The Young Nats have just put out the following press release:

Students Welcome Chance For Choice

The Young Nats today welcomed the drawing of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill from the ballot, which will allow for voluntary student union membership.

"The campaign for 'student choice' has had a real win today," says Young Nats President, Alex Mitchell.

"Students will welcome the chance for choice. It is great to see that this private member's bill, allowing for voluntary student union membership, has been drawn from the ballot.

"This is well overdue - students remain the only group in society still forced to join a union. Students can’t enroll at New Zealand’s Universities and Tertiary Institutions or even sign into their classes without having to pay a union membership levy.

"Students ought to have the same right and freedoms as every other New Zealander. They ought to be able to choose whether or not they join a student union.

“There are other issues we hope that this bill will address. For example we constantly see low turnout at student elections, such that student associations spend large amounts of students' money without any real core support from the student body.

“We hope this will be a wake up call to those currently involved to think about value for money for students, especially in the current global economic downturn.

“The Young Nats call on all MPs to vote for this bill through the first stage so we can see a robust public debate at the select committee stage. The National Party was founded upon the principles of choice and freedom – this bill will allow all students to enjoy the fundamental principle of freedom of association”

ENDS

Media contact:
Alex Mitchell 027 303 9272

I have received a statement from the Returning Officer and the Election Committee, in response to my complains. My response is also included here.

Statement regarding July 2009 By-election.

The election committee has considered two complaints about the inclusion of No Confidence as an option where multiple candidates were standing for election. This was not strictly in accordance with the VUWSA constitution.

The election committee has noted that this has happened in past by-elections, with minimal impact. Subsequently, the election committee is of the opinion that the influence on this by-election is minimal, and the results stand.

The error was made by an external entity which VUWSA engages to conduct online voting. All paper ballots – which were generated by the returning officer – were correct. The election committee has instructed the returning officer to ensure that this does not happen for future elections.

Jeremy Greenbrook-Held, Amanda Hill, and Karen Price

VUWSA Election Committee

------------------

Dear Returning Officer,

Thank you for your reply.

However, I find your response entirely inadequate and in fact believe it to be an insult to democracy within VUWSA.

I make the following points:

As the returning officer, your job is to carry out the election according to the VUWSA constitution. This has not been done as the electronic ballot is clearly not complaint with the constitution,

As the returning officer, your job is to count the votes in the election. This has not been done as my votes for no confidence in the xxx and xxx positions have not been counted.

As the returning officer, your job is to report the votes in the election. This has not been done as the number of votes for no confidence have not been reported for xxx and xxx and xxx.

As the returning officer, together with the election committee, it is NOT your job to assume how votes may or may not have been cast if ballot papers had been correctly prepared. It is impossible how a voter who voted no confidence for Women's Rights Officer may have voted had the option not been available. For example, votes for no confidence may be more likely to go to a joke candidate like Lucy Deane, if that option were not available.

Errors that have occured in the past do not affect the validity of this election, and as noted earlier, it is not up to the Returning Officer and the election committee to decide how votes may have been cast if errors had not been made.

Whether the error was made by the returning officer or by an external organisation is also irrelevent to the validity of the election, although I understand that the company believe the mistake was not theirs.

Further to these points, and my original complaints, I wish to add the following complaint:

At voting in the quad using paper ballots, numerous votes have told me that their student ID's were not checked when voting, and their date of birth was not collected. Given that this information was collected for online voting, this further highlights the differences between the ballot papers.

For these reasons, I would again ask you to invalidate the election, and should you decline to do so, that you inform me what steps I make take to formally dispute the result of the election.

Thank you again,

-Peter McCaffrey

You might think that one screw-up was enough for VUWSA this evening, but no...

It turns out that VUWSA don't know how to use the BCC field when sending emails and I had someone contact me just now who was a little annoyed that their email address had been spread around to dozens of other class reps without their permission.

I saw a bigger problem in the email, in that VUWSA are planning to start 'Stop Lecture Meetings' again.

For the uninitiated, a Stop Lecture Meeting is, in VUWSA's words, "based on the trade union concept of a 'Stop Work Meeting' - in other words, VUWSA representatives barge into your lecture, interrupt your lecturer and talk for a few minutes to the class about whatever it is that VUWSA is up to at the moment. They also like to hold a few votes on highly biased questions so that they can report 'what students think'.

Below is the email that I have individually sent to each of the class representatives whose email wasn't BCC'd, containing my suggestions as to how they deal with VUWSA when they turn up at their lecture.

Enjoy!

-------------

Dear Class Rep,

I hear that VUWSA are about to start so called 'Stop Lecture Meetings'.

For those of you who are lucky enough to have not yet experienced a Stop Lecture Meeting, this is when VUWSA representatives come into your lecture, interrupt your lecturer and spend 5 minutes discussing ridiculous issues, and then call for votes on highly biased questions, just so that VUWSA can report 'what students think'.

Obviously, as elected class rep's, this is your own call, but may I make the following recommendation for how you could best represent the students in your class:

Stand up and say: "As class rep, I'm meant to represent the interests of this class. Therefore, in the interests of this class, please leave us alone so we can get some work done."

I honestly hope that you enjoy your next few months as a class rep, but should it instead alert you to just how useless VUWSA really are, feel free to contact me - I'd love to chat about what can be done about VUWSA.

-Peter McCaffrey
-Vic Student

Swine Flu has been confirmed in New Zealand, but in other, more interesting news, less than 4% of students at SIT want compulsory membership.

Now to be fair, it is very hard to collect signatures physically, one at a time, in order to force a referendum, and i'm sure that with a vote, a higher percentage of people would opt for compulsory membership.

However, this just shows how ridiculous it is that we should have to collect signatures just to force a referendum on something that is a basic human right.