement rather than just throwing stones''.

OUSA, Waikato Students' Association (WSU), Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association (VUWSA), and three other associations have either withdrawn or are looking at withdrawing from NZUSA.

WSU president Shannon Stewart said NZUSA did ''token things that try to make it seem like they're doing stuff, but representation on a national scale is not something we've been getting for a long time''.

She could not comment definitively on WSU's membership without consulting the association's board about recent talks with NZUSA.

Mr McCourt acknowledged NZUSA has had problems in the past, but said the national association had had a ''successful year''.

Mr Hunt disagreed. He thought NZUSA should be replaced with a ''federation model'' where all student association presidents ''are around the table and contribute to decision-making on a regular basis''.

Right now, he said, ''member associations have very little input into what NZUSA says or does ... [OUSA] cannot trust NZUSA to be a credible body''.

Mr McCourt said the structure of NZUSA was not the problem.

''Across the country, people are asking what's happening to the student movement; why is it crumbling. This [issue] requires people to think about how we can work together better rather than think about dividing,'' he said.

''[OUSA wants] to find problems with working together, which is easy. It's much harder to work together, but that's what we have to do.''

Former OUSA president Francisco Hernandez was of two minds about NZUSA.

''There's no reason that OUSA couldn't stay in NZUSA and take [it] over and reform it to be the body we wanted, rather than pulling out,'' he said.

''But I'm sympathetic to Paul [Hunt]'s point of view because ... [NZUSA] might sink anyway'' and reform efforts might be ''doomed''.

Mr Hernandez, who once ran unsuccessfully for NZUSA presidency, was also sceptical about the likelihood of a new national student body being formed if NZUSA was allowed to ''die''.

If NZUSA's fees were already too expensive for OUSA, Mr Hernandez said, ''I can't see OUSA putting all the costs into starting a new association''.

He thought NZUSA's present plight had a lot to do with 2011 legislation that made student association membership mandatory and saw many student associations' funding plummet.

''The current state of NZUSA has been most due to external factors of them not having enough student associations with enough money [to fund them],'' he said.

''It's led to a vicious cycle.''

He thought OUSA should conduct a referendum about its NZUSA membership, as it had done under his presidency.

At the time, a majority of students had voted to stay in NZUSA if it were successfully reformed, which suggested there should be another referendum now, he said.

VUWSA will be holding a referendum on the question in September, but Mr Hunt said OUSA had no plans to hold its own.

''A referendum is not the way to resolve the problem. The right way is for student leaders to think hard and carefully about how to represent students at a national level.''

Otago students were free to submit a referendum question if they wanted, but any referendum results would not be binding, he said.

''A referendum result cannot force OUSA to throw money at something it believes is not working.''

Fewer than 10 of the 30 students surveyed by the Otago Daily Times on campus yesterday had heard of NZUSA.

carla.green@odt.co.nz

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