Otago University Students March in Budget Protest

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Otago University Students March to National Party Office in Budget Protest

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Over 60 students braved the wet bleak and cold Dunedin day and marched from Otago University to National Party MP, Michael Woodhouse’s office to protest budget priorities.

The group of protesters rallied on the Union Lawn at noon and left the University at 12.30pm to march down George St, through the Octagon and down Princes St to Micheal Woodhouse's office in Upstart House.

Protest organiser Ella Hardy said “Today we marched in opposition to this visionless budget. National clearly prioritise prisons, allocating 900 million to justice and no mention what so ever about tertiary education, or the necessity of up-skilling our work force to see us through the recession!”

“While other countries are committed to up-skilling their workforce, Bill’s Budget does nothing to address these issue - Australia spent over NZ$6 billion on tertiary and research and development, and the United States has allocated NZ$49 billion dollars.”

“The budget for students meant a 98 million dollar cut in scholarships, including bonding and Students are left with an insulting 1 million dollars for prime minister science prizes.”

“Dunedin University and Polytechnic students are well aware of the lack of commitment that Michael Woodhouse’ s party has shown to tertiary education having back out of funding the Design Institute after the Government took power.”

“Furthermore up coming graduates are concerned with the lack of research opportunities - New Zealand is well behind the rest of the OECD with Research and Development investment - and this budget leaves New Zealand further and further behind.”

Students chanted “1,2,3,4 Ausie Students getting more, 5,6,7,8 Educate to Stimulate!”, “How can you forget, 10 billion dollars Debt!” and “ Freeze the Fee’s”.

Ella Hardy told interviewers "We urge Anne Tolley to pick up that big file on her desk that says 'Tertiary Education', instead of simply ignoring it"

Speech by protest organiser Ella Hardy

Fellow students and concerned members of the public, thank you for gathering here today to make your voices heard in opposition to yesterday’s National Party budget.

This budget falls woefully short in many ways --
it fails to provide for the future of Superannuation,
it fails to provide for future job creation,
and it fails to safeguard the future of our environment.
This is a budget that deals poorly with the problems of today and completely ignores the problems of tomorrow.

This is also a budget – and a Government – that has left our students out in the cold.

The National Party is completely uninterested in investing in quality education for New Zealanders.

Bill English, in his budget speech yesterday, made no mention of either Students or Tertiary Education – he used the word ‘student’ only once and completely failed to mention tertiary education at all.

They claim to be the party of aspiration but what kind of message are they sending to young Kiwi’s about the value of higher education?

In a budget speech focused heavily on debt reduction, there was no mention whatsoever of the debt that is crippling our generation. English said the word ‘debt’ a whopping 35 times during his speech. He didn’t mention student debt once.

How can you forget 10 billion dollars of debt?

This is a Government that is sweeping students and tertiary education under the carpet.

Furthermore, English talked endlessly about productivity yesterday but gave no new ideas, or meaningful funding, towards stimulating productivity. We all know how to move towards a productive, knowledge economy:
Invest in Education,
Invest in Students and
Invest in Research and Development.
What have they done for Tertiary Education? This budget gives no increases, no improvements; they’ve done the absolute bare minimum in inflation-adjusting course-subsidies.
What have they done for Students? This budget gives us absolutely nothing –we don’t even rate a shout-out in the speech.
What have they done for Research and Development? They’ve slashed it by 75%

This is a budget of missed opportunities, a visionless budget that proposes a bleak future for us as Kiwis.

The Australian budget this year invested 3 billion dollars more in Tertiary Education and Innovation infrastructure. That’s the kind of vision that creates a valuable and productive economy.

National talked a lot in the election campaign about the Kiwi Brain Drain – but with this striking difference in investment, Kiwi’s don’t even need to move to Australia to create a Brain Drain – National is creating a Brain Drain right in our own backyard.

Students don’t deserve to be left out of the budget.

Universities and Polytechs don’t deserve to be left out of the budget.

New Zealand doesn’t deserve to be left out of an innovative and productive future – but this is what this budget has done.

Students have been left out in the cold.

ENDS

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