However, voting via the internet could be used to involve the wider student body in forming some future association policy.
In 1987, the then association president, Ross Blanch, successfully moved that all previous external policy motions approved by the then student representative council, the predecessor of the current student general meeting (SGM), be rescinded.
Association president Harriet Geoghegan, who moved yesterday that all previous external policy be rescinded, later said in an interview she was pleased there had been a "very good debate" on the issues.
She was encouraged many students agreed that some of the past policy was ridiculous and needed to be updated, and she would be pursuing further the idea of introducing internet voting at the next SGM.
The rescinding motion was lost by a substantial margin.
Some proposed motions involving more specific elements of policy were not debated at yesterday's SGM, including long-standing association support for cannabis law reform, for the Otago campus being a cannabis prohibition-free zone and support for retaining 18 as the legal drinking age.
These remain OUSA policy and efforts to modify them will be considered at the next SGM, at a date yet to be set.
The SGM is one of the association's main policy-setting bodies.
About 200 people attended yesterday's meeting at the University Union's main common room.
Ms Geoghegan had argued many of the external policy motions were "silly", no longer relevant, not "student issues" or too obscure, and all should be rescinded as policy motions.
She also favours using internet voting to enable more students to vote on proposed policy motions for several days after SGMs are held.
Video and written transcripts of the meeting, made available via the internet, could be used to guide a wider group of students, including some who had academic classes during the SGM, in later voting, she has said.
Several students supported the rescinding proposal, but more spoke against.
James Gluck agreed some past policy motions were "ridiculous" but said many "democratic decisions that people have worked hard to make" should not be overturned in this way.
Former association president Simon Wilson agreed some previous policy had been dubious but opposed any move to "chuck out everything at once", including valuable policies.
