By Zanny Begg
Auckland — In an attempt to silence student opposition to government cuts, the New Zealand government passed legislation on August 5 that will undermine universal student membership of student unions. The legislation requires all student unions to hold a referendum early next year on whether membership remains universal.
At Waikato University last year, right-wing Christians won control of the student union and pushed through a referendum dismantling universal membership. Union membership has subsequently dropped to only 33% of students, and the union has virtually collapsed. Green Left Weekly spoke to Mark O'Brian, president of the Auckland Student Union and an activist in the Alliance, about the student movement's campaign to defend its unions.
Question: Can you tell me about the passage of the voluntary student membership legislation?
The legislation was introduced as a private member's bill and wound its way through select committee all the way through 1997. It came to the house a number of times in 1998 but kept getting delayed.
The bill was supported by National and ACT and opposed by Labour and the Alliance. When the bill first got to the house it outlawed student association point blank. It made universal membership illegal.
The Maori MPs in New Zealand First were unhappy with this aspect of the legislation, however, and the national body of Maori students lobbied for this to change. On the night of the bill's first reading, the National Party responded to this pressure and amended the bill to have a referendum on each campus, where students can decide whether they want to retain universal membership.
The problem with this legislation is that the ballot paper has been designed by the government and has only one question: do you want student unions to be voluntary or compulsory?
There is no explanation of what this actually means. Next to the voluntary box, the ballot paper explains that you will get a refund of your fee. Next to the compulsory box there is no explanation of what student unions provide and what you will lose if you destroy student unions.
It also doesn't explain that student union membership is not currently compulsory. Students have the choice to opt out under current arrangements if they conscientiously object to belonging to a union. But they can't freeload.
The Vice Chancellors Association has described this as the worst legislation it has ever seen. It will be subject to numerous legal challenges because it outlines no threshold for numbers of students to vote to make the referendum binding.
Question: How will the referendums be run?
Unfortunately many of the polytechnics [TAFEs] may not contest the legislation because they don't think they can win the referendum. If the legislation is uncontested, the union automatically becomes voluntary.
The seven universities are much more organised and will contest the legislation. We are hoping to run all the referendums simultaneously in April. This allows us to run a national campaign.
We may run a test case at Waikato earlier because we hope to win this easily, and this will help the campaign at other universities.
Question: What has been the emphasis of the campaign against VSM?
We have focused on both the representation and services that student unions provide. My university has been more concerned with political representation because that is what unions were fundamentally set up to do.
Students know they can get services elsewhere but political representation only comes from unions.
Question: What has been the main motivation for the government in introducing VSM?
It's a blatant attack on students' right to organise. The government thinks we are a pain in the backside because we have taken on the new right.
We are a pocket of resistance to this government, and they hate that. They want young people to knuckle under and respect their elders, keep quiet and accept their conservative crap.
Student unions haven't done that. We have fought back against the right, and they want to shut us up.
We are confident that we can win the campaign if we run a strong campaign at all the campuses. The choice for students is: do they want to have their voice heard and have control of their services? If they do, they have to vote accordingly in the referendum.