Dialogue: Student unions giving service without politics

By KANE STANFORD*

"What has become of student unions?" Kate Belgrave asked in her column this week. Let me tell her.

Student associations, as with most unions, are all about representing their members. The Auckland University Students Association has had a long history of being fairly bad at doing this.

In past years, students who put their names in the hat for elections were usually highly politically active and looking to complement their theoretical political studies degrees with a practical component.

Association executives of the past have openly backed certain political parties without any direction from their members; openly slated certain religious groups; lost High Court cases for not following binding general meetings; and, in general, acted in a highly undemocratic and unrepresentative manner.

Student associations could spend money any way they wanted, knowing full well that students had to pay again next year regardless.

The level of dissatisfaction with the Auckland University Students Association before the voluntary referendum was at an all-time high. Fewer and fewer students were turning up to marches, very few social activities were organised, executive members were being voted out for undemocratic behaviour and presidents were signing away their powers to the university.

In May last year, students decided they didn't want to be forced to join the association. About 12,000 students voted, on average a higher percentage than most American elections.

Now that the association is voluntary, we have to represent our members and provide what they want in a way that they want it. If we fail to do that, they will simply not join next year.

The association executive also cannot waste students' money pushing its own political beliefs without a mandate from the members. If we do, again they will not join next year.

Belgrave suggests that youthful unions these days don't consider themselves to be representative bodies. Quite the contrary. Student associations attempt now to represent students rather than, in her words, "innocent socialist ideologies."

The Auckland association, at the direction of members, has attempted to change from being highly political and increasingly irrelevant to students to providing more benefits to its members. These benefits include representation at a national level, social activities, discounts, services, advocacy, legal help and financial backing for student-related projects.

These are obviously not Belgrave's idea of what we should be doing. My only suggestion is that she becomes a student, joins the Auckland association and tries to change it. Students running for the presidency of the association with similar stances to those of Belgrave have been heavily defeated in the past two elections.

The service agreements that student associations around New Zealand have signed with their universities are born of necessity and are fairly simple. They pay us to perform services that the university considers essential.

Most of those are services which the association provided before, including financial support for clubs, cultural events, ecofests, general information and advice, lost property and social events for students. Nothing political is funded by the university, including the association's magazine Craccum.

Student associations either signed these contracts with the universities as a protective measure (so that the associations could offer a lower fee and increase their chances of staying compulsory) or as a survival measure for voluntary associations (as was the case with the Auckland association).

The fact that the university pays us to provide certain services does not necessitate a loss of our political autonomy, which still exists in the same form. Students can still march, occupy and protest. Student associations are still representative, more representative, in fact, than ever.

Belgrave asks a few questions. I have one of my own: Does she want student associations that represent her views or those of students? I prefer to represent students but, then again, I'm just a wee lad.

* Kane Stanford is president of the Auckland University Students Association.