NZUSA Fractured By VSM Dissent

NZUSA Fractured By VSM Dissent

"The New Zealand Union of Students' Associations (NZUSA) is splitting at the seams after disagreements over its approach to Voluntary Student Membership (VSM) and the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill currently before parliament," says ACT on Campus President, Peter McCaffrey.

"The union is falling apart thanks to the extremist views advocated by the left-wing leadership of the organisation over Voluntary Student Membership and other political issues in the last two years"

"Emails leaked to ACT on Campus show that more than $65,000 of students' money was spent by the NZUSA federal executive on a legal opinion and a Price Waterhouse Cooper's report into VSM without prior permission from NZUSA member associations," says McCaffrey.

"The spending was authorised during a very short federal executive meeting, without all member associations present and without following due process."

"NZUSA have followed in their member association's footsteps by disregarding due process and ignoring the views of their members, and just as students have fought back against students' associations, now students' associations have fought back against NZUSA."

Internal complaints and disagreements over the expenditure and the priority NZUSA has put on VSM have raged all year but now tensions have spilled out into the media and the public:

Already, the Otago Polytechnic Students' Association has officially announced plans to withdraw from NZUSA and the decision was confirmed by students in a referendum last week.

OPSA President Meegan Cloughley was quoted as saying that saying that OPSA is not getting value for its annual subscription fee of $31 000. “I have said the same thing for my three terms in this position: we have not seen financial accountability, their actions are not well communicated, and we have seen little proactive as well as reactive campaigning, so this isn’t a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction; it’s been going on for years,”

Similarly, Otago University Students' Association has indicated it will likely withdraw from NZUSA, with a final decision to be made shortly.

"Tensions have escalated throughout the year and now, at the annual NZUSA conference in Palmerston North this weekend, almost 4 hours will be dedicated to VSM discussion in an attempt to resolve the disagreement, while only an hour will be spent disucssing issues like recent changes to the student loan scheme and how that will affect students."

"Clearly NZUSA are more interested in ensuring their own pockets remain lined with compulsorily acquired student money than actually advocating for important student issues," says ACT on Campus President, Peter McCaffrey.

ENDS

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