On 13 January this year, a group of Chinese internet users converged on Google’s Beijing headquarters bearing flowers and candles. Google had announced the day before that it would no longer comply with Chinese internet censorship laws—a decision which, the group suspected, would result in a ban on the popular search engine. Upon reaching Google headquarters, however, they were informed by a neighbourhood security guard that they would need to apply for a permit before laying their flowers on the company plaque. If they did not, they would be committing an “illegal flower tribute”, and would be liable for persecution.

Illegal flower tribute. Put together, those three words seem about as much of an oxymoron as “Microsoft Works”. Yet they also happen to epitomise the very same logic that is used to justify internet censorship. The act of censorship is defined as the examination of an information medium “for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds”. When a government takes on this responsibility, it is effectively deciding what information should or should not be made available to its citizens. This is an immense power to wield and, to quote Superman, it can have a devastating effect when placed in the wrong hands.

So how does internet censorship affect people? How has internet censorship been employed by governments, and how have those affected managed to get around it? Is there an acceptable form of internet censorship? This article will address these questions by looking at three recent examples—Google China and Operation Aurora, the 2009 anti-government protests in Iran, and the Great Firewall of Australia.

China: Flower Tributes and Cyber Attacks

Google China has a controversial history. When it was founded in 2005, it announced that it would comply with China’s existing laws on internet censorship. It later justified this position by arguing that “while removing search results is inconsistent with Google’s mission, providing no information … is more inconsistent with our mission”. The fact that Google would come to hold 29 per cent of the search engine market share in China may also have influenced their decision.

The extent of internet censorship in China is substantial. “The Chinese government has undertaken to limit access to any content that might potentially undermine the state’s control or social stability,” writes the OpenNet Initiative.

“[It does so] by pursuing strict supervision of domestic media, delegated liability for online content providers, and increasingly, a propaganda approach to online debate and discussion.”

The Chinese government, according to OpenNet, censors anything that is considered to be “endangering national security and contradicting officially accepted political theory, conducting activities in the name of an illegal civil organization, or inciting illegal assemblies or gatherings that disturb social order”.

The type of material that is censored varies from the potentially subversive (such as searches on Tianamen Square, Falun Gong or the Dalai Lama) to the potentially offensive (such as criticisms of national leaders, distortions of Chinese culture, and material that is “sexually suggestive or provocative”).

Google China received heavy criticism for its policy of compliance with such strict censorship laws—collectively titled the ‘Golden Shield Project’—for so long. Therefore, it came as a shock when, in January 2010, Google suddenly announced that it was “no longer willing to continue censoring [their] results”.

“We will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all,” the announcement continued.

“We recognise that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Even more surprising was what had led to the change of heart. “In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.”

Google believed that “a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists”.

Operation Aurora, as the attack came to be named, had not only been directed at Google. It had begun as early as the middle of 2009, and had been directed at dozens of major companies around the world. Along with search engines, Aurora appeared to have targeted aeronautical firms like Northrop Grumman and antivirus developers like Symantec. McAfee concluded that the operation had been intended to steal “highly valuable intellectual property from its victims”.

So what does this extreme bout of cyberspace fisticuffs have to do with censorship in China? “Censorship, such as the blocking of websites, is fairly crude but effective when combined with targeted surveillance and attacks,” explains Nart Villeneuve, senior fellow at the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies University of Toronto.

“The objective is to influence behaviour toward self-censorship, so that most will not actively seek out banned information of the means to bypass controls and access it.

“[This] nexus of censorship, surveillance and malware attacks … is the key to China’s information control policies.”

Iran: Social Networking and the Green Revolution

When the results of the June 2009 Presidential election in Iran were announced, many Iranians expressed disbelief. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, conservative fundamentalist and political firebrand, had been re-elected in a landslide, gathering almost twice the number of votes as his closest opponent, Mir-Houssein Mousavi. Almost immediately, supporters of Mousavi took to the streets, alleging widespread fraud and vote-rigging. This initial demonstration would escalate into a widespread protest movement called the ‘Green Revolution’, named after the colour adopted by protestors from Mousavi’s campaign.

The internet played a crucial role in the unrest. All internet service providers in Iran must go through a single government-managed gateway, providing the government with a single point of access for monitoring and filtering internet usage. This allowed the government to block access to all major foreign news outlets during and after the elections, as well as the websites of several opposition parties.

“The Internet censorship system in Iran is one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated in the world,” states OpenNet. “[It is] rooted in its constitution, which declares that ‘the media … must strictly refrain from diffusion and propagation of destructive and anti-Islamic practices’.”

“Efforts to control online speech by the Iranian government have relied primarily on large-scale internet filtering and the threat of targeted legal action,” continues OpenNet, adding that the government has a strong focus on developing its own web monitoring tools in order to reduce its dependency on Western software.

Despite the Iranian government’s attempts at censorship, the protestors made extensive use of social networking tools to get information out to the world. “Any democratic movement in a totalitarian state needs as much international support as it can get,” states Homy Lafayette, author of a blog titled ‘Iran News in English’.

“Hence, the choice of language I use for my blog. I want to influence, in my own humble way, international public opinion.”

Blogging in English became one of the most popular ways for Iranian protestors to bypass internet censorship due to the fact that censors targeted blogs written in Farsi. “I blogged for years at my Farsi weblog,” writes Jadi, author of ‘Inside Iran’, “but these days I’m filtered in my own country so I have to write here in English.”

Video sharing websites such as YouTube allowed for the direct uploading of amateur footage from the protests. The video showing the shooting of a protestor named Neda Agha-Soltan was later termed “the most widely witnessed death in human history”.

Twitter and Facebook proved invaluable for organising protests and disseminating information within Iran, with the former even postponing a scheduled network upgrade during the protests so as not to disrupt its service. “We have no national press coverage in Iran,” tweeted mousavi1388 during the protests, “[so] everyone should help spread Moussavi’s message. One Person = One Broadcaster.”

“Part of the efforts of those who oppose the regime is concentrated on overcoming state propaganda,” agreed Lafayette.

“It is ironic that someone in London is usually better-informed of what is truly occurring in Tehran, than someone in Shiraz.”

Lafayette indicates, however, that attempts to bypass internet censorship were merely part of an overall campaign by protestors to bypass government crackdowns. “In the first days of the post-election unrest, for example, I would argue that SMS messages were much more effective than websites,” he says.

“CDs and DVDs containing video files showing the regime’s brutality have been distributed around the country to people who do not necessarily have broadband or Internet know-how. In some rare cases, I know that important statements and speeches have been photocopied and distributed hand-to-hand on good old paper.”

Lafayette asserts that these methods “not only convey information, but also set the tone and maintain resistance.”

Australia: Where the bloody hell are ya, internet?

The debate over internet censorship in Australia had never been a particularly vocal one before December 2009. Up until then, censorship laws were comprised of a smorgasbord of state- and federal-level legislation aimed mostly at preventing unsuitable material from being made available to minors.

On 15 December 2009, however, the incumbent Labor government introduced a new piece of federal legislation titled ‘Measures to improve safety of the internet for families’. This legislation proposed to introduce, for the first time, a set of mandatory internet filters for all Internet Service Providers. The subsequent furore over the proposal led to it being dubbed the ‘Great Firewall of Australia’.

So what does the legislation propose, exactly? In the media release for the legislation, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy stated that it was intended to block “child sex abuse content, bestiality, sexual violence including rape, and the detailed instruction of crime or drug use”, as well as subject matter related to terrorism. This material, collectively referred to as Refused Classification (RC) content, is “already illegal to distribute, sell or make available for hire … [in] films, computer games and publications.”

Upon first glance, Conroy’s proposal might seem fair—a measure aimed at applying the same standard to the internet that is applied to other communication media. However, the legislation has evoked intense opposition from both the public and from private organisations. “This plan will … waste millions of taxpayers’ funds in a bid to enforce a level of censorship that will set human rights in Australia back several decades,” argues the Digital Liberty Coalition (DLC).

“[It] will impact legal as well as illegal material.”

The DLC concern over the impact the legislation will have on legal material seemed to be confirmed by a leaked copy of the Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist of Refused Classification sites. Among other innocuous websites, the list included the URL of a Queensland dentist, a tuckshop convener and a kennel operator.

“506 sites would be classified R18+ and X18+, which is legal to view in Australia but would be blocked for everyone under Labor’s mandatory censorship scheme,” wrote The Age.

Critics have also pointed out the lack of transparency in both the creation and ongoing maintenance of the blacklist. “This scheme was implemented without public consultation,” argues the DLC. “Even the advisory board for this scheme is closed-door and by invitation only … All minutes of meetings and information as to goings-on within this advisory panel have thus far been kept out of the eye of the public.”

Anti-censorship campaign group GetUp agrees. “Under the plan, the government can add any ‘unwanted’ site to a secret blacklist.”

They add that testing of internet filters demonstrates that they “will slow our internet by up to 87 per cent, make it more expensive, miss the vast majority of inappropriate content and accidentally block up to 1 in 12 legitimate sites.”

To censor or not to censor

When it comes to the examples of China and Iran, the case is fairly clear-cut—when you are suppressing domestic criticism and preventing the flow of news in and out of your own country, it’s a pretty fair bet to say you are abusing your power. But is there an acceptable level of internet censorship that can be agreed upon? The concept of ‘net neutrality’, which runs deep in most Western countries, would suggest otherwise.

The ‘Great Firewall of Australia’ presents an interesting case. On the one hand, the Labor government’s desire to prevent children from being exposed to material that almost everyone would consider offensive—child pornography, racism, bestiality and sexual violence—would seem to be a logical, even noble one. On the other hand, the mechanisms by which they are pursuing this goal—mandatory censorship, secret blacklists, inability to distinguish between what should and should not be blocked, and unproven technology that affects internet speed—are questionable, to say the least.

But if the idea of internet censorship is to be seriously called into question, should it not also logically extend to other forms of censorship? If it is considered unacceptable to sell Refused Classification material in movie or video game form, should it not also be unacceptable on the internet? Or, as the ‘net neutrality’ argument goes, is the internet a special case where the free flow of information—however corrupt and perverse at times—should not be interfered with? Alternatively, do ALL forms of censorship strip citizens of their personal liberties, as the libertarian argument goes? Does stripping individuals of the right to figure out for themselves what is and is not questionable material make them less well-rounded human beings?

At the very least, we should all be thankful that we live in a country where we can have these debates without being in danger of persecution. Nobody should ever have to fear reprisal for making an ‘illegal flower tribute’.

When I was about six or seven years old, I remember going on a road trip with my dad around New South Wales. As we headed north from Newcastle, he suggested that I might want to look out the window, for there was something big ahead of us. When I asked what it was, he told me that it was Ayers Rock. “Not even, Dad!” I replied, full of the cocky self-assurance of a child with a second-grade education. “Ayers Rock isn’t even in this state!” “I’m telling you, it is!” he replied with a laugh. “You just wait and see!”

And sure enough, another kilometre or two later, there it was—a giant, plastic eyesore, shaped and painted to look like Uluru. “The Rock Restaurant,” I read, groaning at my dad’s attempt at being cool. “But that’s not really Ayers Rock, Dad!” “No,” he replied, “but it is one of Australia’s ‘Big Things’.”

And so I was introduced to the common Australian practice of small things writ-large. Since then I’ve seen many more of them—the Big Ant, the Big Oyster, the Big Gold Panner. I even had the privilege of going to university in the town famous for the most sexually suggestive of the big things—the Big Banana. But what about New Zealand? As it turns out, you Kiwis have a few big things of your own—but surprisingly few people have written about them. This article is dedicated to small towns in New Zealand and their ‘big things’.

A long and lively history

The year was 1967. The Vietnam War was raging, the Space Race was at its height, and the hippies of the world were taking their first tentative puffs from the doobie of youthful rebellion. All of this paled, of course, to the preparations for the Christmas celebration in the small Kiwi town of Paeroa. In front of the town Post Office was erected a seven metre-high replica of a space rocket, topped by a loudspeaker that would blare music and announcements throughout the festival. The theme proudly proclaimed that “Paeroa was to rocket into Christmas”—and so it did.

The following Christmas, the rocket was reassembled and painted in a familiar pattern of brown and yellow. Thus was the ‘Big L&P Bottle’, world famous in New Zealand, born.

Most of New Zealand’s big things have similarly humble origins. Ohakune’s ‘Big Carrot’, for example, was conceived by Peter Hammond, a local grower of the Ohakune Growers’ Association. “The opportunity arose from the ANZ Banking promotion on [television] in the 80s as a prop from their advertising,” explains Bruce Thompson, Deputy Chair of the Waimarino-Waiouru Community Board.

“[It] was officially ‘opened’ by the King Country MP Mr Jim Bolger, and our mayor at the time Mr Bill Taylor.”

The operators of ‘Kiwi360’ in Te Puke—home of the ‘Big Kiwifruit’—stress the harmonious nature of their icon. “[It] is the shape of a kiwifruit slice, made up of Maori canoe paddles (waka hoe).

“The inclusion of Waka Hoe symbolises the land’s Maori heritage, the Mana Whenua of this land to the Tauranga Moana Iwi, and the orderly cooperation between peoples which has resulted in the success of our business.”

Big things also serve as a focus for ongoing pageantry in small towns. “Since 1984 a Carrot Festival has been held in the town featuring the large machinery for harvesting, floats and stalls,” says Thompson.

“It has [also] featured on the New Zealand postage stamp.”

It’s all about the produce

Big things typically represent the staple produce of their hometown. Apart from carrots, kiwifruit and bottles of soft drink, New Zealand’s other big things include a Big Crayfish in Kaikoura, a Big Salmon in Rakaia, a Big Trout in Gore, and a Big Sheep and Sheepdog in Tirau.

“[The Big L&P Bottle] represents our branding,” says Paeroa ward councillor Julie Bubb.

“We have flags down the main street with the L&P theme. All the food outlets in town have L&P painted frontages. We even have the L&P Cafe, which has a replica plastic bottle in front.”

Thompson proudly asserts that “the town of Ohakune was known as the carrot capital of the North Island”, and that the Big Carrot “stands proudly today promoting Ohakune and its wares”.

Martin Svehla, Ministry of Tourism Senior Communications Adviser, agrees that ‘Big Things’ are representative of what small towns have to offer. “Personally, I see them as a bit of fun. An exclamation point on what’s important to that town or area—something the community is proud of.

“There’s a big trout in Gore, and I understand that fishing on the Mataura can be spectacular.

“In terms of town branding I’d have to say I love what Tirau has done,” adds Svehla, referring to the Big Sheep and Sheepdog. “That’s a real feature, and I bet it makes people stop and have a coffee and slice of cake.”

A bit of fun

The people of Paeroa are “definitely proud of our local icon,” says Bubb. “The ‘bottle’ has become one of the most well known and photographed structures in New Zealand.

“There must be million of photographs of it around the world.”

Not everything about the icon has been effervescent, however. Before 2002, the bottle presented a rather unique problem in that the best place to take a photo of it was from right in the middle of State Highway 2. “There was naturally a concern about accidents, so the bottle was shifted at great cost to its present location where some bollards prevent the photographers from going on the busy highway.”

The biggest problem that the Big Carrot faced was of a more ideological nature. “Opponents were concerned at the anti-feminist nature of the ‘phallic symbol’,” explains Thompson.

“[They] suggested that two big swedes would be more appropriate.”

Quality over quantity

While New Zealand’s ‘Big Things’ may be few and far between, they are just as cherished by their small town patrons as their Australian counterparts. They present a light-hearted celebration of local industry and produce, as well as an unashamedly cheesy tourist attraction.

And just how do our ‘big things’ rate against their cousins in Australia? “I’m sure Australia has more,” admits Svehla. “I heard they’ve really embraced the whole ‘big thing’ idea on a large scale over there.

“[But] we really focus on quality here in New Zealand. I bet ours are made better. Probably using the latest America’s Cup fibreglass technology and the like.”

In case you haven’t heard, Avatar is awesome. An alien moon circling a distant planet, an exotic swathe of extraterrestrial flora and fauna—oh, and let’s not forget the ten-foot tall sentient beings who dart across the landscape like giant blue ninjas. What makes James Cameron’s masterpiece different, however, is the role of humanity in the interstellar first contact. No longer the hapless victims of an alien invasion, Avatar’s humans are themselves the invaders—the “sky people” from a far-off world. In Cameron’s digitally-created world, we are the aliens.

Strange as it may seem, the idea that humans might one day be extraterrestrial emissaries to an alien world is not entirely far-fetched. Yet almost everywhere we look, the task of finding life seems to be a daunting one. Interstellar distances and that pesky light-speed barrier make our chances of actually meeting alien life beyond our solar system rather slim. Closer to home, scientists speak excitedly about the possibility that microbial life may have existed on Mars millions of years ago.

But there is another candidate for life beyond our world. It is close to home, it contains a body of water larger than all of Earth’s oceans combined, and it has its own internal energy source. It has all the components believed to be necessary for life—and, what’s more, it has them today. Right now. Enter, stage left, Europa.

No, it’s not the band that wrote ‘The Final Countdown’. Europa is one of about sixty satellites of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. It was discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610 along with the three other ‘Galilean moons’—Io, Callisto and Ganymede. Very little was known about it until the 1970s when NASA’s Voyager missions were able to photograph it up close. What emerged would puzzle scientists. Europa appeared to have an icy outer crust crisscrossed with an ever-shifting landscape of cracks, fissures and craters. Through some unknown process, the surface of Europa seemed to be continually reinventing itself like a bad home renovation show.

The subsequent Galileo mission concluded that Europa’s bi-polar topography is most likely due to an ocean of liquid water beneath the shifting crust of ice. This ocean, heated by Jupiter’s immense tidal pull, is estimated to be as much as 50 kilometres deep. This same tidal pull is the cause of the fiery volcanic activity of Europa’s cousin, Io, and it is highly probable that the same volcanic activity occurs on Europa in the form of volcanic vents on the ocean floor. What’s more, it is theorised that the impact of cosmic rays on Europa’s exterior could convert the ice into oxidizers, providing a supply of oxygen into the subsurface ocean.

Europa contains all of the ingredients necessary for the development of a food chain—liquid water, oxygen, and an energy source. Put them all together, and that’s life, baby.

The grand scheme of things

So why is Europa so important?
“[Europa is] one of the very few places, along with Earth, where all the ingredients for life potentially exist,” says Dr Curt Niebur, NASA Program Scientist for the Europa Jupiter System Mission. “And what we’ve found on Earth is that wherever you have those ingredients for life, life somehow manages to make things work.”

“At the moment we know of just one planet which supports life,” adds Dr Claire Bretherton, Education and Public Programmes Manager at Carter Observatory Wellington. “But if we could find life on one of our own near neighbours this opens up the possibility of many, many more locations in our universe where life may be able to exist.”

For many, this puts Europa at the top of the list in the search for life. “Some scientists rate it higher than Mars as a likely abode of life and more worthy of a major initiative,” explains David Maclennan, President of the New Zealand Spaceflight Association.

“Wherever there is water, there is usually life, even if only of a microscopic nature.”

Niebur stresses that Europa presents a case study of what might be a common phenomenon throughout the universe. “As we’ve explored the universe … we’ve found that these giant gaseous planets like Jupiter are very, very common.

“And while we would not necessarily expect life to arise on these gas ball planets, what we’ve found unexpectedly in our solar system is that the moons orbiting them can actually be quite hospitable places.

“It could be that Earth-like planets are very rare in the universe, but habitable moons around gas giants might be quite commonplace.”

This means that the ‘goldilocks zone’—the narrow strip of space around any given star where the temperature is ‘just right’ for life to arise—may not be as significant as it was originally thought. Europa is well beyond this hypothesised temperate zone, yet it seems to harbour all of the necessary preconditions for life. “We’ve completely turned that [idea] on its ear in the past five to ten years,” says Niebur.

Fly me to the Moon… of Jupiter

If you’re anywhere near as geeky as me, you’re probably wondering the same thing I am—when are we going already?! As it so happens, NASA is currently working on a joint mission with the European Space Agency (ESA) to do just that. The Europa Jupiter System Mission, scheduled to be launched in 2020, is comprised of several spacecraft designed specifically to explore the moons of Jupiter, with a focus on—you guessed it—Europa.

“The goal of the overall mission is to investigate what we call the emergence of habitable worlds around giant planets,” explains Niebur.

“We’re going to study these unexpected oases in the outer solar system—learn how they formed, learn what sustains them, and learn exactly how hospitable they are. And once we understand these things, we can then perhaps learn how unique our solar system is, or if these kind of conditions might be commonplace in the universe.”

NASA has announced that the mission will not include a lander, citing both the complexity of a landing and a lack of knowledge of the Europan terrain. “Simply put, we just don’t understand enough about Europa yet to land there,” says Niebur.

“There are some basic, global science questions that we are asking that can only be answered from orbit. And once we learn enough, we’ll be able to both ask more focused questions that require a lander and, just as importantly, be able to design a vehicle that can survive landing—which is not an easy thing to do.”

Money is also an issue, with the ESA’s contribution facing competition from two other proposed European space missions. President Obama’s recent proposition that NASA focus its energy on a manned mission to Mars may also distract vital funds and expertise from Europa. “At the end of the day, it all comes down to money,” explains Maclennan.

“No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”

Can you dig it?

Like the kid on the first day of school who comes prepared with a full pencil case, NASA is already thinking ahead. In 2009, a team of scientists braved the cold and the threat of rampaging penguins to test out a small submersible vehicle named ENDURANCE in the frozen waters of Lake Bonney, Antarctica. Their key objective was to determine whether it was possible for an automated craft to melt through several kilometres of ice and explore the subterranean ocean underneath it—without any input from human operators.

The mission was a resounding success. “It was very much like being on a space mission at times,” explains Associate Professor Peter Doran, the mission’s lead investigator. “We’d be in the tent in the middle of the lake watching the live feed.

“Part of the excitement was the discovery of new things, part was the fear of getting it stuck … It is now a $5 million plus vehicle and we had little interest in losing it!”

Apart from exploring and taking scientific measurements, ENDURANCE can also render a three-dimensional map of its underwater world. “It was exciting … when we were exploring the terra incognita of the underwater glacier face,” says Doran.

The craft, affectionately nicknamed “The Bot”, is now “on R&R back in Austin Texas”. But will it ever go into outer space? “ENDURANCE itself is too big to ever go to Europa,” states Doran.

“It has just been teaching us how to do autonomous science in an extreme aquatic environment. For the Europa science, the next stage is to scale down.”

Niebur asserts that an ENDURANCE-based mission is the next logical step in the exploration of Europa after the 2020 mission. “I would bet that a lander mission is going to be sitting right near the top of the list for future exploration.”

We could be the “Sky People”!

What exactly might we find beneath Europa’s icy surface? “We really don’t know,” explains Niebur. “You would assume that it would be simple life—single-celled organisms—but we have no way of telling.

“Even in what we would consider drastic and unwelcoming environments on Earth, like around hot springs or volcanic vents, you can see a very complex eco-system arise.”

And how might the discovery of life beyond our planet affect us here on Earth? “How would it NOT affect us?” Niebur asks. “The implications of finding life beyond Earth would be profound in all walks of life.

“It’s impossible to imagine what you could learn scientifically or philosophically or spiritually if life—if ANY kind of life—were discovered beyond Earth.”

Maclennan is somewhat sceptical of the effect it would have on the everyday person. “I really can’t see the average Joe/Jane Bloggs getting too worked up about it.

“I think most people would just shrug their shoulders and go back to watching the real alien life forms on reality TV shows like Survivor or Big Brother.”

At the very least, the prospect that extraterrestrial life might exist within our backyard is an exciting one. And whether or not Europan life is complex in nature or merely the alien equivalent of herpes, it would solve once and for all the riddle of whether we are alone in the universe. If life can evolve independently twice in the same solar system, the chances are that it is prevalent throughout the universe.

And as for me? I’m holding out for alien sea monkeys.

“He took me over to the poles, which were willow stumps, six to eight inches in diameter and twice the height of a man, and placed me against one of them … I stood with my back to it and he tied me to it by the ankles, knees and wrists. He was an expert at the job, and he knew how to pull and strain at the ropes till they cut into the flesh and completely stopped the circulation … I was alternately burning hot and shivering with cold, and the constant pain in my joints woke me whenever I did doze off from exhaustion … When I was taken off my hands were always black with congested blood.”

So wrote Archibald Baxter of his experiences during the First World War. This incident, however, did not occur in a German prisoner of war camp. It was called ‘Field Punishment No.1’, and it was the ultimate disciplinary measure of the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

Baxter was one of a small handful of individuals known as ‘conscientious objectors’—people who refused to obey the commands of their superiors rather than fight in a war that they did not believe in. His story is one that few people are aware of. Indeed, in the greater narrative of the Anzac Day tradition, the experiences of objectors are often swallowed up by stories of patriotism and sacrifice. And while the Anzac tradition is undeniably a valuable one, the stories of those who oppose war are just as noteworthy.

A conservative nation

Turn-of-the-century New Zealand was a far more conservative place than it is now. Strong ties to Great Britain and a powerful church made for a state with a hand in both the political and moral character of the nation. New Zealand had demonstrated its loyalty to the ‘mother country’ during the Boer War in the 1890s, and the state began to push for a robust defence force of its own in the following decade. This led ultimately to the introduction of compulsory military training (CMT) in 1909 for all men over the age of 11.

The roots of conscientious objection lie in the CMT legislation. It was opposed by a minority of religious leaders, socialists, and pacifist groups, who claimed that the legislation denied civil liberties and would lead to the militarisation of the nation’s youth.

“It was sort of … a test ground for what later emerged,” says Steven Loveridge, a PhD candidate at Victoria University studying the New Zealand home front during the Great War.

When war broke out in August 1914, many of these groups disbanded or perished.

“Most of the pacifistic societies … realised they weren’t going to win the mainstream over at the time,” Loveridge explains. Organised labour was also split between those who supported the war and those who saw it as a capitalistic struggle. The majority of the country, however, was unanimous in its support for Great Britain.

It was initially hoped that enough men would volunteer for service as to make conscription unnecessary. Indeed, 14,000 men had enlisted within the first week of the war. Nevertheless, by the beginning of 1916 the flow of volunteers was beginning to dry up; word began to reach home of the harrowing conditions on the front, along with the horrific injuries of the first returned soldiers. In August 1916 the government decided to take the plunge—it passed the Military Service Act approving conscription.

Who were the ‘conchies’?

Conscientious objectors (or ‘conchies’) were known by many derogatory names during the First World War—shirkers, cowards, loafers, parasites. Whatever the label, it is important to note that conchies were not a unified group. They came from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities, and their reasons for refusing to be conscripted were varied.

Not all conchies were anti-war, either. “People confuse pacifism and conscientious objection,” says David Grant, a prominent New Zealand historian on conchies.

“Conscientious objection is where a person refuses to be a part of the military establishment, by refusing to train under compulsory military training or refusing to join the army during wartime, on grounds of conscience.

“Pacifism is anyone who has an objection to war, but may or may not be [a] conscientious objector.”

The typical objector was either Pakeha, Maori or Irish, and they objected on religious, political, ideological, or anti-militarist grounds.

“You’d want to whittle out those who were motivated by not wanting to fight in a British fight, like the Irish and Maori,” argues Loveridge.

“They weren’t necessarily pacifists—they just wanted to pick their fight.”

Loveridge adds that the most vocal objectors were “miners and militants—those who objected to the war because of their view that it was a capitalistic struggle”.

Nevertheless, the state held all the cards in the conscription debate. With the passing of the Military Service Act and the War Regulations, those who openly protested against conscription risked imprisonment. Indeed, many individuals were charged with sedition and sentenced to hard labour for speaking out against the act, including Labour MP Paddy Webb.

The narrow provisions of the Military Service Act exempted only those who could demonstrate that their religion defined war as “contrary to divine revelation”. This left a broad swathe of conchies without a leg to stand on.

Defiant to the end: The story of Baxter and Briggs

Archibald Baxter and Mark Briggs were, for all intents and purposes, ordinary men. Baxter came from a working-class background, having left school at the age of 12 to help support his seven siblings. A pacifist and a Christian, he would later assert that “passive resistance to evil is the power that will yet conquer the world”. Briggs, in contrast, was a socialist and a radical unionist. The experiences of these two men represent the apex of state persecution of conscientious objectors during the Great War.

Baxter appealed for exemption as a conscientious objector after being conscripted in 1916; however, because he was not a communicant church member, his application was denied. He was transported to Trentham Military Camp where he refused to obey any orders issued to him. Over the following months he was moved between various gaols and barracks in the Wellington area, where he received a variety of punishments including solitary confinement and bread-and-water rationing.

Briggs was conscripted in the March 1917 ballot. After refusing a medical exam and repeatedly disobeying orders to drill, he was court martialed and sentenced to 84 days’ hard labour in Mount Cook prison. He gained a reputation among the other conchies as an unyielding objector who refused to obey even the most trivial of orders.

Believing that internment on their home soil was an inadequate deterrent, the government decided in 1917 that conscientious objectors should be sent overseas to the front. As a result, Baxter and Briggs—along with 12 other conchies—were rounded up and sent to the Wellington docks. The entire affair was conducted in secret—the Captain of the Waitemama, the troopship that would take the men to the front, was unaware of what was happening until the conchies arrived.

After being physically dragged aboard the ship, the men were forced to strip and don military uniform. Briggs initially refused to do so; however, he was given little choice when his clothes were thrown overboard. Handcuffed in a small cabin and taunted by the troops aboard the ship, Briggs and Baxter nevertheless remained recalcitrant. Briggs in particular refused even to walk where ordered, forcing his commanders to drag him wherever he had been ordered to go on the ship.

Upon reaching Europe, the 14 men were sent to Etaples base in France. Once there they were split up, confined, given reduced bread-and-water diets, mocked and threatened repeatedly with execution. Baxter and Briggs were singled out as the ringleaders of the group, with Briggs refusing to walk, stand, salute or wear uniform. On one occasion he was beaten by a group of volunteer soldiers when he refused to salute a sergeant.

Some of the conchies broke—sentenced to five years’ hard labour at a military prison in Dunkirk, they relented and became stretcher-bearers. For Baxter and Briggs, however, the situation only got worse. They were sentenced, along with two other objectors, to ‘Field Punishment No.1’, the most brutal penalty in the military arsenal. Bound hand and foot to a pole in the barest of clothing, the men were left for hours each day to the mercy of the winter elements. “The cold was intense,” Baxter would later write. “A deadly numbness crept up till it reached my heart and I felt that every breath I drew would be my last. Everything grew black around me.”

Somehow, the men survived their ‘crucifixion’. Baxter and Briggs were then sent to the section of the trenches experiencing the heaviest shelling, where they were beaten and denied food. Each day they were required to walk along the ‘duckwalk’ to the front. Naturally, Briggs refused, and was subsequently dragged on his back along 1000 feet of rough wooden planks and unforgiving ground. His back and thigh were torn open by nails; however, in place of medical treatment, he was thrown in a pool of freezing water and told to drown.

In 1918, the two men were made to march to the Somme. Briggs, still recovering from his injuries, could barely walk, while Baxter discovered that it had been ordered that the two of them were not to be fed. Half-starved and freezing, Baxter collapsed halfway to the Somme and was left behind. When he was finally found by a troop of British soldiers he had, despite the intense cold, removed his military uniform.

Baxter and Briggs were both discharged in April 1918—the former for exhibiting “mental weakness”, the latter with muscular rheumatism. Baxter would only write about the experience in 1939 at his wife’s insistence. In contrast, Briggs never spoke of his experiences again.

Evaluating the conchie experience

What made Baxter and Briggs stand out over their fellow conscientious objectors? “Stubbornness,” says Grant, “[and] a determination that they would not fight under any conditions.

“Despite the privations, despite the intense program that was hurled at them—number one field punishment, beatings, dragging up to the front line—they survived, they stuck it out to the end. The other 12 succumbed at various times, understandably.”

Grant does not consider the two men to be heroes. “I’ve been taken to task by a couple of my reviewers [for that],” he laughs. “I’ve tried to portray them as kind of ordinary men, because they had very ordinary backgrounds.

“But I think that they underwent an extraordinary experience and they handled it in an extraordinary way, so I think that their actions were extraordinary,” he says.

“Conscientious objectors… were treated with huge derision and anger by many other people in the populace. These people had not meted up as ‘true and proper citizens’ of the British Empire, and the treatment that they received would have been accepted as being correct by the vast bulk of the populace.

“These two stand out because they survived all those privations.”

The conchie legacy and the Anzac tradition

Baxter’s book, titled We Shall Not Cease, was a rallying point for anti-Vietnam war protestors. “The second edition happened to come out around 1968,” says Grant. “There’s no doubt that it was a stimulant for anti-Vietnam War protestors.” But what of some of the more recent anti-war protests? How do they fit into the dual traditions of Anzac and conscientious objection?

In 2007, members of Peace Action Wellington (PAW) held a protest against the Anzac Day dawn service in Wellington. They held banners stating that conscientious objectors were “the real war heroes” and burnt two New Zealand flags. Two members of the group were subsequently arrested and charged with offensive behaviour.

The protest was widely condemned as disrespectful. The protestors were seen as dishonouring fallen soldiers and hijacking a day of remembrance. But was that the true intent of the protest? “These protests are not an attack on old soldiers or their relatives,” stresses Valerie Morse, a member of PAW.

“The purpose has been to communicate that New Zealand is involved in wars of occupation, most notably in Afghanistan and Iraq … It is about recognising that while politicians spout phrases like ‘Lest we forget’, they are busily engaged in waging more wars.”

Morse highlights the thematic similarity between PAW and the conchies. “Peace Action is a united front, and as such has members from a wide variety of political perspectives.

“In the broadest sense, it can be seen as a continuation of a tradition of anti-war activism in New Zealand.”

Loveridge agrees that there are some similarities between the conchie tradition and recent protests. “In terms of the Iraq War, I think there’s a lot of connections between what you see in World War One and now. I remember one story about someone who refused to pay their taxes in Britain because they wanted to not be a part of … the war in Iraq.

“I guess it raises these questions of what extent you’re involved in society as a taxpayer, as a labourer, as a potential conscript, or as an ideological supporter.”

The protests undoubtedly upset and angered a number of Anzac supporters—but is that in itself enough reason to condemn them? “On one hand, one can view Anzac Day as a day of remembrance for the soldiers who died in war,” states Morse.

“On the other hand, one can view Anzac Day as political propaganda: it is attended by politicians and state officials who use the day as a means by which to link current New Zealand troop deployments with the fight against Nazi Germany.

“Flag-burning can be seen from the perspective that the government is not upholding the ideas embodied by the flag, and is therefore an appropriate symbol to attack.”

Open to questions

First and foremost, it should be recognised that Anzac Day is an important and valid commemoration in itself. Recognising those who have died in the nation’s wars is a good thing, and it should be encouraged. However, reserving the right to question the Anzac tradition is not only wise—it is essential.

The experiences of conscientious objectors during the First World War is one of those questions. Baxter and Briggs’s stories fly in the face of the traditional Anzac ethos. They were not humble, patriotic heroes, nor were they examples of the often-repeated ‘silent division’ stereotype. By refusing to participate in the war, these men thought they were fighting for freedom—and, in return, they were persecuted for their beliefs.

The PAW protests, however extreme, expressed several legitimate opinions. The protestors claimed that the Anzac tradition was being used to reinforce support for new wars. While Anzac supporters can—and should—reserve the right to rebuff these claims, they must first accept the right for them to be voiced in the first place. Nobody should ever be strung to a pole for disagreeing with the majority.

Baxter and Briggs demonstrate most of all the problem of overshadowing individual experience with collective legend. The men and women who fought—or refused to fight—in World War One did so for many reasons. By focusing on the high-level Anzac tradition, we risk losing these low-level, individual stories. In the end, how can we truly hope to appreciate the sacrifices made by the men and women who have fought and died for New Zealand if their stories are lost within the rosy haze of legend?

When I was a wee lad, I did the typical thing and joined my local rugby team. Bear in mind that, growing up in Australia, this meant ‘league’ and not ‘union’. It was an unmitigated disaster—the handful of times that I actually touched the ball in the entire season usually led to moments of embarrassment (for myself) and hilarity (for others). The day that I dove headfirst into an inconveniently placed pile of mud while attempting to crash-tackle my opponent made me realise something—footy just wasn’t for me. Would that I had known that there were alternatives better suited to my unique tastes! Fortunately for you, I’ve gone and done a little investigating into what New Zealand has to offer in the way of weird and wacky sports. Could you be the next world champion at one of them?

Globe Riding

The quintessential example of Kiwi sporting ingenuity, globe riding (or ZORB globe riding when using globes designed, manufactured and owned by ZORB) involves “rolling people down hills in large inflatable globes”. The key ingredients are a grassy hill, a globe, water, and a willing participant. Combine these ingredients just right and you get a recipe for pure awesome.

“The initial design for the ZORB globe was developed by two Kiwi blokes with a desire to walk on water,” says Andy Havill, Group Marketing Manager for ZORB.

“The first prototype was designed and tested on water, but found to be too tame. Looking back at the Auckland skyline, the number of volcanoes sparked an idea—why not roll down a hill in it?

“It is a completely unique experience unlike anything you have experienced before. It’s a mix of sliding down a water slide, riding on a roller coaster, soaking in a bath and being in a motion-master—all at the same time!”

Globe riding comes in two main variants: the Zydro ride, where one or more participants move freely within the globe as it rolls down the hill, and the Zorbit ride, where a sole participant is strapped to the inside of the globe.

The sport has expanded to the United States, and has featured on the Discovery Channel and The Amazing Race. “It has become popular due to its uniqueness, and the fact we can provide something so different and so unique in a safe manner for everyone to enjoy.”

And where to for the future? “We hope to expand to new countries and continents,” Havill states. “Some people have suggested ZORB globe riding should be an Olympic sport.”

For more information, visit www.zorb.com.

Sheep Shearing

Nothing says ‘manly’ quite like a farmer wrestling with a disgruntled sheep. To us townies, it conjures up images of Kiwi pioneers carving out a living on the verdant plains of the New Zealand countryside. To many, however, shearing is more than a living—it is a sport.

Shearing sports are among some of the oldest in New Zealand. “Shearers have … competed against each other from the day the first sheep were shorn,” says Doug Laing, Publicity Officer for Shearing Sports New Zealand.

“Blade shearing competitions were around in the 1880s, and the first machine-shearing competition we believe was at the Hawkes Bay Show in 1902.”

The sport is divided into three main categories—sheep shearing, wool handling, and wool pressing. Sheep shearing is the most popular, with contestants battling it out to see who can perform the fastest and cleanest shear. The annual ‘Golden Shears’ in Masterton typically attracts up to 500 contestants and runs over three days.

Shearing is also an international sport, with the first World Championships being held in England in 1977.

“There were 28 countries represented in Norway [last year],” Laing explains, “but New Zealand has been by far the most dominant country.”

And what is so great about the sport? “The commitment and fraternity,” Laing responds without question.

“The shearing ‘circuit’ is much like your local club cricket competition, except the events are all over the country.

“It is nothing for [a] shearer to jump in the car and drive 500km for a Saturday competition and then drive 500km home again.”

“All would tell you it’s the camaraderie.”

For more information, visit www.shearingsports.co.nz.

Underwater Hockey

Two teams. Ten per side. A weighted puck and a crapload of sticks to push it with. Also known as ‘Octopush’, underwater hockey takes all the best elements of regular hockey and adds an extra touch of liquid awesome by submerging them in up to two and a half metres of water.

The sport was invented in 1954 by Alan Blake of the Southsea Sub-Aqua Club in the United Kingdom, and has since spread to over two dozen countries worldwide. While a variant of the sport was played in Nelson as early as 1963, it was only in 1976 that it was first introduced to the diving community—in Palmerston North, of all places.

“Some likely lads from Auckland … handed us long sticks, leather welding gloves and showed us how to heave an enormous red rubber coated puck around the bottom of the pool,” explains Brian Stewart, formerly of the Department of Marine Science at Otago.

“The rough concrete bottom made short work of the gloves and the puck didn’t slide too well, but I was hooked.”

Far from being a fringe sport, underwater hockey is rapidly gaining in popularity in New Zealand.

“There is such large participation at secondary schools,” says Rebecca Leach, Universities Development Officer for Underwater Hockey New Zealand.

“We need to work on keeping those who play at school continuing into university with club teams and university games.”

Turns out that you Kiwis are actually pretty damn good at it too. In the 2008 World Championships, the ‘Black Fins’ took out second place, while the women’s juniors team came home with the gold.

And what are some of the best things about underwater hockey?

“I enjoy the challenge of the sport as well as the social side,” says Leach. “It can also take you many places for travel.

“At only 16 I went to my first Worlds with the elite women’s team to England, and have also been to Australia and South Africa for competitions.”

For more information, visit www.underwaterhockeynz.com.

Chess Boxing

Yes, you read right—chess boxing. Cram roast beef and salami onto the same sandwich (or, for the vegetarians among us… I don’t know, tofu and eggplant?), and you might get a glimpse of the sheer awesomeness that this sport entails.

It’s about as literal a title as you can get. Contestants alternate between rounds of chess and boxing for up to 11 bouts of thinky-punchy goodness.

Chess boxing was the brainchild of a Dutch artist named Iepe Rubingh, with the first tournament being held in Amsterdam in 2003.

“[Iepe] was sharing an office with my partner in Berlin,” says Luka Hinse, New Zealand agent for the World Chess Boxing Organisation, “so I was close to the sport from its beginning.”

Hinse explains that the sport is still fairly low-key in New Zealand.

“So far just a few people are interested. I think it will take a while until people get the concept.

“In New Zealand boxers are boxers and chess players are chess players. Their worlds hardly overlap.”

Many will be familiar with the sport through the music video for Reb Fountain’s ‘Tab’.

“I am actually playing the referee in this video,” says Hinse.

“Reb saw my … presentation about chess boxing, that’s how we met.” Boxer Dylan Russell, the star of the video, aspires to one day become New Zealand’s first professional chess boxer.

So where might the sport be headed in the future? “I would like to see chess boxing being taught at school,” says Hinse.

“It teaches the kids, in their language, that a physical fight doesn’t solve anything. The boxing part functions as a relief valve for aggression in order to be open for knowledge.”

For more information, visit www.wcbo.org. Alternatively, you can visit Hinse’s ‘Pecha Kucka’ page at www.pechakucha.co.nz.

Noel Cox

Matthew: Why do you support retaining a constitutional monarchy in New Zealand?

Noel: I think it’s the most practical form of government for New Zealand. It’s also the one that people are most familiar with, and it works very well for us.

Matthew: What are some of the advantages that the monarchy provides New Zealand?

Noel: The primary one would be political stability and political neutrality—in the sense that the head of state is non-partisan.

Matthew: Do you believe that issues like national identity tie into it as well?

Noel: They don’t have to at all. You can have national identity being weak or strong irrespective of the form of government you’ve got, so long as you’re an independent country—and New Zealand has been independent for a very long time. I don’t think that national identity is at all central to this debate.

Matthew: What do you believe would be some of the negative effects of instituting a republic in New Zealand?

Noel: It would depend to some extent on how the system was changed. Any change could be seen potentially as a sign of political instability. But apart from that, we would have to adopt a system that people understand, and one that provides the same sort of safeguards that our present system has.

Matthew: What do you believe the role of the monarchy should be in New Zealand? What powers should it retain?

Noel: Well essentially, it’s not so much the power the monarchy retains as it is the power it denies politicians. For instance, with the judicial role, it’s not that the queen or the governor-general actually presides in a trial, but it’s that the justice system operates in the name of the Crown, and is therefore totally non-political and independent of the government of the day.

The powers that are vested in the governor-general should be those that are necessary to the workings of government. They should also include some additional powers which may be necessary in the case of a crisis—for instance, the ability to sack the Prime Minister.

Matthew: A number of changes were implemented in the last decade that changed the role of the monarchy in New Zealand affairs. This included replacing appeals to the Privy Council with the New Zealand Supreme Court and replacing the British honours system with a New Zealand one—although the British honours have subsequently been re-introduced by Prime Minister John Key. What is your opinion on these changes?

Noel: Well, as to the Privy Council, the government that implemented the changes was fairly ambivalent about them. On the one hand they said it was necessary for national identity, but at the same time they said it wasn’t a constitutional change.

Speaking as a lawyer rather than someone associated with the monarchy, I would say that the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council was a legal change that didn’t have any direct relation to the question of monarchy or republic. After all, there are some republics that retain the right of appeal, just as there are some monarchies that have abolished it.

The honours question is more interesting. The terminology that is often used is either ‘British’ or ‘Imperial’ honours, as distinct from New Zealand. But of course the reality is that, over many decades, the system has become more and more indigenised. We had the Queen’s Service Order in 1975, for instance.

It wasn’t really a case of abolishing the British honours system and creating a New Zealand one—we already had a New Zealand honours system—it was merely removing all of the remaining links with the British system. What we’ve got now is a purely New Zealand system. The Knighthoods are still a part of the New Zealand system—it’s clearly a case of the royal honours system, but it’s not the British honours system. So that’s as it should be for an independent country.

Matthew: Recent public opinion polls show that the retention of the monarchy enjoys somewhere between 50 and 60 per cent public support. However, Prime Minister John Key has stated he believes that, in the long term, becoming a republic is ‘inevitable’. Do you think it is inevitable, or do you think the current level of support for retaining the monarchy will remain high?

Noel: To answer your second question first, opinion polls over the last 40 years have indicated a fairly consistent level of support for the monarchy. Certainly, any political party would be envious of that level of support.

And that really ties into the first question, which is do I think it is inevitable. I don’t think anything is inevitable. I’m not going to say that New Zealand won’t become a republic, but, I mean, what makes it inevitable? The only way you could describe it as inevitable would be if the monarchy were a temporary or a transitional arrangement. But it’s actually the only form of government we’ve known in New Zealand, and there is no reason why that has to change.

Matthew: Some opponents of republicanism have argued that, if New Zealand were to become a republic, the relationship between the Crown and Maori—specifically, the Treaty of Waitangi—might come under question. Do you believe that this would be the case?

Noel: Well, there’s two answers to that. One is the technical/legal one—which is largely irrelevant when you’re taking about politics—and that states that, whatever the form of government, the new regime will assume responsibility for the treaty. So becoming a republic wouldn’t remove the Treaty of Waitangi.

But the reality is that the cosmetic or symbolic side of things is actually far more important. The Treaty is seen as a partnership between the Crown and Maori, so if you remove one of the parties then it does raise fundamental questions about the whole nature of the treaty.

So, yes, it could be a problem. And I think that, for New Zealand, the question of how we deal with the Treaty of Waitangi is a much more difficult and fundamentally important question than whether or not we should be a republic.

Matthew: What is your opinion on Keith Locke’s ‘Head of State Referenda Bill’, which seeks to bring about a referendum on the question of whether New Zealand should become a republic?

Noel: I think it’s an interesting bill because Mr Locke has tried to suggest that this is not a bill promoting a referendum on the monarchy as the head of state. That’s a chimera; that’s illusory. The reality is that he wants New Zealand to become a republic, so he’s introduced a bill which would cause a referendum on the subject.

So on the one hand it’s a bit dishonest, but more fundamentally it’s not answering the core question. There may be people who want a republic, and there may be people who say it’s inevitable even if they don’t want one, but clearly that is no grounds upon which to hold a referendum now.

My third point is that it’s a very poorly drafted bill. It is introducing a particular referendum model which is not ideal at all.

Matthew: Assuming that the referenda did go ahead, and a majority opted to retain the monarchy, would you see that as a validation of the monarchy?

Noel: I think if we do have a referendum—whether it’s badly drafted or not—and the people give a clear answer, then that should resolve matters one way or the other. But then again, if we look at the Australian example where the referendum ten years ago resulted in a fairly strong vote of support for retaining the monarchy, that didn’t bring an end to discussions. It didn’t bring an end to the republican movement.

So a referendum, whichever way it goes, is not necessarily going to resolve matters.

Lewis Holden

Matthew: Why do you support instituting a republic in New Zealand?

Lewis: We support a republic for three main reasons.

The first is around our sense of nationhood and national identity. We feel that it is time for New Zealand to assert its independence to the world and to have a constitution that reflects our values and our egalitarian tradition in New Zealand.

Second, because we believe in democracy. We believe that all political offices in New Zealand should be open to New Zealanders and appointed on merit rather than birth.

And thirdly, we believe that we need to develop better checks and balances in our government. Becoming a republic is a part of that debate.

Matthew: What are some of the advantages that becoming a republic would provide?

Lewis: Well, the first set of advantages is symbolic, but a lot of people assume that the republican argument is all about symbolism. Whilst a republic would assert our independence to the world and be good for national identity, it’s also about taking ownership of our constitution, defining what the powers of the head of state are—which are currently undefined—and also about asserting checks and balances on the Prime Minister and the cabinet.

So the main benefit from a republic is actually around the constitutional changes that would result—defining what those reserve powers are, and ensuring that we have a head of state who can keep the prime minister and cabinet in check.

Matthew: What form does the Republican Movement envisage that a restructured central government—in particular the judiciary and the head of state—would take under a republic?

Lewis: Well there wouldn’t be any change to the judiciary—the last link to the UK was cut off seven years ago with the Privy Council.

At the moment you’ve got a governor-general who is de-facto appointed by the Prime Minister, who every six years sends a fax off to Buckingham Palace which says “this person is going to be our governor-general for the next five years”, the Queen rubber-stamps that, and presto! You get a governor-general.

So what we’re really talking about is reforming the office of governor-general—firstly into a full head of state, and secondly into an elected position. So what that means is that you’re decreasing the power of the prime minister and taking away his or her ability to simply put forward one of their mates.

Matthew: How do the goals of the Republican Movement resemble those pursued by Jim Bolger in the nineties? How do they differ?

Lewis: Bolger raised the debate in ’94 because he was very much about the ideal of national identity. And that’s pretty much where the Republican Movement came from—a group of students at VUW got together and said “this national identity stuff is really starting to matter in New Zealand now”. After the eighties there was a sense of confidence in ourselves that hadn’t been there before.

In terms of where we differ from Bolger, well, we don’t really differ too much. What Bolger proposed was a minimal change, which is essentially what we say we should do—reform the office of governor-general into a full head of state. It’s not legally difficult to do.

One thing that Bolger did say is that we should directly elect the president. The Republican Movement’s policy is that that decision should be up to New Zealanders—it should be the public’s choice on how the President is selected, not the prime minister’s. And any process around becoming a republic should be as inclusive of the general public as possible.

Matthew: Recent polls show that the retention of the monarchy enjoys somewhere between 50 and 60 per cent public support. What is your comment on that?

Lewis: That’s a pretty average reflection. The long-term trend is towards more support for a republic. Obviously at the moment the polls are slightly down because of Prince William’s visit, but we’ll probably go back up in the next few years.

The incredible thing is that, in the late eighties, support for the monarchy was about three quarters of the population. Whereas now, the last New Zealand electoral study said 48 per cent. So that’s quite a decrease in support for the monarchy.

The critical thing for us though is that, whilst people may not be supporting the monarchy, that doesn’t actually mean that they support a republic—hence why support for a republic is only around 30 or 40 per cent. But more and more people are becoming undecided on the issue. So the debate is actually heating up, and it will happen whether people want it to or not.

Matthew: What is your stance on the honours system? British, New Zealand, or both?

Lewis: Our position is reflective of what our membership thinks, which is that we kind of like the idea of titles. In terms of what those titles should be, that’s where our debate is. We’ve suggested that they should really introduce some sort of Maori/indigenous title.

The actual concept of titles isn’t exclusive to monarchies, though—they have them in Italy, Portugal and Malta, which are all republics. So these aren’t mutually exclusive things—you can still have the Privy Council in a republic as well.

Matthew: Some opponents of republicanism have argued that, if New Zealand were to become a republic, the relationship between Crown and Maori—specifically, the Treaty of Waitangi—might come into question. Do you believe that this would be the case?

Lewis: Well, it’s a very important part of the debate for New Zealand. But the critical thing is that, under the status quo, who the Crown is, actually isn’t very clear. When the treaty was signed in 1840, the Crown meant Queen Victoria and her government. Then in 1852 we got a settler government, and they started confiscating Maori land and bringing out imperial troops to force them off their land—all these sorts of ugly things which we are now dealing with. The Crown now in New Zealand actually means the New Zealand government—it doesn’t mean Queen Elizabeth over in the UK. So in essence, that relationship won’t change if we become a republic.

The real question is what we do with it symbolically. I guess that from a Maori perspective, there is a lot of concern that it could mean an end to treaty settlements because there is no longer a ‘Crown’. But I believe it would actually be quite beneficial for us because it would actually clarify who the Crown is and what that actually means in terms of treaty settlements, because Maori are now part of the Crown.

It’s also worth making the point that a lot of Maori, in urban regions specifically, support a republic, even more so than non-Maori New Zealanders. And I think that may be because of the history of the Crown oppressing Maori and taking away their culture. So there’s actually quite a good understanding of the fact that the Crown never did anything to protect Maori. It’s only been since the New Zealand government has been in the driving seat that things have changed.

Matthew: Over the last few decades there have been several political parties that have formed to campaign on the question of becoming a republic. Are there any plans for the Republican Movement to launch a party?

Lewis: No. We’re not a political party. We’re a campaign group, and we’re going to stay that way.

We’re cross-partisan as well—we’ve got people like David Farrar who’s heavily involved in the National Party, Jordan Carter who is very much involved with Labour—so we’ve got quite a good mix of people from both sides of politics. Our general way of campaigning is around party activists, so we work a lot with people who are involved in the democratic process.

There’s always been a tendency for people to expect us to contest elections, but we’re not going to do that. The first reason for that is because it doesn’t actually get us anywhere. The second is because New Zealanders aren’t going to vote on a republic issue at a general election, because the top tier issues are always going to be health, education, employment, that sort of thing. Constitutional reform is an esoteric thing—it doesn’t make you get a hip operation faster, it doesn’t ensure that your kids get a good education.

What we actually need is for the big parties to adopt a policy of change and say that we will have a constitutional convention on this issue that will draft recommendations, and then we will have a referendum.

Matthew: And finally, your thoughts on Keith Locke’s ‘Head of State Referenda Bill’?

Lewis: It’s quite a good piece of legislation in terms of getting the discussion started. Whether or not it will ever get to be in a referendum is open to question. I would say that the critical thing at this stage is that, if it goes to a Select Committee, we can actually have that debate for the first time. This republic debate has been going on since the sixties, but we’ve never had a discussion at the parliamentary level on this issue. And I think it’s critical now that we actually start talking about it.

Matthew: 1968 in particular is an interesting year because it coincided with a wave of student protests overseas, especially in France and the United States. How do you think that reflected on the tone of the mag?

Bill: It was an interesting experience. The editorial for March the 19th 1968, for example, was all about student power. It was essentially a little manifesto—quite grandiose at the time—that demanded reforms from the university.

We requested that students be given control of the Student Union Building; a staff/student committee be set up to deal with administrative and academic complaints; that students have three representatives on the university council. It was signed by the President of the Labour Club, several members of the students’ association, myself and the former Editor of Salient Barry Saunders, who is now on the right wing.

The point I’m making is that this wave of international protest wasn’t just something that happened overseas. It was something that happened here too. The opening of Parliament in 1968 was pretty spectacular—a big demonstration of students and workers. We broke through the ceremonial troops, the governor general had to go in the side door, the Australian High Commissioner’s car was trampled on.

Matthew: It has been suggested that it was because of what was going on overseas the university was more responsive to the reforms that you championed.

Bill: Well, they hadn’t gotten so far overseas by March.

The day that editorial was published, I got a telephone call from the acting Vice-Chancellor—a guy called Ian Campbell—who suggested that we come over for morning tea. So we went over, and he said, “Some of my colleagues have been up in arms about this, but it all seems okay in principle to me, and perhaps we can set up a committee to investigate and come up with some recommendations.” That did take the wind out of the sails of student protest.

Matthew: You could almost say that was a good thing—the objectives of student protest were met so easily.

Bill: I don’t know that it was good or bad—it just was.

Here’s an interesting sequel though. One of the things that I do these days is I work as a celebrant at civil unions and funerals. So, about five years ago, I got a call, from Ian Campbell. I didn’t even know he was still alive, he seemed ancient back in 1968! But he said, “My wife and I are getting a bit long in the tooth, and we thought you might do our funerals.” And I have in fact done those funerals now, and what Campbell was really wanting was to have that story told by the only person who could tell it.

Matthew: Another key subject that Salient reported on in ’68 was the escalation of the Vietnam war. What was that like, and how hard was it not to get involved? Did you feel that it was Salient’s duty to remain impartial?

Bill: No, no! You’ll see me saying somewhere that Salient is not impartial—that it never will be impartial whilst I am editor.

Salient has a tradition that there’s really no such thing as journalistic impartiality.

I started off the year as a member of the National Party. I’d been under the influence of left-wingers—well, I’d been arguing with them—and I wasn’t your typical member of the National Party.

I opposed the Vietnam war from within the National Party. But it was the growing evidence of conservatism’s incapacity to make rational decisions that helped move me to the left. I eventually ended up on the very far left, some miles to the left of Labour.

Matthew: You said at the beginning of 1968 that you celebrated the Salient tradition of “healthy radicalism”, and that students should hold views on social and political matters. This was quite a contrast to the Salient of the 1950s which took more of a conservative stance. Was this a deliberate move of yours away from the past?

Bill: Well, Salient has wobbled around a lot—there’s some issues of Salient in the 50s that were quite left-wing. For the last few years in my time it had been a kind of ‘left-conservatism’. Hugh Rennie, for example, was the outstanding editor of my generation, and he was a critical-liberal type of person.

I was part of a movement of student media and student politicians moving to the left. Most of them were Maoists—I was a Trotskyist. Whilst, perhaps at later points, Salient pushed a particular line, I quite deliberately sought out a variety of points of view—strong points of view, rather than trying to express a balanced point of view. So we had a right-wing commentator to write on things, and a left-wing commentator to write on things. It was difficult to find right wingers who wanted to express their views in Salient. There was a guy called Jim Mitchell who was, in his way, quite good at capturing a right-wing perspective.

I had an attitude of trying to whip up argument and debate. Some people on both sides saw me as a troublemaker because of that fact.

Matthew: How hard was it maintaining that balance between radicalism and conservatism?

Bill: I didn’t try to balance it particularly—I simply wanted lots of different views. One of the things about a student newspaper is that you’ve got a licence to play a little—as long as you make something that has some interesting stuff in it.

You’ll actually see that Salient of my day was quite a mess. It was all over the place. But I think that’s possibly a good quality—we didn’t try to present a smooth editorial line.

Matthew: What is your best memory from your time as editor?

Bill: Well, it was a wonderful time to be a student. It was a time when things were happening, and to be editor of Salient in that period of intellectual ferment was great fun.

Matthew: What do you see as being the key role of student media?

Bill: I guess that changes at different times.

I’m interested in politics, I’m interested in students taking political roles, and I’m interested in students getting involved in the conflicts and ideas. I think that student media can enter into those political things, be those political things, and reflect those political things. And not only political things, but other cultural and intellectual movements.

I think that can be a pretty big part of a student’s university experience—their growing up and their education.

1938

Salient was born amidst the first stirrings of war. Editor ‘Bonk’ Scotney stressed that the timing was no coincidence. “Unless a sufficiently large and well-informed mass of public opinion can be formed the world over … the very academic detachment so forcibly and so often placed before us as the ‘correct’ attitude of the student mind, will—along with most other things that make a university what it is—be lost forever.”

Salient tackled the question of whether or not students were ‘qualified’ to hold political opinions. “They are not,” stated one Professor Shelley. “Freedom of speech depends upon the discipline of the minds of those entering upon the discussion.

“You will remember that public discussion on sex and religion has been banned by our own university authorities.” Poor Salient—not even a year old and already the carnal conversation starter had been banned.

1939

War! New Zealand followed Britain in declaring war on the Nazis after their invasion of Poland. Salient counselled moderation. “For those who are resolved that war is the solution, they should examine their premises, as should those who possess pacific tendencies.

“To the jingoist it is an opportune time for his airy urgings, but even the jingo accuser should beware that he is not similarly guilty … Such an attitude can only result in placing the defender of the aggressed in a position comparable to the aggressor.”

1940

A reduced newsprint magazine started feeling the pinch of war. “Our greatest loss is likely to be caused by the absorption of our best intellects into the military forces.”

Just as serious, however, was the fear that freedom of speech or expression might be curtailed in the interests of national security. Salient staunchly supported Professor von Zedlitz against the cries of “hysterical patriots” claiming that he was an “enemy alien”. Not bad for a three-year-old!

1941

With the war raging in Europe, Salient did its best to keep its readership informed of the whereabouts of students serving overseas.

Salient was not all war, however. A great deal of attention was dedicated to ‘Tournament’, the 1940s equivalent of Uni Games. “Tourney is a very important opportunity to learn how to win friends and influence people,” Salient claimed, foreshadowing the catch-cries of future self-help gurus.

1942

Salient veered toward the radical. Editor Cecil Crompton promoted a socialist perspective on the war, despite conservative criticisms from much of New Zealand society. Crompton was infamous for celebrating the entry of the Soviet Union into the war by painting a hammer and sickle atop the Arts Building.

1943

Salient did its utmost to promote a united front against the war despite its radical tendencies. It lauded the £600 contribution donated by Vic students to the war effort. The poverty of students is traditional.

“While today few if any at Victoria exist on bread crusts and water in dim garrets, they are still a relatively impoverished section of the community.” It’s nice to know things haven’t changed.

1944

“The footsteps of war are now heard less clearly from New Zealand shores,” wrote Salient, “but this does not lessen our responsibilities.

“Work hard, support all moves which help the war, and above all … study to fit ourselves for the more responsible tasks in civil life.”

Salient also tackled one of the pressing issues of the war effort—the role of women in the workforce. The absence of thousands of young men had led to an increase in female employment, raising the question of pay inequity. “On a certain job men and women doing identical work over the same period were paid in a ratio of about two to one.

“It is … a question which we students cannot afford to ignore; it affects us too vitally.”

1945

Victory! With the streets “packed with confetti, streamers, people and inebriates”, Salient partied like ‘twas nineteen forty-nine. In a fashion that most contemporary students will appreciate, Salient also reflected on “the disaster of the morning after”.

Salient commented on the emerging post-war world, focusing on China and Mao Tse-Tung. Mao, it was thought, would bring “democracy not only in the voting procedure and freedom of speech, but also in the conduct of economic and cultural affairs”. Well, at least he made for a good capitalist t-shirt icon.

1946

Salient celebrated the birth of the United Nations by interviewing the New Zealand Delegate to UNESCO. UNESCO sought to “contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture”. Whether or not this collaboration would include international drinking competitions was not mentioned.

The rising cost of tertiary study was revisited. “Education is dispensed on a class basis, and … the children of the workers do not have the same opportunities as those of the wealthy.”

1947

Salient aroused controversy in 1947 when it protested against the Dutch military action in Indonesia. This sparked an attempt by the students’ association to rein in the magazine. Editor Alec McLeod responded that Salient was “in no way subject to the whims of that body”. The relationship between Salient and VUWSA has, of course, been nothing but peachy since then…

1948

The onset of the Cold War evinced a furious commentary from Salient. It condemned “the old men, the psychopaths, the property owners, the fanatic nationalists, and those who let the comic strips fight for them”.

“Russia has now become the terrible bogy” through “American aggression and intolerance”.

1949

Salient maintained its opposition to the Cold War. The student association’s Manifesto for Peace stated its “unequivocal opposition to all preparations and plans for war.

“We denounce all those who, by propaganda, by provocation, by armament or conspiracy, are attempting to lead the common people of the world into a new war against their fellow men.”

1950

With Korea exploding into a ‘hot’ war, Salient called upon the United Nations to resolve the conflict. “If both sides now make an attempt to settle the thing without letting every trigger happy warrior free to work off his feelings, then UN action will mean something.”

Salient also sarcastically lamented Vic’s unexpected success in the year’s Tournament. “We suppose it was bound to happen in the end.

“For years it was the proud boast of VUC clubs that, whatever could be thrown against our defences, the wooden spoon was ours.”

1951

The flames of radical rhetoric began to dwindle as Salient stepped into the hands of a string of conservative editors. Salient decried the radicalism of the 40s, stressing that “a more impartial approach is needed”.

Salient also dedicated several issues to discussing the “Peace Movement” that had arisen in response to the ongoing Korean War, ultimately rejecting it as being “dominated and controlled by Communism”.

“[Salient does not] believe that the Peace Movement necessarily wants peace, except on the terms of Soviet Russia.”

1952

Salaries for students? According to Salient, the prospect of paying students a basic wage was worth considering. “A high proportion of students are physically unfit.

“There are frequent cases of absolute hardship, and many cases of undernourishment.”

The average student was found to be too weak from malnutrition to comment.

1953

Salient continued to promote a less radical line to entice new students. It encouraged “the corporate varsity spirit both in work and play” over the stereotype of Victoria as a “hotbed of sedition”.

Meanwhile, students from Otago University won the “Drinking Horn” at Tournament in the “phenomenal time of 14.9 seconds”.

1954

An unusually prescient Salient Editor reflected on the potential consequences of the situation in Vietnam. “The defeat of the French armies in Indo-China will have implications which this generation will have to face in the future.

“[Vietnam] appears to be a further step towards world domination by the forces of Communism.”

Paranoia aside, Salient criticised the communist witch hunt in the United States under Senator Joe McCarthy. “We have had rabble rousers before, men who appealed to the mob spirit and the lynching instinct, but never before have such men operated on the highest level.”

1955

The year dawned with the question of education quality foremost in Salient’s mind. Victoria’s over-investment in infrastructure and under-investment in student services was seriously called into question.

“What good is a seven-story science block or a new 250,000 volume library to the student body, if at the end of their stay they come out impoverished in spirit and in health, with a degree signifying that they have satisfactorily regurgitated their textbooks and lectures and are prepared to apply their narrow intellects and glassy eyes to advancing the quality of toilet paper or wrappings for chewing gum?”

1956

Salient lauded Victoria’s abysmal performance at the annual Tournament and rejoiced in regaining the wooden spoon. “Victoria performed dismally, compiling a points total less than a third of those of Otago.”

Meanwhile, several conservative party poopers attempted to ban the traditional drinking competition. “The Drinking Horn this year was a disgusting shambles, and it was little worse than others of previous years.

“A certain amount of decency should be maintained in what is not in itself a very civilized sort of competition.”

Said conservatives rejected the claim that they needed to get laid.

1957

The big story of the year was Salient’s criticism of New Zealand’s foreign policy.

“Our foreign policy is dominated, as it has been for generations, by hostility and suspicion towards the people of Asia—summed up in the old nightmare of the ‘yellow peril’.

“A realistic foreign policy would be directed towards coming to terms with these people, and working out some method of mutually satisfactory peaceful co-existence with them.”

1958

Salient’s twentieth birthday coincided with Victoria finally being granted university status. No longer a college or “night school”, the university was able to make the gargantuan acronymic leap from ‘VUC’ to ‘VUW’.

The first hints of a resurgent left-wing began to appear as the magazine protested against nuclear testing.

“The testing or use of nuclear weapons in any way whatsoever is grossly immoral.”

1959

Salient’s gradual drift toward the left was epitomised by its condemnation of apartheid. The magazine criticised the decision of the All Blacks not to include any Maori players in its upcoming tour of South Africa. This commentary foreshadowed the renewed radicalism of the following decade.

1960

Victoria University’s rolls were filled to the brim with the offspring of the baby boomer generation. This led to a revival of left-wing politics at university, with Salient being no exception. The magazine tackled issues such as sex and censorship, as well as writing an extended feature on “Columbo Plan” exchange students from Asia.

Less seriously, the inaugural issue for the year joked about the possibility that Adolf Hitler might have fled to New Zealand after the war. “No one knows for certain that [he] is dead.”

1961

Alcohol and panty raids were the talk of the town, with Salient reporting extensively on the damage done to the new common room in the Student Union Building after the yearly graduate supper. “The floor was pocked by stiletto heels, furniture was saturated with beer and the men’s toilets left awash with vomit.” Sounds like a typical Friday night at Coyote’s.

Meanwhile, two 17-year-olds were arrested during the traditional “panty raids”, leading to the banning of the activity.

1962

Salient began the year with a call for action against the “grooved apathy” of the previous decade. “A stultifying complacency has almost deadened the students’ voice.

“Are we going to sit tight for the next fifty years; or are we going to open the doors and let in the winds of change?”

Salient certainly took up its own challenge, with features on cold war tensions in Laos, Berlin and Cuba.

1963

Salient enjoyed a brief flirtation with conservatism. Editor Geoffrey Palmer launched an attack on the “new woman” of Victoria University, calling her a “hard and brash super-sophisticate, with dyed hair and drip-dry morals”.

Meanwhile, a visit to the university by the governor general ended with a long string of tin cans being surreptitiously tied to the back of his Bentley. Funnily enough, the normally poor students had also filled his hubcaps with pennies.

1964

Student pranks reached new levels of notoriety with a mock murder in Te Aro. Emergency services and the press—not to mention a sizeable crowd—were all fooled by the event.

“When the crowd learned that it was only a stunt they turned on the students. Cries of ‘Lynch them’, ‘Throw them out of the university’, were heard.”

1965

Opposition to apartheid continued into 1965, with Salient reporting favourably on VUWSA’s decision to offer scholarships to South African students.

In addition, Salient ran a feature on race relations in New Zealand, highlighting the level of cultural discrimination against Maori. The magazine put out a call for students to write “of any incidents, trivial or important … that would help to elucidate the true nature of relationships … between the Maori and the Pakeha.”

1966

Alongside growing student discontent with the escalating Vietnam war, Salient stood firmly against conscription. “There are good reasons for strengthening this country’s forces for a defensive role. But these reasons do not hold when it comes to conscripting this country’s youth for a war half a world away.”

On a lighter note, Salient noted with amazement the introduction of a new piece of technology to an engineering classroom at MIT—A COMPUTER! “[Classes] now can consider problems in a single session that ten years ago could not have been handled over a period of many months.” Students marvelled at the dramatic increase in porn-viewing efficiency.

1967

“Slum living for students” was the first headline of the year. Salient visited several flats to report on deteriorating living conditions.

“One of the better examples had no hot water system, the floor coverings were rotting, it was impossible to see through the grime on the windows, the stench of decaying food permeated the entire house, and there were several poems inscribed on the walls of the toilet.”

Salient heavily criticised the government’s decision to double the number of troops in Vietnam. “It is regrettable the government should feel it necessary to commit New Zealand further into a war from which there is little to gain and so much to lose.”

1968

Revolution! Salient’s thirtieth birthday coincided with a wave of student protests across the Western world, bringing with it a reminder of the magazine’s original purpose. “[Salient] believes that students are qualified to hold views on political and social matters.”

Editor Bill Logan campaigned actively for greater student involvement in university governance. “The five thousand students are as much members of the university as the five hundred of the staff.”

Salient remained highly critical of the Vietnam War, claiming that it was “inspired by misguided self-interest and executed with bumbling atrocity”. It analysed the make-up of the protest groups, demonstrating that its members came from all walks of life.

Matthew: I’m here talking with David Do, Co-President of NZUSA, about the issue of student membership—and specifically, Roger Douglas’ bill. David, firstly, why do you and NZUSA support compulsory student membership in student unions?

David: Well, the current model is universal membership, not compulsory, since students can individually opt out, and the current situation is that all students can collectively decide what choice they want in terms of membership systems. So we use the term ‘universal membership’ to describe the current situation.

We support the current status quo because students can already choose how they want to organise themselves—they can choose to opt out. And the services, the representation, the welfare, and the experience that associations provide are only possible because students are automatically members of their association. So that’s our main reasons for supporting this, because the current situation does help students in their education and the experience they have at tertiary institutions. And we don’t see the need for that to change—the status quo is satisfactory.

Matthew: And what are some of the advantages that you believe universal student membership provides?

David: Well, students’ associations provide a wide range of services for students. There’s representation, there’s welfare, there’s experience, there’s clubs and societies, advocacy—lots of various things. And the main reason why students’ associations are able to provide those services is because students are automatically members. They pay a small levy, and that gives the association the ability and the resources to provide what students want. And these are services that students want because they are based on student demand, and the association is responsive to students in many ways. They are accountable to students through general meetings, through regular elections, through the threat of being voted out at a special meeting. So students’ associations are accountable and democratic.

So there are many advantages of the current situation that really wouldn’t be the case if there was voluntary student membership.

Matthew: And what is NZUSA’s official policy on Roger Douglas’ Freedom of Association Bill?

David: Well, we oppose the bill because we believe it is up to students to decide how they want to organise themselves, not for parliament. We support the current situation because students can already choose individually to opt out, and collectively through referendum, whereas Roger Douglas’ bill is going to force voluntary on everyone. We believe students should make those decisions, as they already can under the current legislation. So that’s why we oppose the bill.

Another key reason why we oppose the bill is because of the very negative effect the bill will have on students. Students’ associations in a voluntary environment will probably not be able to sustain many, or any, of the services that they currently offer. That’s going to hurt the quality of education that students receive and the quality of experience that they have at tertiary institutions.

So we’re really concerned with how students will be affected through quality of education and quality of experience.

Matthew: What actions and policies are NZUSA pursuing in support of retaining universal student membership? Specifically, I have heard talk of a ‘student membership summit’ and a ‘President’s Committee’ that was held towards the end of last year. Do you have any comments on either of those?

David: Well, NZUSA is working with students’ associations, and one of the key things is to inform students as much as possible about what this bill means for them, what is at stake, what associations do, and the value that they bring to students. Our goal is to inform students and encourage them to take action against the bill because of the negative effects that this bill will have on their education and their experience. So that’s one of the many areas of activity—informing students and encouraging them to take action.

Secondly, we’ve been talking with members of parliament, and talking to other organisations in the tertiary sector, and trying to get their support on board for the campaign. And throughout all of this, we at NZUSA are going to continue our core business of representing students at a national level and ensuring that students’ perspectives are heard where the decisions are made on things like education quality, fees, loans and allowances. So VSM is a very important campaign because it does affect all students, but we are continuing at NZUSA with our normal work that we do in representing students every day.

Matthew: Now, if voluntary student membership were introduced in New Zealand, what are some of the effects that you think we would see in the university experience?

David: In the university experience there are five main impacts. I’ll focus on two or three.

Firstly, it will devastate important student services; for example, at VUWSA, with welfare, advocacy, support for clubs and societies, among others, they are an essential part of the tertiary education experience. They help enhance what students learn in the classroom and provide a useful experience outside it. The real concern is that, under voluntary membership, these services will be lost because associations will no longer have the revenue to provide them. Also at Victoria University in particular, specific support for particular groups such as Maori students, Pacifica, Queer, students with disabilities. Also faculty representation that VUWSA helps facilitate, that’s something that’s going to be lost because associations will not be able to sustain those structures.

So for the student on the ground, their experience will be severely diminished because a lot of what VUWSA does will disappear. A lot of those things do contribute to the overall experience that a student has when they come on campus.

Also with the representation side, students’ associations play a very important watchdog role on the institution through student representation on all the committees inside the institution, and also being a regular feedback mechanism the institution uses to see how things are going. So students’ associations play an important part in quality assurance.

The risk is also that the quality of education that students receive will diminish over time as well, because the institution is less likely to respond to students’ needs and wants because the association isn’t there and isn’t channelling feedback to the institution.

And obviously students who are members of clubs—ethnic clubs, religious clubs, sporting clubs—they get some support from the association that’s going to be lost, as well as the ability of these clubs to hold—students’ associations help clubs and societies with funding or facilities or in some other ways to help run their events for their members, so students might see a diminished experience from that. University games—lots of students participate those and other sporting competitions and aspects, and students’ associations help fund a lot of tertiary sport in New Zealand. That’s likely to be lost if they’re not able to fund that.

So those tangible things in terms of clubs, sports, representation, quality of education—those are four key things for students. Orientation, of course, is always a very big thing too.

The other aspect of course is, if voluntary membership comes in, the university may want to try and continue some of the things the association does already for students. Obviously, that has financial cost, and up until now students have contributed to that student support and the current services. The real risk—and this has happened in Australia—is that institutions may have to divert core funding for their research and teaching budgets to help plug the gap that has occurred because of voluntary membership. And that means less money for tutorials, facilities, good teachers, that sort of thing. So that will also affect the quality of education.

Also, in Australia when voluntary membership was passed, the government there set up a special $120 million transition fund just for voluntary membership. So that extra government spending on a situation that was fine before, that’s going to cost more to government, cost more to taxpayers. We all understand the tight fiscal situation that the government and tertiary institutions do face. The problem is that this bill, if passed, will create a lot more financial costs, and it could create a crisis on campus.

Matthew: I’d like to just talk about the arguments that VSM advocates have put forward, to get your response on those. Specifically, I’d like to go back to some of the things you said before about accountability, members’ ability to opt out of associations, and the fact that students are automatically enrolled in associations when they start at university. Do you feel that accountability is an issue when students are automatically enrolled in an association?

David: Well, students’ associations do have several accountability mechanisms. Students can obviously vote for who they want to control the association at elections, they vote at general meetings on how much they pay as a levy—or whether to have a levy at all. There are also provisions in the constitution for students to call a general meeting, they can call a meeting to get rid of exec members at any time.

And also, if students didn’t want to maintain the existing membership structure they can do a petition and call for a referendum to be held by the institution to decide whether the membership should still be compulsory or voluntary. This has happened already in recent years—UniTech was voluntary but students wanted to change, so they changed back to compulsory in 2007; Waikato university was voluntary for a while, they changed back in 2000; and Auckland have stayed voluntary, students have voted to stay that way, their last referendum was in 2003.

So in terms of accountability, the students’ associations are, as incorporated associations, regularly audited. Their accounts have to be made available to members and satisfy their requirements. So a lot of the mechanisms are in place already.

Matthew: One of the criticisms that has been raised is that, because students’ associations have a guaranteed pool of money through membership levies, the level of accountability is lowered. What would be your comment on that?

David: I disagree, because there are many mechanisms already for students to hold students’ associations accountable on how they spend student money. One of those aspects is student media, maintained in part trough students automatically becoming members. They play an important watchdog role on VUWSA. In a voluntary environment, if student media is not able to survive or is in a very compressed role, there’d be much less accountability because you won’t have that watchdog role on the association itself.

Also, the association might not be able to sustain the systems that are already in place in terms of auditing and regular finance reporting that would already be in place when students are automatically members.

So actually under voluntary there would be less accountability because of the student media aspect, but also transparency because students currently decide how much they pay and where to spend it through the budget and the general meetings. Under voluntary, if the institutions decided to charge a fee and then negotiate some unspecified amount with the association, then all students are paying anyway and have no say at all on how much they are paying towards the association or how that money is being spent.

Matthew: Another argument that has been put forward by VSM advocates is that the services that are listed as being ‘essential’ to student unionism would still be provided under voluntary student membership—if they are so valuable, students will still want to join. What is your comment on that?

David: Currently there are some services that institutions already provide—healthcare, for example—that aren’t going to change. But the real risk is that many of these other services that associations provide—the fact is that they will have to be reduced and cut because they no longer will have the resources available from students to run the services that students want.

In terms of “if it’s so good students will join anyway”, we need to consider how it works at a voluntary campus. I was president at Auckland University two years ago, which is still the only voluntary campus. And it started every—orientation at most campuses have the fun, the events, all that kind of stuff for most students coming in at the moment—but at Auckland they also spend tens of thousands of dollars just to sign up members. And it is difficult if you’re a new student, you will not know the many ways in which an association will benefit you, you may not know when you will need the association’s help. So asking a fresh student just to pay an up-front fee, as would happen under a voluntary situation, the fact is that that just won’t happen. Most students won’t pay because they haven’t had a chance to consider all the benefits yet.

At Auckland we had to do huge membership drives to provide us legitimacy to represent students, and the amount of students we sign up doesn’t really affect how much funding we had. So it was really about providing legitimacy. But the fact that the association has had to focus money on signing up members rather than serving members, that was a real challenge that we had at AUSA.

Matthew: One of the major ideological viewpoints of pro-VSM advocates is that universal student membership is a breach of freedom of association, and that students, like all members of society, should have the right to choose which organisations they do or do not join. What would be your comment on that?

David: You’re right, freedom of association does ensure people the right to associate with whoever they choose. But automatically becoming a member of a students’ association doesn’t in any way affect someone’s ability to associate with anyone they choose. The argument they use for freedom of association is actually more related to dissociation. When the students automatically become members, they have the rights of members, they can use the benefits, they can participate in decision making. But it’s not forced upon them. It’s not an obligation to vote, there’s not an obligation to use any particular service.

So what proponents are saying with the freedom of association argument is actually more about dissociation. To essentially say that it breaches human rights is inaccurate, because the current situation doesn’t affect someone’s ability to associate with anyone else; in fact, it facilitates more ways to associate with all sorts of different associations through the clubs and societies that are supported.

The fact that students can opt out based on conscientious objections and financial hardship also covers those arguments—it’s not forced when people can opt out based on those grounds.

Matthew: And speaking of the opt-out clause, do you feel that, if universal student membership is retained, clauses like the opt out will need to be reviewed? For example, at VUWSA, opting out is quite a difficult process, the end result of which is that, if your application to dis-enrol from the association is accepted, your money is then donated to a charity of VUWSA’s choice. Do you feel that areas like that need reform?

David: Well, our current position is that the status quo should be supported, and that it doesn’t require change. One of the issues with opting out is that it does depend on each institution, so it is variable throughout the country in terms of what process they have. And it’s decided by each institution in consultation with the associations.

I think there may be scope for trying to ensure that there are minimum requirements that you need to have in an opt-out process. That would be worth looking at. But that aspect can be looked at, but you don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater as this bill is seeking to do.

Matthew: And just one final question. Do you see any particular services provided by students’ associations to be more essential than others? Specifically, some VSM advocates have drawn a line between core services like advocacy and welfare, and secondary services like clubs which are more tailored to specific interests rather than the entire student body.

David: I think there is often a danger in trying to define what is a core service, because often with a package of things, like a package of education which students—students enter a university because they are attracted by certain aspects of a degree program or experience—but often there are a lot of other things that tie into that and contribute to that particular aspect.

And the danger of trying to define core services, to put them in specific boxes as it were, is that that actually ignores the complexity of the relationships that often exist between different types of services that a students’ association offers. For example, separating representation from the services can be difficult because there are quite a lot of blurry lines. What is a representation? What is a service? A service is essentially affected by not having the connection to this representative structure. So it’s much more complex than that argument you represented has said.

Matthew: Okay. Well, thank you very much David.

David: Thank you very much.

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What is the policy of the Australian Liberal Students’ Federation (ALSF) on the question of student membership?

The ALSF believes that membership of any organisation should be voluntary. No person should be forced to join an organisation that they do not want to join, nor should they be forced to pay the membership fees of an organisation but be told that they can ‘opt-out’ of official membership.

How has Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) affected student unionism in Australia?

The introduction of voluntary student unionism has been good for good student unions and bad for bad student unions.

By allowing students the choice not to join, unions have been forced to make membership worthwhile. Student unions were previously mere political front groups for Left-wing political parties, but they have now cut their spending on obscure left-wing political causes and adapted to providing valuable services to students. Unions that still spend student money on politics rather than services have lost members or collapsed because they failed to provide a service that their peers were willing to pay for. Unions that have provided valuable services to students are doing better than ever.

How has Voluntary Student Unionism changed the organisational and funding models for student unions in Australia?

The change has basically been from a ‘tax and spend’ model to a ‘performance-based pay’ model. Where the previous funding model relied on receiving a guaranteed revenue every year and finding ways to spend it, the new model is about providing services that add value to membership, thereby increasing revenue.

Based on your own experiences in Australia, what do you think would be the effects on student unionism and the university experience in general if Voluntary Student Membership (VSM) were introduced in New Zealand?

Student unions would become more responsive to their members, get rid of activites that don’t provide value to students and put their entire energy into the services that actually matter to students. Fewer protests against the capitalist system, and more lobbying for cheaper student parking.

What are your counter arguments for the main arguments posited in favour of VSM (specifically, that student advocacy and services would suffer under VSM; that the university would adopt the services formerly offered by unions and charge more for them via the compulsory student levy; that having the university offer or fund these services presents a conflict of interest for students; and that it may be easier to reform the existing system instead)?

The arguments against a voluntary model are scare-tactics pushed by vested interests.

On student advocacy, the voluntary model forces unions to be responsive to their membership. That’s better for student advocacy. Instead of running obscure political campaigns based around changing ‘History’ to ‘Herstory’, unions are campaigning for cheaper car parking at university, or representing students who want to appeal marks. The voluntary model is better for student representaiton because it is more responsive.

On services, student unions have changed their focus from political activity to services. They realise that services are what get members, and with a voluntary fee they need their services to be worth paying for. Rather than cutting services, unions have cut funding to the political activity that doesn’t provide value to members. Universities have not generally taken over services that were previously run by student unions because the services that unions are cutting are the services that provide no value.

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Matthew: I’m speaking with Peter McCaffrey, Vice-President of ACT on Campus at Victoria University. Peter, first of all, why do you support voluntary student membership in students’ associations?

Peter: Well, for me the primary reason is the principled one where we believe that people should have freedom of association. Freedom of association is guaranteed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights and in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and it basically means that you get to choose what organisations you belong to, who you associate with—and equally, what organisations you don’t belong to. So you can’t be forced by anyone to join groups and pay membership money as well. And so that’s the principled argument for why people should be allowed to make those decisions for themselves, rather than having them forced upon them.

Secondary to that is that it’s much better to allow people to have these decisions for themselves. You end up with better results because having to convince people to join your organisation gets the incentives right on those organisations—they have to provide services that students want and need, otherwise people won’t join. They can’t do political crap like not laying wreaths or protesting against anybody, and all that sort of silly stuff. You don’t get the Workers’ Party protesting against the Green Party for not being left-wing enough using students’ money, because if it happened, people would actually be able to react by not joining the association in the future. Whereas at the moment, lots of people were upset by VUWSA not laying a wreath, and guess what? They’re all members again this year, and they’ve all paid another $150.

Matthew: So what are some of the main advantages that you believe voluntary student membership provides?

Peter: Well, the obvious one that everyone forgets is that everyone get an extra $150 in their pocket. So right from the start, students’ associations have to show that they are providing services that people would value for that money, if they want to have any kind of discussion at all.

Of course, I would argue from my principled position that, even if they are providing more services to everyone in the student body, they should still be able to choose. Just because you’re providing some services doesn’t overrule the right of people to decide for themselves. But I think they lose on both accounts there; I think that, principally, you should be able to choose, and that they don’t provide the services that people pay for with that money, so people are missing out.

So that’s the first thing—you have to remember that everybody at university gets an extra $150 in their pocket. They can then choose to use that to pay for student union membership—in which case they’re in the exact same position they are in at the moment. Or they can spend it on course-related things like textbooks and stationery. There’s a great quote by Meegan Cloughley in an Otago newspaper at the end of last year. She’s the President of OPSA, the Polytech Students’ Association at Otago. She said that under voluntary student membership, they would have to cut down on coffee and tea and stationery for the office because students wouldn’t join and would spend their money on things more related to their degree like textbooks—which I thought was a fantastic argument for VSM! But she seemed to think it was an argument to force people to join.

Matthew: So what actions are ACT on Campus currently pursuing in support of VSM and of Roger Douglas’ Freedom of Association Bill?

Peter: We’re preparing a submission to the Select Committee which is open at the moment. Submissions close at the end of March. And obviously we’ll be pushing VSM on clubs days around the country over the next couple of weeks.

Matthew: If voluntary student membership were introduced in New Zealand, what do you feel would be the effects on students’ associations and the university experience in general?

Peter: I think it would be minimal. There would be some effects—as I said earlier, you wouldn’t get silly political campaigning, you’d cut down on a lot of the wastage the associations have.

You can look at the budget for the last—actually it’s the previous year, because they still haven’t done last year’s budget—but you can look at the previous year’s budget for VUWSA, and basically 60 to 70 per cent of the costs of the association are administration costs—actual administration, office expenses like printing, wages for staff—what we’re talking about is 70 per cent of the association’s money goes on keeping the association itself running, rather than actually providing the services to the students. So that’s a huge wastage first off—any business that had 70 per cent administration costs would be out of business. The only reason it hasn’t happened to VUWSA is because every couple of years they can hold a meeting and force people to pay more.

So they’d have to be much more efficient, they’d have to provide services that students wanted and needed, and they’d have to be more accountable—like we talked about earlier, they can’t do crazy political stunts and expect people to still join voluntarily.

Matthew: Now I’d just like to talk about some of the arguments that the pro-universal student membership side has been putting forward.

Peter: You mean compulsory membership, not universal.

Matthew: Well, that’s something we’ll get to. We’ll start with something you said before about how, if voluntary student membership were introduced, you feel that it would have a minimal effect—apart from administrative costs and so forth. Now, looking at the Australian example, I think it’s reasonable to say that student unionism in Australia and the services they provide have suffered quite extensively since the introduction of voluntary student unionism. Do you feel that something similar would happen in New Zealand?

Peter: I don’t agree with the premise of your question. I don’t agree that the services have suffered in Australia. I’ve spent quite a considerable amount of time looking at what happened in Australia—probably much more time than Joel did when he was over there on the junket, although I didn’t spend any students’ money to go and research it myself, I did it on the internet.

There are certainly universities and areas where services have been reduced, but the nature of that is that those will be the services that people didn’t want, and that they weren’t willing to pay for.

A lot of the examples that compulsory student membership supporters have been giving are quite easily refutable, and I’m very glad you brought this up, as I came prepared. This is a submission that ALSF (Australian Liberal Students’ Federation) did in Australia to the recent bill that Labour sought to introduce and pass to go back to compulsory membership. It’s important to note that even the Labour government in Australia couldn’t get a majority to pass that bill—they couldn’t get a Labour-controlled parliament to go back to compulsory membership.

The submission by ALSF has a couple of great examples where they’ve actually gone to the universities, and what’s happened is that it’s in the students’ association’s interests to make it look like services have been harmed, and to make it look like they’ve declined so they can get the money. They’ve gone from an area where they can force people to pay them millions of dollars—in New Zealand, students’ associations get about $12 million a year, in Australia it was much higher—to a situation where they have to convince people that they are worth paying for. If you’re a business, you’d much rather people were forced to buy your product rather than actually having to convince them to buy it.

So a few of the examples I’ve got here: the RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) Student Union, they say on their website that “voluntary student unionism led to their advocacy services being scaled back”—which is true, they scaled back their advocacy service—but they increased funding to their radio show on 3CR called ‘Blazing Textbooks’, which is a show promoted as “promoting an anti-capitalist perspective on current issues and education from around Australia and the world”. So they decided to increase funding to an anti-capitalist radio show whilst cutting funding to student advocacy. So your assertion is right that advocacy declined at RMIT, but that was because of a decision by the executive. It’s not because they had less money—they just decided to spend money on an anti-capitalist radio show instead.

The University of Melbourne Student Union stripped their clubs and societies by 24 per cent—$18,000—to fund a $15,000 increase in their donation to the National Union of Students, which is their equivalent of NZUSA. So, yes they’re spending $18000 less on clubs, because they’ve decided to donate $15,000 more to the political campaigners who campaigned against the Liberal Party in Australia.

So I agree that, if you took the absolute dollar amount that’s been spent on services by student unions in Australia, I’m sure it’s gone down, but that’s all taken up by increased efficiency, getting rid of services that nobody actually wants, and by deliberately increasing things like that [University of Melbourne and RMIT].

Matthew: Now another thing that did happen in Australia was that, after voluntary student membership was introduced, a $120 million transition fund was set up by the government to ease the transition to voluntary student membership. Do you feel that something similar might happen in New Zealand?

Peter: It’s a possibility. But I think the situations in the two countries are reasonably different. The university funding regime in Australia is quite different, which meant that they needed to do other things. And also, the bill that was passed in Australia was quite different to the one that was proposed here. What was proposed in Australia prevents universities from collecting any fees for non-academic services to pass on—whereas in New Zealand, even under the current legislation, you look at Auckland where the university collects fees for services and then contracts to the students’ association to provide those services.

We’re not proposing to ban those sorts of things like they did in Australia. We’re completely happy with universities collecting fees for services and contracting students’ associations to provide them, as long as those contracts are open and transparent so you can see what’s been contracted for, you can see what the students’ association will be providing, and also that they’re contestable as well, so if the students’ association does a really bad job, somebody else can go to the university and say “we want to do this instead”. If it’s not contestable, then you end up in the same situation which you have at the moment where the students’ association can do as bad a job as they want and they’re still guaranteed funding from the university because the university can’t pay anybody else to do it. So long as it’s open, transparent and contestable, we’re fine with those sorts of arrangements. That allows—services will still be provided by students’ associations, but it gets around the compulsory membership and it gets around issues of the wastage and lack of accountability and political campaigning by students’ associations.

Matthew: Now, you mentioned something earlier on about how voluntary associations would have to provide services based on the wants and needs of their members. Something that’s been brought up quite often is the idea of student apathy, and that if students aren’t compulsorily signed up for a union, they’re most likely not going to join because they just won’t care. Do you think that something like that would affect the ideal model posited by a voluntary system?

Peter: Well, that’s just as much an argument against compulsory membership. If you’re saying that people don’t care about their students’ association and that’s why we have to force them to pay for it, that’s a pretty bad idea as well. Imagine if you came to university and you automatically became a member of ACT on Campus! Because, you know, we have a problem with apathy as well, we go to clubs day and we have to convince people to become members of ACT on Campus. It would be far easier for us if people were forced to join and pay us money. We’d prefer that! Well, not really of course, but it would be far easier.

So, sure, getting members is easier when you can force them, getting money out of people is easier when you can force them. I’m sure businesses would prefer if you were forced to shop with them. But that doesn’t make it right. And students’ associations should have confidence that they do actually provide services that students want, and if they do provide those services and provide them to a decent quality, then people will want to become a member. I mean, it’s not unusual—it’s how the rest of the world works. People become a member of the AA because they get the service that they want out of it and they’re willing to pay for it. People shop because they want clothes and they’re willing to pay for them. It’s how the rest of the world works, and compulsory is completely against how everything else works.

Matthew: Well that’s about all that I had. Do you have any closing remarks that you want to say?

Peter: I’m trying to remember what that quote was that was posted on the compulsory student membership Facebook page. It was something along the lines of “students’ associations are cheaper to provide services because people volunteer their time for them”. That was basically the thrust of their argument—if you make students’ associations voluntary, it’ll cost more because you’ll have to pay the money to the university, and the university has staff rather than volunteers.

I think that’s a really great example of the poor arguments we see from the other side because that assumes that, when you make it voluntary, the students’ association just disappears, and that nobody volunteers to help them anymore. It assumes that all those volunteers just go away and stop helping, and that you’re not getting any sort of help from them at all and you need staff to cover all of that. It’s also ironic because you’re complaining about people not volunteering to help an organisation that you’re forcing them to join. Wouldn’t it be far more efficient if we forced people to volunteer for VUWSA? That would make things cheaper, right? Because you’d have over 20,000 volunteers helping to provide services.

I think it’s just a perfect example of this idea that, if you change something, it completely nulls everything that exists at the moment. So you go from compulsory to voluntary and students’ associations will completely die, you won’t even see them anymore, you won’t get the services that it provides. I think that’s sad because it shows that the students’ associations have very little faith in what they’re doing at the moment. If they don’t believe that people will want the services that they are providing, that’s an argument not to force people to pay for them rather than an argument to keep forcing them.

And that’s what they’ve said on the Facebook group as well—that people wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for these services if you make it voluntary and they have to pay for them. Well, they have to pay for them at the moment. How is people not being able to afford these services a good reason to force them to pay for them? Wouldn’t it be better to allow them to choose whether they want them or not? The people who want them can get them, and the people who don’t won’t need to.

Matthew: Peter, thank you very much for your time.

Peter: Sure.

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Matthew: Okay, I’m speaking with Elliot Blade and Alex Nelder, the Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA) President and Education Vice-President respectively. Guys, first of all, what is the policy of AUSA on the question of student membership?

Elliot: In respect to what our policy is at Auckland at the moment?

Matthew: Yes.

Elliot: Well, we currently have a voluntary model. There was a referendum in 1999 in which the majority of students voted to send us voluntary. Is that all you need—like, what do you mean by student membership? Can you clarify that?

Matthew: Well, does AUSA support the introduction of widespread voluntary membership, or would AUSA prefer retaining a compulsory model?

Elliot: We actually support the status quo, which is a referendum-based model. At the moment, students get to decide what system they want on campus, whether it be a voluntary or compulsory model.

Matthew: Okay. And what is AUSA’s view on Roger Douglas’ Freedom of Association Bill?

Alex: In terms of the bill itself, it’s a bad bill. A move to widespread voluntary membership would be a disaster which would gut services across the country. The referendum model allows students a choice as to what model works best for them on their campus. To go for a widespread voluntary model, the really important services that we run as a students’ association would basically be gutted.

Matthew: And how has voluntary student membership changed the organisation and funding models for AUSA? Also, how has it affected the services that you guys provide?

Elliot: Our services definitely—see this happened in 1999, so none of us were around here, but we’ve gone through all the information and our staff—I don’t want to say a number, but they were basically cut by a lot, over half our staff. So our services were dramatically decreased.

Alex: Matthew, it’s worth pointing out that this might fall better into a follow-up question. AUSA survived when it went voluntary for two key reasons. One reason was that over the eighty years that we were a compulsory organisation we had built up a number of assets—for example, we had a stake in the university bookshop, and businesses around Auckland—so we were able to turn a profit in those businesses. Many of the other associations don’t have that—it’s quite hard to tell your members when you’ve been a president for one year when the lifecycle of the average degree is about three years, it’s hard to tell them that instead of spending the money on them you’re going to spend it on long-term investment projects. So, while we were able to build up a lot of those resources, most other associations don’t have them.

The second thing is that we were able to sign, after a couple of years of being voluntary, a contract of services with the university whereby we provide some of the services and they give us money from the student services levy that they collect off all students.

Matthew: And how would you describe the services that are currently offered by AUSA under voluntary membership? Specifically, what sort of services do you offer, and how do they differ from what was offered under a compulsory model?

Elliot: I’d have to say that the ones we provide are good services—we just provide a lot less of them. I think the one thing that students notice the most is probably our orientation and events in O-Week are a fraction of what they used to be. We used to have the big bands come in, and we used to have awesome parties. Now AUT constantly have better parties across the road, despite having about half our population.

Alex: I think the staff are forced to do a very good job with very limited resources. This happens across the board—for orientation, our events manager is working with a very small budget. His entire budget for the week was much smaller than AUT had to spend on their Friday night party. So it’s these sorts of constraints that we’re working with.

Where it gets a bit more serious is when you start to talk about the advocacy and welfare services we provide. We provide a welfare service which provides emergency assistance for people who get themselves into all sorts of trouble and they can’t go through all the university’s rigmarole because they need money very quickly. And while the service we provide is a very vital service, we just cannot provide it to the extent that we think students deserve. In terms of advocacy services, we have people that work really hard and do great things with the resources we give them, but they’re overworked and they’re very under-resourced.

Matthew: So if voluntary student membership were introduced in New Zealand, what do you predict would be some of the effects on student unionism and the university experience in general?

Elliot: I think two situations would arise. A lot of the polytech and university unions that haven’t built up assets would collapse, so they’d virtually be non-existent, so goodbye to student-run O-Weeks and stuff like that. The students’ associations that do have assets, such as Canterbury and us, survived on a slimmed-down version of themselves. I don’t see the ones without assets really surviving.

Alex: There’s a chance that some of them could limp on like us, sort of the sick old men of the student movement, but it wouldn’t be a very healthy situation. Across the board there’d be a widespread gutting and paring down of really essential services.

I suppose we’re sort of a grim picture of what the future could look like. We’re struggling to provide services across the board and we’re given quite a small budget by the university with which to provide services. There are times when they decide they [the university] want to run things that are normally the domain of a students’ association. An example of this is the orientation week concert they’ve decided to host this year in which their idea of a party which is fun for students is one which is exclusive for first years, which involves no alcohol, which is held on a lawn and contains only Midnight Youth. That’s potentially the future under university-administered services.

The alternatives are that you could end up with services that are not really independent. Just imagine for an example that you’re a student who is falsely accused of plagiarism, and imagine that the advocacy service that you go to see is also run by the university, who also run the discipline council that you’re going before. A clear conflict of interest arises here.

I mean, there’s two models—one whereby the university takes over and provides all services crappily, which is what Auckland sometimes tries to do, and an even worse alternative where they don’t provide them at all and people are forced to pay for private services when they need them, or forced to go out and seek charity from the general marketplace.

Matthew: Now roughly what percentage of the student body at Auckland is a member of AUSA?

Elliot: Last year it was roughly 50 per cent. This year our signups are going very well—we’ve already got 7,000 signups and it’s not even O-Week yet. We’re predicting just over 50 per cent this year, hopefully. You’ll have to ask that question in about two weeks’ time—a week after O-week, because that’s when everybody signs up.

Alex: From the 1st of January each year our membership resets to zero. Also something as well is the sheer amount of resources we have to push into this sign-up week. So right off the bat, when we’re already an association on a tight budget, we have to go out and seek sponsors, put out a diary and a wall planner, just to give people some incentive to want to sign up without having to go through the rigmarole of explaining to them the services.

Matthew: Now I’d like to talk about some of the counter-arguments that have been put forward by the voluntary advocates, just to get your point of view on those. The crucial one, especially stressed by Roger Douglas, is the concept of freedom of association. What would be your comment on that?

Elliot: There’s been a couple of legal opinions out. I haven’t seen a legal opinion yet that supports what he’s saying—as far as we know all of the legal opinions state that the opt-out, compulsory/universal model doesn’t contradict the bill of rights.

Alex: Basically, you can argue that freedom of association means that the government can’t stop you from joining groups such as trade unions, and that’s the idea behind freedom of association as a concept. So this wouldn’t apply to a students’ association.

But even if it did turn out that we were prima facie breaching the right to freedom of association, to my mind society seems to infringe upon rights all the time when it’s justified. For example, your right to free speech doesn’t extend to the right to yell “fire!” in a public theatre. I would say that with the vital service that we provide—the advocacy services we have on campus, the welfare we provide, the way in which we foster the student community and the student culture, I think it falls into that category—a totally justified limit on the very slim breach on the right to freedom of association that’s occurring.

Elliot: Can I just add a small thing—there’s opt in or opt out, none of the systems are compulsory. You have the freedom to opt in or opt out. You can opt in to AUSA, or you can opt out of VUWSA.

Matthew: What would be your comment on—in particular regarding VUWSA, where the opt-out clause is seen as being quite difficult to action, seeing as it requires the approval of a VUWSA-appointed body, and if the opt-out is actioned, the funds are subsequently directed to a charity of VUWSA’s choice. Do you feel that limits the scope of the opt-out option?

Elliot: Yeah, that’s not VUWSA or any student union’s fault. That is currently in the bill. So everyone has to do that. So that would be an area where parliament decide whether or not they want that—VUWSA’s just following legal procedures there. But that’s possibly an area to be looked at and maybe slimmed down. That’s up to the Select Committee, post-submissions.

Matthew: Another argument that’s put forward by the voluntary side is that, under voluntary student membership, associations have to sell the services to the students in order to bring in members. As a result, the services they offer are more tailored to what the students want. Since AUSA operates under a voluntary model, do you feel that describes your situation?

Elliot: No, because we provide the same services as before, we just provide a hell of a lot less of them. You don’t have to be voluntary or compulsory to know what students want—students tell you what they want. It’s really not hard. We just provide the best we can, but unfortunately it’s not as adequate as we would like.

Alex: And in terms of some of the services provided, like for example the welfare and advocacy services, they’re the sort of services that at the start of the year that you don’t think you’re going to need—usually for the first year who’s not familiar with the university structure and what happens—and if you find yourself in a situation by which you need them—suddenly you’re really short on cash or something terrible has happened, or again, you’re falsely accused of plagiarism and you’re forced before the disciplinary committee because you’ve been accused of cheating—in situations like these you don’t know you actually need the services until you need them.

In a fully voluntary model where you’re asking people to sign up, the importance of these services can sometimes be overlooked, and they would be the first thing to go as they’re not the catchiest services to sign students up to.

Matthew: Well that pretty much sums up what I wanted to ask. Are there any final comments that you guys would like to make?

Elliot: Yeah, a lot of what we sign students up with is not actually what they use. They like the diary and the wall planner, but welfare services are not sexy, and advocacy and class rep systems are not sexy. But at the end of the day, these systems are probably the most important things that any students’ association offers—the independent student voice to the university.

And even the universities themselves these days are seeing the benefits, academically and socially, for these things. This is the main point that I don’t want to see disappear from tertiary institutes.

Alex: People on campus have been asking us, “look, voluntary is a terrible thing, but you guys are already voluntary, so why are you fighting this bill so hard?” And that’s because we’ve had ten years of seeing the terrible effects of VSM. We were able to survive because of a very unique set of circumstances. We’re also noticing that we are no longer able to provide the things we were once able to provide, and how some of the services we provide we’re just not able to provide to a level that we’d be happy with and that students deserve. We think students deserve better and we just don’t see how that could happen under a voluntary model.

Matthew: Elliot, Alex, thank you very much for your time.

Elliot: Yeah, no, thank you.

Alex: Thanks man.

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Matthew: I’m here with Maryan Street, the Labour Tertiary Education spokesperson. Maryan, first of all, why does the Labour Party support universal student membership in students’ associations?

Maryan: We support that because it has proven to be a very good way for ensuring that certain services and advocacy are made available to students in universities and polytechs and wainanga. Without it, it is not at all certain that the universities or other institutions would be either willing or able to provide those services. So, for me, it looks like a useful form of unionism and we would support that.

There is a provision for a majority to elect whether there is compulsory or voluntary membership at any campus. But for me, when people are coming in to an institution for the first time, they’re not aware of what services are provided by students’ associations. If it were to become voluntary, people would simply look at their fees invoice and see that there is a voluntary fee here, they would typically, I think, elect not to pay it—who wouldn’t?—because they’ve got no idea what services are actually provided.

So it seems to be that voluntary student membership isn’t about the pure philosophy of choosing to join and freedom of association. It’s about providing protection and services for people who don’t know that they might need them before they do. If you don’t have it available for first-year students, or if it’s entirely voluntary to join a students’ association for first year students, then by year two you’ve got two cohorts of students; by year three at the end of their degree, you’ve got three whole cohorts of students, and the services become history. And then, it’s very difficult to build them back up again.

Matthew: Now, just to go into that a little bit further—what are some of the advantages that you feel universal student membership provides?

Maryan: I think first of all that membership of a students’ association provides access to democratic representation. That’s a really important thing for me. For example, if you have students at Victoria—which is my old university—who belong to the students’ association, they’ve got somewhere to go to represent their voices at the highest level, because the students’ association is represented on the university council. And that’s a way of representative democracy working on behalf of students.

So there’s that function, and I think that is profoundly important. And it’s good practice for students—if they think that their association is undemocratic, then get in and fix it! It’s about training in citizenship, and I think that’s really important. You train at a university in the context of a students’ association, you learn how to participate, how to change things, and how to represent other people fairly and in a principled way. And sometimes you learn that from bad examples, and sometimes you learn it from good examples. But that’s a fundamentally important thing.

The next thing, I think, is advocacy. And that’s not about representation at the university council, but that may be advocacy in disputes of all sorts—admission disputes, disputes with other students, conflict with lecturers or heads of department or deans of faculties. The further you get up the academic tree, the more intimidating it can be for a student to assert that they have been hard done by. And to have the kind of advocacy that students’ associations provide available for very low cost is a huge benefit.

So, again, students may not need it—they may not need it from one year’s end to the next—but all of a sudden, they may find that a tutor or a lecturer turns into a sexual harasser, and they need somebody to go to bat for them. And that’s a hard thing to do when the person you’re taking on is the person who’s grading your essays.

Matthew: Could you identify and describe some of the actions that Labour are currently pursuing in support of retaining universal student membership?

Maryan: Right. Of course, now it’s orientation week so we’ve got Labour stalls at most of the large campuses around the country. So at most of the urban centres, you’ll find that there is a Young Labour stall on clubs day in orientation week. I’ve prepared some materials that aren’t as wordy as last year’s, but something that’s more direct and a bit more eye-catching and will convey something about what the Labour Party believes on tertiary education.

Inside that information is our opposition to the VSM bill. We are clearly wanting to let students know that we oppose the VSM bill, and we will continue to oppose it. We think it will contribute to a lesser experience for tertiary students on their campuses, and we will fight it.

In addition to that, of course we’ve got the usual things like fliers, timetables and calendars, those sorts of handouts; information about Labour activities on campus—because they can get very interesting, noisy, engaging, argumentative, a good place for people with lots of opinions to cut their teeth and see if they can foot it in politics.

Matthew: I’d like to talk about some of the opinions and arguments put forward by the voluntary student membership side, just to get your opinion on those. One of the crucial points, and one that Roger Douglas stresses very strongly, is the idea of freedom of association.

Maryan: Of course.

Matthew: Now what would be your comment on that?

Maryan: The neo-liberals, of whom Roger is the king I suppose in New Zealand, would always take the pure freedom of association argument. Now freedom of association is a fundamental ILO (International Labour Organization) convention that I’m very much in favour of, but that usually means, for me, the freedom to join something. As I was saying a moment ago, if you’ve got a regressive policy that is going to be incremental as the years go on—so in year one, from the moment you make this bill law, then every new intake of students, every new cohort, will not know what the previous cohort knew about the services that were available, and so on.

Because they don’t know until they get to the campus, and quite often they’re paying their invoices and doing their enrolment online without really getting to the university to find out what’s available—what does the students’ association do for me, and what are the services it provides, what are the facilities that my money goes to—they don’t know those things until they get there. So what we have is a form of voluntary/compulsory students’ association at the moment, which I think is fine because there is the ability to choose whether to make a site compulsory or not. I think that’s a reasonable choice simply because there is a new intake every year and that it’s not realistic, given online and distance enrolment procedures, to expect that students will be informed about their choice.

Matthew: I’d just like to follow up on that point around students not electing to join an association under a voluntary system through not being aware of the services. Voluntary advocates would state that it would be the role of the association to actively sell and promote the causes that it champions and tailor them to the members that it is trying to entice. Do you believe that a system like that would alleviate any concerns over new students not joining?

Maryan: I think that is the pure argument. The actual practice of how things work, as I said a moment ago, is that with students enrolling by distance and online—it’s different from in my day when you queued. You went up there and you stood in the student union building and you got into the papers that you were enrolling for—I mean, this is a hundred years ago—that was a kind of physical, in situ, ‘it’s all going on around me and I can see what’s happening’ process. Now we’ve moved to a much more detached, disassociated online system, and a lot of it happens electronically.

So to expect that, in year one, the students’ association will have its resource base cut by who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars—or hundreds of thousands of dollars—to expect them to function with that, getting out to students who haven’t even set foot on the campus yet, is just naïve. And I think it is simply a smokescreen that the right wing use, and they pick up the language of democratic participation to express what is effectively an effort to shut down organised participation.

Matthew: Now one of the other concerns that has been issued by voluntary advocates is that certain clauses in students’ association constitutions, such as the ability to opt out, are quite difficult to action. Using VUWSA as an example, opting out requires approval of the VUWSA exec, and subsequently the money is then donated to a charity of VUWSA’s choice. Do you believe that clauses such as opt out might need modification under a retained system of compulsory student membership?

Maryan: My second discipline at Auckland university was industrial relations, and so I liken this all the time to union membership. That’s why I use those ILO conventions and those sorts of yardsticks. Now in our industrial legislation we do have opt-out provisions and they are usually on religious grounds. And, in fact, I think always, on religious grounds only, that people object—religious or philosophical grounds—that people object to being compelled to join something, even if it is by a vote of a majority of people, so it’s a democratic decision resulting in some requirement to join.

It may well be that an opt-out provision needs to be looked at again, because if the opt-out provision is being distorted or misapplied or not exercised prudently by an executive, then that needs correcting. I would support people’s right to opt out, and I wouldn’t support the efforts of any executive to undermine that process.

But in the end, when people opt out, they make a conscious choice to do that on the basis of knowledge and information. Where Roger Douglas’ bill goes is to prevent opting in on the basis of that same knowledge and information. So people don’t know what they are turning down when they first arrive at a campus. I wouldn’t like to see any students’ association distorting the purpose of an opt-out provision—I think it’s an important safety valve.

Matthew: Now earlier on you identified the core function of advocacy in students’ associations. Do you perceive there to be a difference between core functions such as advocacy and welfare, and secondary functions including clubs and social events and so forth?

Maryan: I think there are three things, and I only talked about two of them to start with, that students’ associations offer. One is democratic representation within the university structure, the second is advocacy, and the third is a variety of services. So it may be that they run a building, they run a cafeteria, they run cheaper facilities and cut-rate facilities, provide access to the university gym. At some universities the students’ association might own and run the gym, and at others they don’t, but by being a student association member you get a discount to join the university gym.

So all of that is service provision. I’d put social events in there too and service provision. It’s not just about having a microwave or a locker or something like that that you can access, but it’s also about contributing—hopefully in an orderly way—to the social experience of being a student. I mean, it’s a fantastic time in one’s life, and there’s licence to do all sorts of things. And there are people who are leaving home for the first time and coming to an urban centre like Wellington. I loved it, and I would like other students to have that kind of social/political/cultural exposure that even running social events provides. I think that’s a service, I do, and so I would lump that in. I mean, I’m not so keen on events like ‘how much can you drink in one sitting’ or ‘how many pies can you stuff down your face’, but in the end, students should have some licence to experiment in a sympathetically controlled environment. And I think that’s what students’ associations can provide.

Matthew: And just one final question—in what ways to the policies of Labour on student membership, and tertiary education in general, differ from those of National?

Maryan: They couldn’t be more different. At the momenMatthew:t we’ve got a National government that sees no purpose in the tertiary sector, given its statements to date. I don’t know whether Steven Joyce will be different, but Anne Tolley never at any point recognised or even acknowledged the role of the tertiary sector—not just universities, but universities perhaps in particular—in helping New Zealand accelerate out of a recession. When jobs are scarce, people take the opportunity to upskill. There should be investment in the tertiary sector, not divestment, which is what we are seeing coming from the National Party at the moment. So when you look at investments in Australia and the UK, even though times are tough—and perhaps the United States is a better example than the UK at the moment for investment in tertiary education—you see government with an eye on the future. The lack of additional or significant investment in our tertiary institutions makes me weep, because it’s so short-sighted. It’s such impoverished thinking. And I’m just hopeful that the new minister, Steven Joyce, can do something differently than the old one.

We [Labour] would lift the student cap, allow more enrolments at this time. Instead of threatening students with making loans harder to get, we’d be looking at paying out what would essentially be an investment in our future by lifting student numbers and by providing compensatory funding to the institutions in order to carry those extra numbers. So not expect the institutions to carry them unfunded, but in fact to put the money in, make the loans and allowances available for increased numbers. It’s a big-ticket item, but it seems to me that you can’t plan any kind of productive future for New Zealand without investing in the tertiary sector.

And that’s a distinctive difference between us.

Matthew: Well, thank you very much for your time.

Maryan: That’s alright!

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Feedback is highly encouraged in the comments section. In particular, if you have additional links you would like to add, please do so.

Features in this Week’s Salient

—VSM: 2010’s most contentious Acronym, by Matthew Cunningham
—Student media: What might become of us under VSM?, by Sarah Robson
—The VSM Bill: wut?, by Freya Eng
—A new Minister of Tertiary Education. But will students ReJoyce?, by Caitlyn O’Fallon
—Head to head: that VSM will benefit students, by Jordan King and Stephen Whittington

The Interviews

Interviews were conducted by phone, email and in person with the following individuals in the process of writing the main article:

—Alexander Butterworth, President of the Australian Liberal Students’ Federation
—Catherine Delahunty, spokesperson on tertiary education for the Green Party
—David Do, Co-President of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations
—Elliot Blade and Alex Nelder, President and Education Vice-President of Auckland University Students’ Association
—Lauren Brazier, spokesperson for Student Choice
—Maryan Street, spokesperson on tertiary education for the Labour Party
—Max Hardy, President of Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association
—Peter McCaffrey, Vice-President of ACT on Campus
—Roger Douglas, ACT MP and author of the Education (Freedom of Association) Bill
—Steven Joyce (via a spokesperson), National Minister for Tertiary Education

Salient Coverage

Below are links to several previous articles published in Salient on the issue of student membership. The articles in 2007 in particular demonstrate the strong resurgence of pro-VSM sentiment at that time:

—Giving up the ghost? by Nicola Kean, Mon, 7 May 2007
—Freedom Is Choice by Lukas Schroeter and Peter McCaffrey, Mon, 14 May 2007
—Freedom from what? by Joel Cosgrove, Mon, 21 May 2007
—VSM: Not a sexually transmitted disease by Jackson Wood, Mon, 23 Mar 2009
—CSM: Worse Than a sexually transmitted disease! by Peter McCaffrey, Mon, 30 Mar 2009
—Roger’s VSM bill by Jackson Wood, Thu, 20 Aug 2009
—Douglas’ VSM bill pulled from the hat by Jackson Wood and Michael Oliver, Mon, 7 Sep 2009
—Vic students see both sides of VSM coin by Molly McCarthy, Mon, 14 Sep 2009
—VSM debate fun for all the family by Michael Oliver, Mon, 5 Oct 2009

The Education (Freedom of Association) Bill

A copy of the bill can be found online here.

A transcript of the debates held in parliament during the first reading of the bill can be found online here.

A copy of the existing legislation on education can be found online here. In particular, section 229 deals with student association membership.

Reports

The following reports have been published on the subject of student membership:

—The Impact of VSU on Postgraduate Students by the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, August 2007
—The Impact of Voluntary Student Unionism on Services, Amenities and Representation for Australian University Students by the Hon. Kate Ellis MP, Labor Minister for Youth, April 2008
—Submission to the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee by the Australian Liberal Students’ Federation, February 2009

Other Resources

—Stephen Hamilton, VUWSA, A Radical Tradition: A History of the Victoria University of Wellington Students Association, 1899 – 1999, Wellington, 2002.
—ACT compilation of links on VSM
—Roger Douglas’ statement on VSM
—The VUWSA website, for a more in-depth description of the services they currently provide
—Free Me, the campaign for Voluntary Student Membership

Organisation Websites

—VUWSA
—NZUSA
—AUSA
—ACT on Campus
—NUS
—ALSF

Why do you support Voluntary Student Membership (VSM) in student unions?

I support voluntary membership of student unions for the same reason that the overwhelming majority of people support voluntary trade unions—individuals should be free to associate with whatever group they choose.

What are the advantages that you believe VSM provides?

The primary advantage is that individuals will no longer be forced to associate with a group that they do not wish to support. One could argue that this will make student unions more accountable, but this is not the main reason why I support VSM.

Could you describe the key areas of the Freedom of Association Bill and what they are intended to accomplish?
The bill essentially does two things. First, it repeals the provisions that allow a majority of students to compel others to join an association. Second, it sets up provisions which prohibit requirements which would see students forced to associate. One part of this latter provision is a general anti-avoidance provision, and it is likely that the wording surrounding this provision will need to be tightened during the Select Committee stage.

What provisions for continued student unionism does the Freedom of Association Bill provide? Does it specifically deny any potential channels (such as funding of student unions by the university itself)?

The intent of the bill is not to prevent universities or polytechs from contracting out services to other groups, which may include students’ associations. As mentioned above, the exact wording of the general anti-avoidance provision may need to be tightened.

In what ways do the policies of ACT on student membership, and tertiary education in general, differ from those of National and Labour?

Well, on student associations, it is clear that Labour favour forcing students to join associations. I think students are smart enough to make decisions for themselves.

More generally on tertiary education, I will be releasing my full thoughts in a detailed paper later this year.

Apart from your bill, what other actions are ACT pursuing in support of VSM?

If the bill is passed, there will be no need for any other actions. Short of legislative change, students have no choice, so that is the only real way to create change.

What are your counter-arguments for the main points in favour of CSM (specifically, that student advocacy and services would suffer under VSM, that the university would adopt the services formerly offered by unions and charge more for them via the compulsory student levy, that having the university offer or fund these services presents a conflict of interest for students, and that it may be easier to reform the existing system instead [for example, removing conditions on opting out])?

Let’s start at the end there. Allowing students to freely opt out does not answer the central objection that I have to the status quo—that students are forced to associate with a group in the first place.

Going back to the first point, I am unsure on your definition of “suffer” is. If students’ associations receive less money because students choose not to join them, then students are on net better off. The students’ associations say they are there to help the students—and if students don’t want to join, then what does that tell you?

Take an analogy. When we ended the draft, there is no doubt that the military establishment “suffered” in the sense that it had fewer people to train, a smaller army, etc. But there is also no doubt that society was better off, because people could now exercise their right to freedom of association.

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Matthew: Okay, I’m speaking to Max Hardy, the President of Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Max, first of all, why do you support universal student membership in students’ associations?

Max: There are lots of reasons why I support universal student membership. I believe that only students can represent students, and believe that the work that VUWSA does in ensuring that we can get the most out of our time at university is really important. I think that the broad range of services that VUWSA provides with its representation services make the university a better place to study.

And I believe that we do that very cheaply for students—we do it far cheaper than the university would be able to. I don’t think students want to end up in a position where they are paying more money and receiving less services. And some of these are essential services, so that is probably what would happen in a situation of voluntary membership.

The reason why every student should be a member of VUWSA is that every student receives benefits from VUWSA’s services. Every student receives the benefits of student representation—our services are universal. And because they’re public goods, we can’t operate under a situation—it would cost a lot of money to operate under a situation where we had to restrict some of our services. And we see that in Auckland, where AUSA—which is a voluntary association—receives money from the university and spends a lot of student money just trying to recruit members. And I don’t think students want to be in that situation—they want to be in a situation where they’ve got quality services.

Students are the key stakeholders in what happens at university, and therefore they should have strong representation—and that means across university, we should have a say in what happens. And ultimately we’re a service-driven organisation, and all the services we provide—and I can go into them if you’d like—are important.

Matthew: Okay, so just continuing on that line, what are some of the advantages that you believe universal student membership provides?

Max: An independent advocacy service is one of the most important. We have a service whereby any student who is having some problems—either internally, so with one of their lecturers or course coordinators, or externally, so with their landlord—can come to our professional student advocate and that person can advocate on their behalf on that issue. We have a lot of students that come through and ask us to help them out there. And that not only helps those individual students—it also helps every single student at the university, because what happens is, if you have independent advocacy, and you have professional and effective advocacy, then it’s a preventative measure as well. It prevents lecturers from acting in an unfair way if they were going down that track. So every student benefits from the increased standards of fairness, and increased standards of academic quality of courses as a result of effective advocacy.

And that’s the same with effective representation—if you have a group of students who are looking out for the interests of students and are vetting the papers that go through an academic board or faculty boards, not only does that help with individual issues that come here, but it also makes sure that everyone is attentive to make sure that the students themselves are happy with the changes that are being made at university.

You can also go through all the services that we offer and say “that’s something we would lose if the bill in parliament went through”, and I don’t think students want to lose that. I think that all students benefit from a vibrant campus, so having orientation events and having clubs that are supported and representative groups that are supported that provide events on campus and help facilitate a student community, and student engagement with the university.

It’s all part of the student experience here, and we don’t want to lose that. And we certainly don’t want to spend more money on a worse service. I don’t think anyone here would like to have the university to be the people who are in charge of providing orientation and club support, and that’s because it’s not the university administrators’ speciality. And I’ve talked to them about it—they certainly don’t want to provide those services either. The university wants VUWSA to provide those services and to support campus life here, because it benefits the university and it benefits the student body, and they couldn’t do it as well as we do.

Matthew: So what are some of the actions that VUWSA is pursuing, both in support of retaining the current system and also in opposing Roger Douglas’ Freedom of Association Bill?

Max: We see one of our purposes as explaining to students what VUWSA does, and explaining to students what the situation would be if the bill went through. We’re not here to impose our ideas on anybody, and we certainly don’t want to tell people what they’re supposed to think. What we say is, “these are the services that are currently available to you, this is why we believe VUWSA is important to the student community here, and we would like you to support us”. And if they do agree with us—and the vast number of people come in here concerned about VUWSA and then we explain to them what VUWSA does and they actually go away much more excited about their students’ association, which is a really good thing.

So starting from O-Week, we’re going to start making sure people know what VUWSA does for them. That will be the most important part of what we’re going to do to try and educate the student community on the importance of supporting universal membership.

Matthew: Now towards the end of last year, there was a ‘Student Membership Committee’ that was set up to discuss opposing the bill. What is the status of that committee?

Max: The purpose of the committee was to facilitate engagement with the campaign for universal membership across the university community. And that’s still something we’re trying to do. We haven’t at this time reconvened that committee for this year, but we are considering doing that. We’re looking at other ways of doing that.

Matthew: Now one of the justifications that the committee put forth was that, in line with goal six of the VUWSA Constitution, it would ‘promote discussion and action as appropriate on issues concerning students as citizens’. Does VUWSA consider that that mandate also extends to discussing VSM?

Max: Absolutely, and that’s really what I was trying to get at before. We’re trying to promote discussion on this issue, and we’re trying to put forward—personally, I want to put forward my point of view, and as an organisation we want to explain to students what VUWSA does. I’ll put forward my personal view which is that we should have universal student membership.

So we do want to promote and facilitate discussion on this issue, and we think that, if we do, people will come down on our side.

Matthew: If voluntary student membership were introduced in New Zealand, what do you think would be some of the effects on student unionism and the university experience in general?

Max: So you can take the Australian example. In Australia they had what they called ‘Voluntary Student Unionism’, and the result was quite devastating on the student experience on those campuses. In many cases you saw about a 40 per cent reduction in the people participating in clubs, and certainly a massive reduction in the quality of the events that clubs could put on and the funds they had available for themselves. People no longer engaged with the student community in their time at university in a structured way, which I think is really sad. I think that your whole student experience here is more important than the degree you get when you come out of university.

So you would see a reduction in campus life and a reduction in the community around campuses across New Zealand. And that would be very sad. You would also see students being levied by their university to provide some of the services that VUWSA currently provides, and the university will probably have to levy students more than VUWSA levies them, and they won’t be able to provide the same number of services. You will see a dramatic increase in the cost of providing independent advocacy—that’s if the current bill goes into force as it is currently written, at least.

And I think ultimately you’ll see a reduction in the quality of education that you receive at university, because you won’t have the coordinated student scrutiny of the university’s budgets, of the university’s professional and academic learning environment. Which is actually really important—a lot of students don’t realise that, but the university does have other priorities other than the students’ learning. It’s really important to have people around the table that know what they’re talking about that are advocating for students, their learning, and their academic environment.

So I think that ultimately students will lose out a lot under a situation of voluntary membership.

Matthew: Now I’d just like to address some of the points that the pro-voluntary side have put forward. The biggest one would be the idea of freedom of association. What would be your stance on that?

Max: Well, we have quite a clear legal argument which says that the current arrangement does not breach anyone’s human rights. That’s not what we’re out to do. People do have the right to opt out of membership of the association, and people should feel free that if they have any conscientious objection to being a member of VUWSA then they can go down that process. And likewise for reasons of financial hardship.

There are two main reasons why all students should be members of VUWSA. The first reason is that when you first arrive at university, to ask whether or not they want to be a member of VUWSA is not really a reasonable thing to do. Some of them don’t really realise, when they’re coming in as first years, they don’t necessarily know the importance of being a member of VUWSA. The second reason is that our services are universal—all students benefit from our services. The cost of restricting our services to certain students would be too great.

Matthew: Another argument that has been put forward by the voluntary side is that a voluntary students’ association would be more accountable. The associations would suffer a financial penalty if they weren’t providing the services that the students wanted. What would be your comment on that?

Max: Well, experience shows that that is absolutely not the case. Voluntary associations are the least accountable associations. VUWSA is, in my opinion, the most accountable part of the university—in terms of its accountability to students it is the most accountable. It is the body which holds the university accountable to students, and if you don’t have VUWSA then most of the money that students spend on education goes to the university, and if you don’t have a body that is holding the university accountable then—I think it’s important that you have a body holding the university accountable to students.

But I also think that VUWSA, being a body that is directly accountable to students, means that students have direct control over our finances. I think you’d be surprised that a lot of students come in to VUWSA, and a lot of them want to scrutinise where our money goes, and that’s actually really healthy. I personally really welcome the students coming into VUWSA and saying “I want to see the budget and I want to see you justify that budget”, because that doesn’t happen across the university. And it wouldn’t happen in a situation of voluntary membership because most of the money that a students’ association will get will either come from the university or through commercial enterprises.

So basically, in a voluntary situation, there is little to no proper accountability. So I think that argument is very misplaced.

Matthew: Now I’d also like to touch on the concept of radical politics. There have been historical cases where certain actions have been undertaken by VUWSA exec members that have caused controversy and have raised the spectre of VSM. Examples include Joel Cosgrove’s ‘I heart my penis’ and the ‘pimping out’ of the VUWSA van in 2007. Do you see this as a potential issue of compulsory membership?

Max: Firstly, VUWSA had moved on from that. We’re absolutely committed to being a professional, service-oriented organisation. Secondly, we’re well aware of our past mistakes, and we intend never to repeat them. And as an organisation, VUWSA is sorry for those mistakes.

I think that those mistakes have overshadowed, in lots of cases, the really good things that VUWSA does. But I don’t think those small incidences are, in the grand scheme of things, a big part of what VUWSA does. And we shouldn’t throw out everything that’s good about VUWSA just because of a few small things that have happened, that people have made a few small mistakes, that we’ve had some bad apples. So VUWSA have moved on.

And the final thing is that, if you’re looking at the difference between universal membership and the other option, in a voluntary situation would you lower the likelihood of scandal—in fact it would probably increase the radical aspect of the association. And that’s not something I want to see. It would increase the radical aspect of the association and everyone would get tainted. In a voluntary situation, the media and the wider public do not make the distinction between the voluntary association in New Zealand, which is AUSA (Auckland University Students’ Association), and any other associations. So I don’t think that students would benefit at all from not being a member if the association made mistakes.

Matthew: Just one more question. I wanted to briefly return to the opt-out clause that we spoke about earlier—specifically, that members can choose to opt out of VUWSA for conscientious reasons.

Max: Mmm hmm.

Matthew: Now historically, that clause has proven somewhat difficult to action. Do you feel that the opt-out clause needs any reform?

Max: Currently it’s relatively simple to opt out of membership of VUWSA. If you want to opt out on the grounds of conscientious objections, you can send a letter or an email to me, the president of the association, and provide a reason which should be relevant to conscientious objections, and then you should stipulate a reputable charity you want the money to go to. And there really shouldn’t be any problems. If you’re genuine in your resolve that—that you do have conscientious objections to being a member of the association, then there shouldn’t be any problems.

And, like we’ve said to the university council, if the student wanted there to be an external, or the university wants us to have an external group that dealt with opting out of the organisation, we’d be happy to explore that. Because we’re not interested in keeping people in VUWSA if they decide that they don’t want to be a member anymore.

Matthew: Do you have any final remarks that you’d like to make?

Max: I think that students should make their own minds up. And I think they should do that by looking at all the facts available to them. And they’re more than welcome to come into my office anytime and ask me to provide any information. The message that we’re wanting to get across is that students need to take responsibility for this university because we believe that students are the key stakeholders in this university. If we’re going to ensure that we are getting a quality education, we need to ensure that we have the mechanisms in place to do that.

And don’t let yourself be taken away by other arguments when the practical reality of the situation is that you don’t want to end up spending more money for less services.

Matthew: Well, Max, thank you very much for your time.

Max: Cool.

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VSM and CSM are the most infamous acronyms in student life today. They’re on just about everyone’s lips—students’ associations, politicians, club representatives. So what do they mean? Before I delve in to that, take a look at your Fees Assessment. Cast your eyes about halfway down the page, below the daunting list of papers you’ve yet to sit. See the fee for $139.20? That is the levy you paid to join VUWSA (Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association) when you enrolled in your degree. So whether you’re a CSM lover, a VSM enthusiast, or a staunch supporter of ‘meh’, you have a stake in the debate. This article will spell out in detail what that debate is, and what it means to you as a student.

What’s in an Acronym?

The current legislation on student unionism states that, upon enrolling at a tertiary institute, students will automatically become members of that institution’s students’ association. By law, there can be only one students’ association on each campus, and by law you are required to join it. This is what is referred to as ‘Compulsory Student Membership’, or CSM.

The legislation also states that those who conscientiously object to being a member of a students’ association may choose to ‘opt-out’; in such circumstances, the student’s membership levy is then donated to a charity of their choice. Additionally, an association may exempt a member from having to pay their levy on the grounds of financial hardship.

This was the status quo until the 1990s, when the option of ‘Voluntary Student Membership’ (VSM) was first seriously discussed. Three separate members’ bills were raised in parliament over the course of the decade. The first unsuccessful bill, introduced by Michael Laws in 1994, sought to make membership of students’ associations voluntary. The second and third were introduced in 1997 by Donna Awatere-Huata and Tony Steel respectively. A watered-down version of Steel’s bill was passed that allowed for ten per cent of students to initiate a referendum on whether or not their association would become voluntary. Since that time, several associations have held referenda, some of which became voluntary. The Waikato and Unitec Student Unions both went voluntary for a brief time before passing referenda to return to a compulsory model. Only Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA) has consistently retained VSM, despite several referenda attempting to revert to CSM.

VSM rose to prominence again in 2007. It was spurred by the controversial acts of some VUWSA exec members and the possibility that a National-led Coalition government might come to power in 2008. The matter came to a head in August 2009, when a private members’ bill introduced by Sir Roger Douglas—titled the ‘Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill’—was drawn from the ballot.

The Education Freedom From A What Now?

Roger’s bill is fairly simple. It seeks to abolish compulsory membership in students’ associations and allow students the right to choose whether or not they join. It states the following:

No person, including any tertiary institution or any association of students, may require any student or exert undue influence on any student—
(a) to become or not become a member of any association of students; or
(b) to pay any money to any association of students, or to any other person in lieu of such fees.

The bill also stipulates that “no person, including any tertiary institution, may act in any way that conflicts with the spirit and intent of this section”.

The bill passed its first reading in the House on 23 September 2009 and was passed to the Education and Science Select Committee. Public submissions on this bill are now being accepted and will be open until 31 March 2010.

A Veritable Smorgasbord of Political Opinions

Roger Douglas, the granddaddy of the New Zealand neo-liberal movement, is pleased as punch that his bill has been drawn. “Individuals should be free to associate with whatever group they choose” instead of being “forced to associate with a group that they do not wish to support”.

He added that his bill might also “make student unions more accountable”, but that this is “not the main reason why I support VSM”.

His enthusiasm is not matched by the Labour Party. “[Student unionism] has proven to be a very good way for ensuring that certain services and advocacy are made available to students in universities,” says Labour Tertiary Education Spokesperson Maryan Street.

“Without it, it is not at all certain that the universities or other institutions would be either willing or able to provide those services.”

Catherine Delahunty, Green Party MP and tertiary education spokesperson, agrees with Street’s sentiment. “Universities don’t look after students. Students look after students. [Under a voluntary model] there isn’t the right kind of money, and it reduces student services to small, voluntary attempts and to contracting, and its doesn’t provide the same level of opportunity for all students.”

Delahunty admits that freedom of association “sounds terribly appealing”, but contends that “when you go to university, many new students don’t realise what the unions provide”.

Steven Joyce, the new National Minister for Tertiary Education, was coy on the issue. “The government is waiting for the select committee report-back before firming up its position and deciding whether or not to support the Freedom of Association Bill,” stated a spokesperson for the minister.

They added that “support for the Bill is not part of National’s confidence and supply agreement with ACT”, although they were “happy to support it to select committee”.

The infamous former Tertiary Education Minister Anne Tolley was more forthcoming during the first reading of the bill in the House. “The current law does not allow students to make their own decisions about union membership.

“[Students] are the only group in society that is denied that basic freedom. Most organisations have to demonstrate their value and their competence in order to justify support. What is so different about student unions?”

Won’t Someone Please Think of the Students?!

So what are students saying about all of this? “We support the current status quo because students can already choose how they want to organise themselves,” says David Do, Co-President of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA).

“Students’ associations in a voluntary environment will probably not be able to sustain many—or any—of the services that they currently offer. That’s going to hurt the quality of education that students receive and the quality of experience that they have at tertiary institutions.”

When asked what actions NZUSA was taking in support of retaining CSM, Do replied that they were “working with students’ associations” to “inform students as much as possible about what this bill means for them”.

“We’ve been talking with members of parliament, and talking to other organisations in the tertiary sector, and trying to get their support on board for the campaign.”

VUWSA President Max Hardy stressed the universal nature of student representation. “The reason why every student should be a member of VUWSA is that every student receives benefits from VUWSA’s services.”

He added that VUWSA provides those services “far cheaper than the university would be able to”, and that he didn’t think that “students want to end up in a position where they are paying more money and receiving less services”.

Hardy stressed that VUWSA’s prime responsibility was to educate its members about VSM and the “importance of supporting universal membership”.

“We’re not here to impose our ideas on anybody… we do want to promote and facilitate discussion on this issue, and we think that if we do, people will come down on our side.”

Victoria University also supports the status quo. Vice-Chancellor Pat Walsh maintains that “despite the problems that student unions have, overall, they contribute much to university communities and most importantly to the student experience.

“Student unions provide support services, advocacy and activities for students.

“To ensure no conflicts of interest, it is essential that many of these services are provided by a student body rather than the university, such as advocacy support for students with academic grievances.”

ACT On Campus Vice-President Peter McCaffrey disagrees that membership should be compulsory. “The primary reason [for VSM] is the principled one where we believe that people should have freedom of association.

“Freedom of association is guaranteed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights and in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and it basically means that you get to choose what organisations you belong to, who you associate with—and equally, what organisations you don’t belong to.”

Student Choice spokesperson Lauren Brazier agrees with McCaffrey. “Compulsory student membership has been a terrible failure in that it has resulted in misrepresentation, waste and fraud.

“Voluntary membership means that students’ associations will actually have to persuade people to join and meet their needs if they are to survive. Compulsory membership causes problems because it allows compulsory associations to exist regardless of whether or not they actually meet the needs and serve the interests of their members. They have a guaranteed income regardless of how they perform.”

Brazier points out how the rest of society functions on a voluntary model. “There’s no real equivalent to that [CSM] in New Zealand society—motorists don’t have to join the automobile association, pet owners don’t have to join the SPCA.”

Crystal Ball Gazing

So what might happen if VSM were introduced in New Zealand? David Do feels that it would be singularly disastrous for students’ associations. “It will devastate important student services [like] welfare, advocacy, support for clubs and societies… under voluntary membership, these services will be lost because associations will no longer have the revenue to provide them.

“Also Faculty representation that VUWSA helps facilitate, that’s something that’s going to be lost because associations will not be able to sustain those structures.

“So for the student on the ground, their experience will be severely diminished because a lot of what VUWSA does will disappear.”

Hardy says VSM would diminish the quality of the tertiary experience. “You would see a reduction in campus life and a reduction in the community around campuses across New Zealand.

“I think ultimately you’ll see a reduction in the quality of education that you receive at university, because you won’t have the coordinated student scrutiny of the university’s budgets, of the university’s professional and academic learning environment.”

Hardy argues that VSM would end up costing students more. “You would also see students being levied by their university to provide some of the services that VUWSA currently provides, and the university will probably have to levy students more than VUWSA levies them, and they won’t be able to provide the same number of services.”

McCaffrey counters that VSM would be good for students’ associations. “They’d have to be much more efficient, they’d have to provide services that students wanted and needed, and they’d have to be more accountable.

“Students’ associations should have confidence that they do actually provide services that students want, and if they do provide those services and provide them to a decent quality, then people will want to become a member.”

McCaffrey disagrees that university-levied services would be more expensive. “That assumes that, when you make it voluntary, the students’ association just disappears, and that nobody volunteers to help them anymore. It assumes that all those volunteers just go away and stop helping, and that you’re not getting any sort of help from them at all and you need staff to cover all of that.

“You can look at the previous year’s budget for VUWSA, and basically 60 to 70 per cent of the costs of the association are administration costs… 70 per cent of the association’s money goes on keeping the association itself running rather than actually providing the services to the students.”

Lauren Brazier feels that VSM would be hugely beneficial. “In the absence of compulsory membership these voluntary organisations will have to attract members on the basis of the benefits they offer… this will mean that the organisation will be more responsible to the needs of potential and existing members.

“Further, voluntary organisations will be able to actually legitimately speak on behalf of their members, because individuals will have given their permission through agreeing to join.”

Elliot Blade and Alex Nelder, the President and Education Vice-President of the Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA) respectively, say that voluntary membership has not provided their members with these benefits. “We’re struggling to provide services across the board and we’re given quite a small budget by the university with which to provide services.

“In terms of advocacy services, we have people that work really hard and do great things with the resources we give them, but they’re overworked and they’re very under-resourced.”

Blade disagrees that a voluntary system will force students’ associations to tailor their services better to student needs. “We provide the same services as before, we just provide a hell of a lot less of them.

“You don’t have to be voluntary or compulsory to know what students want—students tell you what they want.”

Nelder also stressed that AUSA had only managed to survive as a voluntary association through a unique set of circumstances. “Over the eighty years that we were a compulsory organisation we had built up a number of assets—for example, we had a stake in the university bookshop, and businesses around Auckland—so we were able to turn a profit in those businesses.

“A lot of the polytech and university unions that haven’t built up assets would collapse.”

But What About the Auzzies?

A bill similar to Douglas’ was passed in Australia in 2005. A paper released in 2008 by the Labor Minister for Youth Kate Ellis concluded that “the abolition of upfront compulsory student union fees had impacted negatively on the provision of amenities and services to university students, with the greatest impact at smaller and regional universities and campuses.

“Many noted that the introduction of VSU (Voluntary Student Unionism) had forced rationalisations, and that current levels of services were more limited than had previously been the case.”

Most submissions also stated that “the capacity for student advocacy and democratic student representation had been significantly reduced since VSU”.

The report added, however, that “some institutions did report some benefits”, including “the streamlining and more efficient delivery of services to suit student needs, the opening up of the provision of services to a commercial model, and consultation with students to determine what could be defined as essential services”.

The National Union of Students (NUS)—Australia’s equivalent of NZUSA—claims that VSU has meant “less services, support and representation for students on campus.

“Since the introduction of voluntary student unionism (VSU) in 2005, student organisations have had their budgets slashed.”

Australian Liberal Students’ Federation (ALSF) President Alexander Butterworth disagrees. “The introduction of voluntary student unionism has been good for good student unions and bad for bad student unions.

“By allowing students the choice not to join, unions have been forced to make membership worthwhile. Student unions were previously mere political front groups for left-wing political parties, but they have now cut their spending on obscure left-wing political causes and adapted to providing valuable services to students.”

Butterworth points out several examples, including the University of Western Australia Student Union, where membership rates are around sixty per cent.

He also asserts that the figures on reduced services are misleading. The University of Melbourne Student Union, for example, reduced its clubs and societies budget by $18,000 in order to increase its donation to the NUS by $15,000.

McCaffrey highlighted the differences between the Australian and New Zealand bills. “The bill that was passed in Australia was quite different to the one that was proposed here.

“What was proposed in Australia prevents universities from collecting any fees for non-academic services to pass on—whereas in New Zealand, even under the current legislation, you look at Auckland where the university collects fees for services and then contracts to the students’ association to provide those services.

“We’re not proposing to ban those sorts of things like they did in Australia.”

It’s Up To You

Both the CSM and the VSM advocates present many arguments in favour of their case. Compulsory advocates stress the value of the services that they provide and assert that these services would be dramatically reduced by VSM. They point out that many functions of students’ associations, such as advocacy and representation, provide benefits to all students. They also claim that alternate funding models, such as university levies, would increase the cost for students and reduce transparency.

VSM advocates, on the other hand, emphasise the right of freedom of association. Regardless of whether or not an opt-out is provided, they assert that students should not be forced to join any organisation that they do not wish to. They also assert that a voluntary association will be more responsive to student needs and provide higher quality services. Finally, they point out that students’ associations are the only organisations in society where members are forced to join.

With the guaranteed support of ACT in the House, the balance of power on Roger’s bill lies with the National Party. Ultimately, the recommendations of the Select Committee will determine whether or not membership in students’ associations become voluntary. Therefore, regardless of which side of the fence you fall on, your argument will be best championed through educated submissions to the Select Committee. This article, along with the extra features on the Salient website, provide you with the tools to educate yourself on the debate.

If this article has shown anything, it is that neither side of the debate should be dismissed out of hand. The arguments over student membership have relied for too long upon caricatures and stereotypes of each other. If any real progress is to be made in improving the lot of students, a more educated and civil debate is required.

And make no mistake—you should give a damn about this. Apart from the fact that every single one of us has a financial stake in the debate (courtesy of our VUWSA levy), the question of student representation goes to the core of what the university experience is all about. Remember, students are the key stakeholders in this debate, not politicians. You can—and more importantly, you SHOULD—have your say.

For more information on the VSM debate, see here for links to full transcripts of the interviews conducted by Matthew, reports and other useful resources. Exclusive to the Salient website.

Statement reads:

The government is waiting for the select committee report-back before firming up its position and deciding whether or not to support the Freedom of Association Bill. The minister would be in a better position to talk about the bill once we have had the opportunity to consider the select committee’s findings.

Support for the bill is not part of National’s confidence and supply agreement with ACT, although we were happy to support it to select committee. Labour has opposed the bill so far—you’d need to check in with them about whether or not they will continue to oppose it and their reasons for that position.

With regard to the government’s general approach to tertiary education, I suggest you check out the prime minister’s statement to the opening of parliament last week. In the speech he outlines they key challenges in the tertiary area that the government will seek to address. More policy detail will be announced in due course, but this should give you a feel for where the government is coming from.

The speech is available here.

I hope that helps.

See here for the main feature on VSM, or click here to go back to the bonus features.

Matthew: I’m speaking with a spokesperson from Student Choice, Lauren Brazier. Lauren, first of all, why do you support voluntary student membership in student associations?

Lauren: There are a couple of reasons why I support voluntary student membership. Firstly, compulsory student membership has been a terrible failure in that it has resulted in misrepresentation, waste and fraud. The second reason is that compulsory student membership violates an individual’s rights to freedom of association. Voluntary membership is based on the simple principle that individuals should be free to decide whether or not they join an organisation.

Freedom of association is actually found in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s got a couple of elements. The first is that you should be free to associate with others for legal purposes. The second is that you should not be forced to associate with others. So having compulsory membership in tertiary students’ associations actually violates that second element of freedom of association by forcing students to associate with others. There’s no real equivalent to that in New Zealand society—motorists don’t have to join the automobile association, pet owners don’t have to join the SPCA.

So we think that freedom of association is really important. Voluntary membership is the norm in New Zealand and true freedom of association would allow individual students to decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to join a students’ association.

Matthew: And what are some of the advantages that you feel that voluntary student membership would provide?

Lauren: Well, voluntary membership means that students’ associations will actually have to persuade people to join and meet their needs if they are to survive. Compulsory membership causes problems because it allows compulsory associations to exist regardless of whether or not they actually meet the needs and serve the interests of their members. They have a guaranteed income regardless of how they perform. So they can waste thousands of dollars, can misrepresent people, they can do whatever they want, and their members have no way of refusing to pay. And the next year, in fact, they’ll have to pay even more money to the association if they want to study, so that’s unlike how any other organisation works where they will suffer a financial penalty for poor performance.

Because all other private organisations do suffer financial penalties for poor performance, that means that they have to meet the needs of their customers if they are to survive. Compulsory membership allows associations to operate without any regards to the interest or needs of their members, whereas under voluntary membership the associations wouldn’t be able to take students for granted. They’d have to listen to a wider range of students, not just the small amount who are currently involved with student politics.

Matthew: What actions are Student Choice currently pursuing in support of voluntary student membership and Roger Douglas’ Freedom of Association Bill?

Lauren: Well, Student Choice has been promoting voluntary student membership for over fifteen years. Over this time we’ve gathered a huge amount of evidence to demonstrate the problems caused by compulsory membership. In the run-up to the vote we’ll be sharing this information to show how compulsory membership abuses students’ rights, misrepresents their views and wastes money. But I want to make it clear that we’re not anti-student association—we’re anti-compulsory membership in students’ associations.

Matthew: And if voluntary student membership were introduced, what do you think would be the effects on unionism and the university experience in general?

Lauren: I think voluntary membership would be hugely beneficial. With voluntary membership students can still form associations that can actually represent the interests of their members. Obviously, in the absence of compulsory membership, these voluntary organisations will have to attract members on the basis of the benefits they offer. So these organisations will have to persuade students with the value of becoming a member, and this will mean that the organisation will be more responsible to the needs of potential and existing members. It will mean that they don’t waste members’ resources or misrepresent their views, because if they do they’ll run the risk of losing members and losing income.

Further, voluntary organisations will be able to actually legitimately speak on behalf of their members because individuals will have given their permission through agreeing to join. So the organisation will represent them and their views. Currently there’s a sense of illegitimacy in terms of the fact that whenever student associations say something, there are always going to be people that disagree with it. Associations are currently having to represent everyone, but everyone has a diverse range of views.

So basically, it will make student associations more responsive and more legitimate.

Matthew: I’d just like to talk about some of the arguments that the compulsory membership side has been putting out and get your response on those. One of the main arguments is the concern that student advocacy and services will suffer under voluntary student membership. Circumstances in Australia certainly show that student unions have suffered under voluntary student membership, or at the very least the services that they offer have had to be dramatically reduced.

Lauren: I think you have to question what these services are. The premise of the question is that students’ associations spend money on things that are actually wanted by people. Under compulsory membership everyone pays, but the money is spent by a small group and only a handful of people actually use the services. For people who don’t want or need the services, their money is wasted.

In civil society outside of tertiary institutions, people buy the services they want, so voluntary membership will allow people to show what services they are prepared to buy. Voluntary representative organisations like trade unions provide advocacy because that is what their members want, and I think that voluntary students’ associations will be very similar to that.

Matthew: One of the other main concerns that has been issued is that, in cases where voluntary student membership has been introduced, typically the university will pick up the slack either by providing the services themselves or contracting them out to the students’ association. In those circumstances, the fees are still compulsory, but the students have less control over how much is being paid. In Australia, fees often doubled or tripled for the university to provide similar services.

Lauren: I think firstly you’ve got to remember that the Australian situation was quite different. I’m pretty sure that in the Australian situation they banned all funding for student unions, so that they couldn’t have a tendering process or anything like that to contract the services out to them. Secondly, if institutions decided that they wanted to put on a levy to fund orientation or a student magazine, that would be up to them.

What we think needs to happen is that the law should insist that institutions should make it perfectly clear that they are adding to the cost of tertiary education to provide X, Y and Z services. What we want to see is an increased transparency to see where exactly the fees you are paying are going.

Matthew: Now one of the other events that happened in Australia was that when voluntary student membership was introduced, the government had to provide a $120 million transition fund. Essentially, the burden was transferred to taxpayers. Do you think something like that might happen in New Zealand if voluntary student membership were introduced?

Lauren: I think there’ll be a transition period. But I don’t think that a transition fund, as such, would be a problem.

Matthew: One of the other issues you raised earlier on was the fact that, under universal student membership, students are forced to pay to join the association. In the case of some student associations, that is certainly true because the opt-out clauses are quite difficult to action. Would reforms on opt-out procedures and greater association transparency alleviate some of the concerns of voluntary membership advocates?

Lauren: I think that the opt-out model is simply a defensive move by people who want to protect association income because they hope that enough students won’t be bothered to apply for their money back, thereby leaving associations with more income than if it went to a fully voluntary model. I think that it won’t alleviate issues you have, such as not needing to persuade students to join, and increasing transparency and that sort of thing. It’s just people trying to hang on to the privileges of free money, if you will.

Matthew: And finally, I wanted to chat quickly about a proposal that Student Choice has been working on—positing an alternate model that allows for the ongoing provision of student services under voluntary student membership. Would you be able to comment on that?

Lauren: There are a couple of things to mention here. Firstly, the current model we have is where institutions and associations charge for services. Now we don’t want to stop institutions from charging, but we want students to have a choice about joining an association. We also want to see a lot more transparency and accountability around the fees that institutions charge to students.

The second thing to note is that the income received by associations under compulsory membership is artificially high. Under voluntary membership this income will drop—there’s no getting around that at all. Voluntary students’ associations will be in the same position as voluntary sports clubs, trade unions and sector groups. The services they offer to members will depend upon the amount of income they raise. It’s not really rocket science, it just means that students’ associations will have to join the real world.

Currently what we have is a situation where the provision of questionable services is being used as justification for compulsory membership of what is primarily a political representative group. This wouldn’t be acceptable anywhere else in New Zealand and we don’t think students should have to put up with it.

Matthew: So you’re basically differentiating between what might be considered essential or core services, such as advocacy, and secondary services such as clubs and political activity.

Lauren: Kind of. It’s up to the members of the voluntary students’ association to decide what that association should do.

Matthew: Thank you very much.

Lauren: You’re welcome.

See here for the main feature on VSM, or click here to go back to the bonus features.

Matthew: I’m speaking with Catherine Delahunty, MP and Education spokesperson for the Greens. Catherine, first of all, why does the Green Party support compulsory student membership in student unions?

Catherine: Well, universality provides services for everybody that are really badly needed in universities. Universities don’t look after students; students look after students in many ways, and one of the benefits of compulsory student unionism is that the fees allow students’ associations to provide proper services and support—not to mention providing colour and vibrancy to any campus.

But it’s more basic than a great student radio or a great orientation week. It’s about advocacy, it’s about support, it’s about everybody from foreign students through to people who have come from rural areas actually being able to make the most of university. If you do not have students paying into a fund there isn’t the right kind of money, and it reduces student services to small, voluntary attempts and to contracting, and it doesn’t provide the same level of opportunity for all students.

Matthew: And what are some of the advantages that you believe compulsory student membership provides?

Catherine: Well, I think it’s in that field of the welfare and advocacy for the student body. I also think the student voice is really important. I guess as an MP on the Select Committee it’s been incredibly valuable to have the student voice participating in issues around polytechs, councils’ bills or various student loan amendment bills that have gone through this House since I have been here in the past year, and there have been quite a few. If there is no properly organised and funded student body you don’t hear the student voice at the level of decision making, which is all about students’ lives and all about students’ situations.

So there’s the political advocacy voice, but there’s also the looking after of people on campus, the providing of foreign student support, of information services, everything from food banks to women’s affairs through to all the clubs and sports, which are actually a huge investment for this country. At university, some of our best young people get involved in things through students’ associations that lead them to both political, sporting, academic and community careers. It all comes out of an organised student union body.

Matthew: Can you comment on the official policy of the Greens on Roger Douglas’ Freedom of Association bill?

Catherine: Pretty simple—bad idea! We believe it’s 1980s dinosaur thinking, and we will be opposing it all the way.

Matthew: And what actions are the Greens pursuing in support of retaining compulsory student membership?

Catherine: I know a lot of students’ associations are campaigning hard to save their services and to fight the bill, and we’ll be working hard with them to do that. We’ll be talking to our members and encouraging people to get actively involved in the submissions process. We’ll be strongly advocating in parliament against it and using every opportunity in the media to challenge the idea that it’s about choice. Because really what would be created would be a whole lot of no choices for students on campus. So we’ll be using all the tools at our disposal.

Matthew: Now I’d just like to talk about some of the arguments that have been put forward by the voluntary side, just to get your comment on those. You talked about the idea of choice and likened it to actually having no choice. Would you like to make any further comments on Roger Douglas’ argument for freedom of association?

Catherine: Yes, well, right now, students can opt in and opt out, and there’s a variety of models on campuses. So it’s not as if we have the same type of compulsory student unionism on every campus. It’s different at Auckland than it is at Waikato, it’s different in Otago. Every campus puts it to their student body, and the student body does decide what type of union they are going to have.

If we follow the choice argument through, it all sounds terribly appealing—you know, “you are free not to belong to something”—but when you go to university, many new students don’t realise what the unions provide. And what looks like just part of the university infrastructure is actually created by the student unions. If students do not pay a small fee to be part of that, and don’t join up, and say “well, I don’t really feel like being part of that because I don’t understand unionism”, which is what has happened to many students, and the word “union” is quite a foreign word to many younger people, they just don’t realise what they are going to lose. They don’t realise that, to have a good society, whether they’re at university or anywhere else, we all need to participate in order to make things work for the whole. As an individual, there will be no club for you, there will be no student radio, there will be no welfare, there will be no food bank, and who’s going to provide it for you? You don’t actually say, “hey, I’m a student, I’m part of the student body, and this is what it means”.

Matthew: Another argument that has been put forward by the voluntary side is that, while the number of services offered by unions would undoubtedly decrease, those services would be more targeted to the members’ needs because they would have the buying power to say whether or not they want to join. What would be your comment on that?

Catherine: I don’t even think it makes sense. I don’t see that as an argument at all, I mean “buying power”… someone has to do the work, someone has to do the organising. I’ve been a community organiser all my life, and if you don’t have anybody who has some kind of way to organise, things don’t happen. Relying on a stressed student body to voluntarily create all the services that are currently offered by student unions, and calling that choice, is just nonsense.

Matthew: Now in some of the comments you made, you talked about advocacy and clubs. Do you see a distinction between the two? Do you see advocacy as being more of a core service, and clubs as something of a secondary service—or do you see the two as being the same?

Catherine: I think they’re all part of the picture. I wouldn’t like to separate them out. I think people at university go there for the whole life, and then find that it’s actually quite a difficult life when you’ve got a student loan scheme, when you’ve got a recession and you’re away from home—it’s not easy. So advocacy for student welfare is incredibly important.

But it isn’t separate from the activities because the clubs are—the Debating Club, for example, has something to do with the debates at Victoria University, and the debating club is where ideas get thrashed out by young people from all political perspectives. It’s a sport, but it’s also part of the development of… Universities are, theoretically at least, meant to be places where ideas get developed. So whether you’re developing sporting prowess, or you’re developing debating skills, or you’re part of a language club, that’s really part of your learning and part of your development as a student body. The same goes for advocacy. Many people who ended up in parliament cut their teeth on student politics, and that’s a good thing. And students are a hard audience—God knows I’ve had to speak in front of them, they don’t take prisoners, and you’ve got to be very articulate and very in touch to get the confidence of the student body. And that’s what students’ associations have to do. And it’s important that they do that, and they can’t do that if they’ve been reduced to pockets on campus instead of the fundamental part of the student body that they should be.

Matthew: Now, another argument that’s been put forward by voluntary advocates is that student unions typically adopt more radical policies and stances, and that often that alienates their membership, causing them to feel that the association doesn’t represent them. What would be your comment on that?

Catherine: Well, it’s interesting because the person putting forward this bill—some of those radical people on campus are ACT Party members, so he [Roger Douglas] is going to be cutting them out. The definition of ‘radical’ is to go to the root of the matter, and if you cannot when you’re young go to the root of the matter you may never get there.

It’s a very important time in young people’s lives to be active and thinking and debating and organising around politics, and that’s part of being a student. And if you take that away, if you say that students who get involved in unions are non-representative, well, they get there because they have the capacity to get there, and that’s what our political life is all about—people being prepared to put themselves up there. So rather than trying to undermine the democratic participatory process that happens around student politics, they should be supporting that. That’s why unions are important.

Matthew: Just one final question. In what ways do the policies of the Greens differ from those of National and Labour, not only on student membership, but on tertiary education in general?

Catherine: We are not going to forget that many of the politicians in this parliament who don’t belong to the Green Party got, like I did, a free tertiary education. We believe that the student loan scheme has been utterly oppressive of education in New Zealand, and we stand strongly, not just for tinkering which is what Labour did, or restricting which is what National is looking like they’re doing around access to universities, but actually making education far more accessible to far more people. We stand for universal student allowances and we stand for people being able to work in this country rather than going into debt, and we would like a major rethink of the effect of the student loan scheme on education at a tertiary level. In that case the Greens have a far more student-orientated approach, because we actually understand that indebting our young people is not the best way to build an economy or a community, and we are really, really opposed to it.

In terms of National, they’re being pushed by the ACT Party to be even more radical, if you like, in terms of privatising education at all levels. The prime minister’s state of the nation address at the beginning of the year was very worrying in terms of saying that the taxpayer’s generosity couldn’t be exploited by students. The negativity towards the student body which National has expressed lately is very worrying. Steven Joyce was put in there to do something, we’d all love to know what.

The Labour Party, they did at least get rid of interest, but there are still huge issues. And of course it was their party who brought in the student loan scheme. The Green Party would never have done that. We firmly believe in the core value of making education accessible, and we actually think young people get the message that it’s great to be in debt, and then they find out the reality for the rest of their lives. That’s actually quite criminal what we’ve done to your generation. And when we talk about that, people can’t even imagine education as a right without debt, they can’t even visualise what that might be like. That’s only taken a generation to lose that. I spent $150 a year on books when I was at Victoria University in my stage one year, you know? It’s unthinkable. I can now look at the rest of my life without debt, whereas so many of today’s young people will still be paying off their student debt at my age.

The Green Party stands very strongly for how we can turn back the tide of telling young people that they’re not important, they’re not valuable, and also encouraging them that the debt / credit cycle is not a good way to manage a student’s life. The consequences are very, very serious for generations, so we stand for a radical rethink, and a far more accessible approach to education than putting people into cycles of debt and individualising them, which is why student unions are important, because they’re the one collective voice available to students to talk about these issues which have basically been forced underground by the student loan scheme because every individual is so desperate just to survive, pay their loan, get a good job and get through university, that universities are no longer the vibrant places that they should be.

Matthew: Well, Catherine, thank you very much for your time. Did you have any final remarks that you wanted to make?

Catherine: Party vote Green!

See here for the main feature on VSM, or click here to go back to the bonus features.

I think I passed out at that point.

Now, many years and copious amounts of alcohol later, I feel like a seasoned hand at this whole university thing. When I look around at the many starry-eyed, first-year faces each February, I know that the majority of them are thinking the exact same thing I was—what the fuck am I doing here!? I knew I should have taken that job at New World! I wouldn’t have to put up with this shit if I’d joined the army! Well, don’t worry—you’re not alone. I am here to tell you one thing and one thing only: coming to university is the best decision you’ll ever make. I can guarantee—hands down—you will not regret it. How do I know? Read on, young first years, as I reveal to you the four secrets that will guide you through the waters of the university experience.

One: Study is NOT the most important thing about university life.

Sounds counter-intuitive, right? Well, let me ask you this—when you think back on your university days, will it be the lectures and the exams that you remember? Hell no! Uni is about making new friends, trying new things, drinking, partying, getting laid, and just plain growing up. You’ll finally be old enough to legally do all the things you’ve already done. That’s not to say that you can pawn your textbooks for booze money or sleep through your exams—just remember, in the work/life balance, life should always win out.

Two: University is what you make of it.

If you’re looking at an academic career or you want to be top of the class, you’ll probably have to work damn hard. However, if like the majority of us, you are here to get a piece of paper and get a good job, remember this: Cs get degrees. The main reason for coming to university is to build up a base level of specialised knowledge to get ahead in the job market. In most industries, that’s all you need—you’ll learn the rest on the job. Employers use tertiary qualifications as a means of separating the wheat from the chaff—if you have a degree, chances are you’re not an idiot.

Three: Make use of the university facilities.

It probably sounds like a cliché, but it’s true—the university is here to serve you. Faculty and Department staff are always helpful, and I’ve never encountered a closed door in my time here. Speak up if you have any issues—apart from your lecturers, there are student representatives, liaison officers, library subject specialists, counsellors, and countless others willing to help. Remember, you are technically paying their wages. You’re entitled to be a pest.

Four: Think of it as a process.

When I first thought about applying for university, I had little to no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. A geeky interest in computers eventually led me to enrol in an Information Technology degree. Three years and several thousand lines of code later, I became the proud recipient of a Bachelor’s degree. I entered the industry as a graduate and spent a few years punching computer monitors when my workstation failed to do what it should. Eventually, I came to the realisation that computers weren’t for me—and so, reigniting my high school passion for history and teaching, I re-enrolled at university. The point of my seemingly inane ramble is this—university isn’t a phone plan. You’re not locked in for three years under the same terms and conditions. If you start a degree and decide it isn’t for you, switch to something else. If you don’t know what to switch to, try a bit of everything until you find something you like. There is nothing wrong with taking your time to figure out what you want to do with your life. People change, as do their passions. Let your university experience reflect that.

So go forth, young first years, and make the most of your three years of study. And make no mistake, you will have to study at some point—just don’t let it obscure your view of the more important things in life. But I can promise you this—these will be the best years of your lives.

Almost two thousand years ago, a Roman rhetorician named Lucius Seneca wryly observed that ‘men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own’. Inherent in his memorably catchy word-bite are two obvious deductions; one, that a nation is something that an individual possesses, claiming ownership through a shared sense of community; two, that the primary condition for loving one’s country is not whether or not it is great—or even if it is right—but merely the fact that one is a part of it. So why the hell is this important in the context of this debate, you ask? To put it simply, the primary reason that history will not remember U.S. hegemony kindly lies not in the actions of the United States itself, but in how those actions are perceived throughout the world. And, as Seneca has observed, this perception is bound tightly to the concept of national communities, which are less concerned with accuracy as they are with reinforcing a sense of belonging.

Let us define the key terms of the question—‘history’ and ‘remember’. John Tosh and Sean Lang perceive history as comprised of two categories—historicity, or the academic craft of the historian, and social memory, a ‘shared interpretation of events and experiences’ that ‘confirm[s] the self-image and aspirations’ of a particular social grouping. Examples of social memory are far more prolific than historicity, and are usually vested in national histories aimed at reinforcing social consensus—justifying the present ‘at the cost of historical accuracy’. Secondly, the action of remembering implies viewing historical events with the benefit of hindsight, most often with the intention of justifying contemporary viewpoints. The historical verdict on U.S. hegemony, then, will be decided by the memories of the various social groupings that comprise the international community—groupings that have their own motivations and biases on how they portray American influence.

It is undeniable that American hegemony has brought substantial benefits to the world—the spread of democracy and stability, the dramatic rise in living standards, and the economic prosperity of the free market are just a few examples that my associate will no doubt utilise in his counterpoint to this article. However, in the context of ‘history’ and ‘remembrance’, these points are moot. Social memory, especially in a national context, is predicated not on the events themselves, but on how they are shaped, perceived, and used to reinforce arguments in the present. This is exemplified in the example of 19th Century Britain; despite historians urging us to ‘see the good side of the British empire’ (Kevin Myers) and its introduction of ‘sustained democratic institutions and economic growth’ (Mark Steyn), the Pax Britannica of the 19th Century is more commonly associated with the negative connotations of ‘colonialism’, ‘imperialism’, ‘racism’, and ‘subjugation’. The social memory of hegemonic influence is borne on the tide of the historical struggle to be rid of that influence.

Various events and statistics highlight the deteriorating global perception of America. Pew Global’s post-9/11 study of ‘110,000 people in 50 countries’ portrays ‘America’s image problem’ as a ‘world-wide … global slide’, with its policies widely perceived as ‘greedy’, ‘violent’, ‘rude’ and ‘immoral’. A study on the perceptions of Fulbright scholars on how the United States was perceived in their home countries revealed a significant critique of American values. The foreign policy of the United States, often expressed in terms of ‘occupation’ rather than ‘influence’, had ‘come under increasing suspicion’ due to its ambiguity over what was ‘right and wrong’. Amnesty International, in 1996, famously claimed that the blame for the various crimes being perpetuated throughout the globe ‘at the hands of governments or armed political groups’ was ‘[m]ore often than not’ shared by America. Closer to home, an article on New Zealand’s perceptions of America by William Ellis highlighted how the post-war perception of America as a ‘saviour’ had been soured by events such as the Vietnam War, clandestine activities in Third World countries, and the War on Terror. As conservative author Dinesh D’Souza has pointed out, the United States is held to a higher moral standard than the rest of the world—hence, its shortcomings are far more prone to criticism. This rejection of foreign influence contributes to a historical remembrance of U.S. hegemony that is preponderantly unkind.

Due to the distorting effects of social memory, the ‘rememberers’ of the present and the future are far more likely to remember America through its failures than its successes. The fundamental aims of nationalism inevitably lead it to propagate a group interpretation of history that negatively portrays any attempts at foreign influence, regardless of whether it is benign or hostile. And since the majority of the history that we are exposed to on a day-to-day basis is that of social memory, it is unavoidable that the majority of popular opinion will be influenced by it. Therefore U.S. hegemony, for all the good it may have done, will NOT be remembered kindly by history.

Matthew Cunningham
VUW Salient

“That US Hegemony Will Be Viewed By History Kindly.”

Considering our New Zealand friends’ proposed topic of debate, it seems implausible that I predict the future on behalf of my publication. Instead, I aim to show that U.S. hegemony ought to be viewed positively by retrospective examiners. Here, I focus on the three most salient policy approaches after 9/11—Iraq, economic well-being, and nuclear weapons proliferation. After examining U.S. policy decisions relative to U.S. inaction, it becomes clear that we should be seen favorably by our future adjudicators. Note well that I seek not to say that the United States pursued optimal policies in every situation, but instead contend that future improvement in security and economic standing is due in large part to U.S. supremacy.

First, consider U.S. involvement in the Middle East. U.S. efforts, most critically in Iraq, have yielded a scenario markedly better than if Iraq had remained a dictatorship. The policy brief by the non-partisan Brookings Institution observes, “The population-protection strategy initiated by Gen. David Petraeus has been a remarkable success on balance.” While not marginalizing the precariousness that current levels of violence impart, the ease with which January’s provincial elections proceeded is surely a positive sign. The New York Times—certainly no fan of the Iraq war—cannot help but acknowledge the U.S.’s positive efforts: “Attacks are at the lowest level since September 2003, falling 70 percent since last March. […]In Iraq today, the Iraqi Army leads the only two significant combat operations under way.” The main mission has instead shifted from combat to stability operations, from “fighting insurgents to rebuilding Iraq’s services, making America’s exit more like a victory than a retreat.” In short, our intervention in Iraq, while results are not yet settled, has made the possibility of a stable democracy significantly more likely and thus gives us U.S. hegemony’s first benefit.

The stabilization of the flagging world economy provides the most compelling evidence of the gains from U.S. hegemony. According to the world’s most-cited economist, Professor Andrei Shleifer, the “extreme leverage in the financial system was the main culprit of the current economic crisis.” While leveraging was certainly a problem in domestic financial institutions, Professor Shleifer notes, “leveraging was even greater in European banks”. As an example of the harms from eschewing the financial conservatism of the U.S. model, Shleifer observes that “France, Russia, Japan, China, and India all suffered larger losses” in their major stock indices than the United States did in the same period. The Associated Press recently furthered this contention, stating, “World stock markets rallied again as confidence remained buoyed by positive U.S. economic data”. Clearly, U.S. economic hegemony has a determinative and indispensable role in the health of the world economy.

Notably, the demonstrated power of U.S. hegemony has also led to the de-nuclearization of previously bellicose states. For example, Muammar Gaddafi, the current head of the African Union, stopped Libya’s weapons program after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It is clear that U.S. hegemony has yielded an improvement relative to the early years of the millennium in which Libya held unsecured nuclear weapons. As a current example of arms reduction, the BBC notes that “Washington and Moscow will sign a new strategic arms treaty by the end of this year,” a positive sign given that past efforts through the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty led to 80 percent of all nuclear weapons in existence in 1991, and the complete removal of all nuclear weapons in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine”, according to the Reuter News Service. With every nuclear weapon dismantled as a result of U.S.-led efforts, global security has correspondingly increased.

Lastly, allow me to place U.S. dominance of world affairs in its proper perspective. Looking to other forums for resolution of conflict, we can see that international efforts, notably in the United Nations, are plagued by deep-seated structural weaknesses. The most recent demonstration of the U.N.’s ineffectiveness was in the Blue Helmets’ inability to take judicious offensive action against rebel groups in the twelve year long Burundi Civil War. The BBC echoes this sentiment, stating, “The United Nations Security Council has explicitly accepted responsibility for failing to prevent the 1994genocide in Rwanda in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed.” Highlighting the failure of the U.N. is not intended to gratuitously discredit international governance, but instead elucidate both the harms of U.S. inaction and the ineffectiveness of alternative methods. While U.S. hegemony does not discount the importance of multinational cooperation in providing foreign aid, the failure of the U.N. shows that there is no other single comparable source of political capital in conflict resolution.

Ultimately, U.S. hegemony has acted as an economically stabilizing force against overleveraged foreign capital, provided for a safer, more demilitarized world, and helped further democratization in a troubled Middle East.

Gregory DiBella
The Harvard Salient

Occasional Salient writer and full-time tango dancer Matthew Cunningham takes on economics, history and politics, laying out the facts so you can make up your own mind about this shithole we’re in. This is the full article which encompasses alternate economic theories. Feel free to engage in debate about what we should be doing.

Were he alive today, Nostradamus would be having a field day. “I told you so, you dicks!” he’d rant in a funky French accent. “The end is nigh! Armageddon approaches! Repent! Repent!” He wouldn’t be alone, either. The economic doomsayers and their torrent of emotionally charged rhetoric on the pending collapse of the global economy would fit right in with the 16th Century prophet. The world is faced with the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s, they say—without quite telling us by what measures they have drawn that damning conclusion.

Whilst I would love nothing more than to rant about the irresponsibility of the media and its “blood and crises sell more papers” mentality, that’s not why I’m writing this article. I am more concerned with the practical question of what we can do about it. The thing is, the myriad of answers to that question are confusing and contradictory. The Righties tell us that we need to cut public expenditure to put more money back into the pockets of consumers and employers; the Lefties say that the state should spend more money to shore up the economy. They’re not the only ones talking; farther from the centre on both sides of the political spectrum, various alternative economic arguments are coming out of the woodwork. All of this information is borne on the tide of popular jargon – liquidity crises, sub-prime mortgages, industry bailouts, revenue-stimulating tax cuts, and all other manner of clever catch-phrases. Who is right? Who is wrong? Is there even a right or wrong solution to a problem like this? I won’t attempt to answer these questions here. What I will do, however, is provide a summary of the economic positions of each of the two main groups (with further reading on Salient.org.nz), varying groups in the hope that it will stimulate some much-needed discussion.

The Right

Individual Liberty

Of all the economic positions out there, it is that of the Right that holds the truest claim to be the standard bearer of capitalism. The Right stands for minimal state intervention in the economy in the belief that the private market is better equipped to handle the complex set of processes and decisions associated with an industrial economy. At the core of this argument lies the concept of efficiency; the decentralised nature of the free market, combined with the higher level of accountability inherent in private financial investment, results in a more organised and effective economy, better able to cope with the dynamic flow of supply and demand. The idea is if everyone is operating in their own interest, the economy will balance itself out in a sort of dynamic equilibrium. Pioneering economists like Adam Smith and David Hume called this the ‘Invisible Hand’ – the economy, they argued, would be able to automatically guide itself via the ‘rational self-interest’ of its patrons. This also facilitates the core Rightist position of individual liberty—do as you will with your money, so long as it doesn’t harm me.

Historically, the economic position of the Right has gone through a number of incarnations. It was solidified at the beginning of the twentieth century with the advent of laissez-faire economics, which resulted in a decade of unprecedented economic prosperity after the First World War. The advent of the Great Depression and the Second World War cast aspersions over the promise of unregulated capitalism, leading to a consensus among Western countries in the value of state intervention that would last until the seventies. That all changed with the champions of the New Right. Economists like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, and politicians like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, challenged the post-war consensus with their belief in deregulation, privatisation and tax reduction. This led to the sale in many Western countries of former state-run enterprises in the fields of telecommunication and electricity.

So what does this all represent to the right? It means if the government advocates a hands-off approach, the private sector will be better able to manage the economy through its innate efficiency. This equates to several key economic positions:

• By limiting state intervention in the economy, a government can afford to reduce taxes. This means, at the end of the day, more money in the pockets of everyday citizens, which in turn allows them greater purchasing power to ‘consume’ goods. This has a positive effect on industry which facilitates economic growth

• By not directly addressing the rich / poor economic divide through state intervention, the government allows the rich to keep more of their money. This is beneficial for the state because, statistically, the rich spend more of their money in areas of the economy that facilitate economic expansion. This includes financial investment in existing businesses as well as the creation of new businesses. Creation of new companies and new jobs means more wealth is being brought into the country, resulting in a bigger financial “pie” for everyone to take their slice from.

• The kinds of essential services most frequently argued as being necessary for state intervention (i.e. healthcare, education, welfare) can be far more efficiently provided by a free market system. State-run enterprises are cumbersome and are not held to the same level of accountability that free market enterprises, by necessity, are. If a free market enterprise is inefficient and loses too much money it goes belly-up; if a state-run enterprise does the same it will continue to operate in this fashion without being affected because its source of capital is drawn from the state coffers. In other words, when the state intervenes, taxpayers are inevitably held accountable to governmental inefficiency.

• Less state involvement in the economy ultimately means more personal freedom for the individual. The individual’s finances are exercised solely in the fields in which he or she chooses, rather than those chosen for them by the state. Furthermore, the lowering of restrictions on trade further enhance the liberty of the individual to spread their resources in whatever manner they see fit. As the old adage goes, “the freer the markets, the freer the people.”

By promoting the core tenet of individual liberty, the economic Right asserts the inherent morality of limiting the role of government solely to law enforcement and the defence of private industry.

The Left

Collective Fairness

The Left contrasts the Rightist definition of liberty by framing it within the context of fairness; if an individual is free to make use of their capital as they please, are they not also free to use it in a manner that leads to the exploitation of others? According to the capitalist concept of self-interest, an individual will always dispense their resources in a fashion that is designed to benefit themselves rather than society. However, without the existence of an independent agent designed to ensure the individual’s resources are not dispensed in a manner that detriments the liberty of others, society as a whole may arguably become less free. If the state meets the requirement of being democratically elected, it holds the most credence to fill the role of this independent agent on behalf of the societal body.

It is the economic mission of the Left to hold the perceived drawbacks of unregulated capitalism to account without actually abolishing the free market and private enterprise. It seeks to safeguard society from exploitation through the regulation of the free market. It also aims to mitigate the unequal distribution of resources inherent to capitalism by ensuring access to services deemed essential to individual survival and dignity, including healthcare, education, and a social safety net in case of unemployment or disability. This all boils down to the question of what is free and what is fair – whilst the two terms may not be mutually exclusive, they can certainly mean different things in different circumstances. The economic position of the Left, then, seeks to bridge the gap between freedom and fairness through the mechanism of the state.

The Left owes much of its history to the advent of socialism. 19th century intellectuals like Karl Marx denounced the capitalist system as exploitative of the working class; capitalism, they claimed, was the logical progression of feudalism, whereby the have-nots in society were being exploited by the new means of industry. However, several socialist and labour movements abandoned the revolutionary line at the beginning of the 20th century, advocating instead a process of worker-oriented reform of the capitalist system. The purpose of this process was to regulate capitalism through state-level practises aimed at fairness and redistribution in the pursuit of social justice. More commonly, this was known as the ‘Third Way’ – a path between capitalism and socialism aimed at producing a mixed economy.

Whilst elements of Leftist economics had been introduced in several countries in the early 20th century, it was only with the onset of the Great Depression that the consensus over laissez-faire capitalism was truly challenged. The position of economist John Keynes epitomised this new approach; his focus on massive public spending to ‘pump-prime’ the private market influenced the New Deal position espoused by President Roosevelt. Keynes’s ideas were almost universally applied in the Western world after the Second World War, leading to the so-called ‘Keynesian consensus’ on state spending that lasted until the late seventies. The current economic situation has led to a resurgence of Keynesian thought, with economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz calling for greater international cooperation to combat the recession.

The key economic positions of the Left can be summed up thusly:

• Whilst capitalism by itself is an efficient generator of wealth, it can lead to exploitation, poverty, and a vast divergence between the rich and the poor when it is not regulated. In the interest of fairness and equality, the state must intervene in the economy where necessary to protect the economic rights of the individual and ensure universal access to essential services. This ensures individual freedom is tempered by the common perception of what is fair.

• Whilst the free market may be beneficial to the consumer in terms of choice and price, public consciousness dictates that in some circumstances the market is inappropriate. Services such as education, healthcare and welfare should be made available from the public purse to all, regardless of their status or income. The division of cost for these services across the entire taxpaying body ensures minimal possible cost for all beneficiaries and ensures a fair redistribution of wealth between rich and poor.

• The provision of public services in the area of education, healthcare and welfare ensures a set standard of service for all individuals regardless of their status or income.

• Public enterprises and services have the potential to be more efficient than private enterprises. This is because they are not driven solely by the profit motive, but rather by the service motive. As there are no shareholders to satisfy nor profit margins to meet, a public organisation need only strive not to exceed its budget in order to be considered efficient.

• Unregulated capitalism is doomed to an endless boom-and-bust cycle without state intervention. The concept of the “Invisible Hand” is flawed due to the fact that individuals with vast reserves of capital are not guaranteed to spend capital in times of crisis. In such circumstances, the guiding hand of the state in rejuvenating industry is essential to greasing the wheels of the capitalist engine. Public intervention in private industry will then cause a run-on effect in growth, profit and employment.

• Economic growth depends on the purchasing power of the consumer – if the consumer has no money to buy goods, industry is starved of growth. Adopting an economic stance that seeks to redistribute wealth to the lower income bracket increases the purchasing power of the working class, thus enabling them to purchase more goods. This facilitates economic expansion – which in turn creates more jobs and enfranchises yet more consumers with money to spend.

In tempering individual liberty with collective fairness, the Left seeks to manage the excesses of unregulated capitalism through state intervention.

Non-Conformist Economics

There are several other theories on economics that do not fall strictly within the left-right capitalist dichotomy. Whilst these theories are generally less mainstream than the dominant economic frames espoused today, they are worth mentioning in the greater context of this discussion. Whilst I have neither the space nor the inclination to discuss EVERY economic theory here, I will mention the key theories proposed as alternatives to capitalism in the last two centuries.

Socialism – Collective Equality

In the 19th Century, a German philosopher and intellectual by the name of Karl Marx looked at the capitalist system around him and saw a fundamental divide between the worker and the employer. The worker, he claimed – or more specifically, his labour – was being exploited by the employer for the purpose of generating profit. This became more pronounced with the advent of finance – the investment of capital in private enterprise by wealthy individuals for the purpose of making a profit off the labour of its employees. Furthermore, the worker had no say in this – high-level business decisions lay in the hands of its financiers, whose sole provision to the company was their money. To Marx, this represented an unfair distribution of the surplus value of the worker’s labour that was akin to slavery. The abolishment of this financial ‘capitalist’ class, and the appropriation of the means of production by the worker, was therefore the goal of what became known as socialism.

It was only with the birth of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin that Marx’s ideas were solidified into a practical economic structure. By basing the political configuration of the Soviet state on a hierarchy of democratic centralist workers’ councils, Lenin claimed that the highest echelons of the state were the physical embodiment of the working class – the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ in practical form. Therefore, central to socialist economics was the vesting of the means of production in the state. What this meant, realistically, was the economic policy of the left taken to its ultimate conclusion – public ownership and management of the entire economic system and the abolishment of the private market.

The common term for this form of socialist economics is a ‘planned’ or ‘command’ economy. The state assumes responsibility for planning and implementing the entire economic process – the rate of production and distribution, the dissemination of funds and wages between industries and individuals, and the direction of industrial policy. Effectively, all economic decisions are made by the state without recourse to the private market. State management will usually take the form of a high-level plan – a set of goals to be achieved by the industry within a set timeframe. According to socialist theory, a planned economy provides a much more equal distribution of resources among the population. Since the state is the embodiment of the working class, it can be relied upon to act in the best interest of the people.

However, the policies of the Soviet Union do not represent the only form of socialist economics. Whilst command economies have been adopted by virtually every socialist government over the last century, there are dissenting views on what truly constitutes the appropriation of the means of production. Recent isolated examples, such as Zanon Ceramics in Argentina, demonstrate how worker-occupied factories can function fairly efficiently despite the collapse of the financial backing behind it. In a broader sense, companies organised on an employee ownership model (such as those that advocate Employee Stock Ownership Plans [ESOPs]) could be considered micro-economic models of socialist economics. Other socialist theorists advocate variants on participatory or binary economic models, which will be discussed separately below.

Corporatism – Collective Cooperation

Typically the preferred economic system of fascist movements, corporatism represents a blending of political and industrial power in the interest of managing the economy. Since fascism was essentially aimed at forming a rigid, totalitarian national unity, corporatism was designed to forge a similar sense of unity and cooperation in economic matters. It involved governing along occupational lines rather than geographical lines; rather than organising a parliament based on representatives from different regions of the state, it envisaged one based on representatives from all key industries of the national economy. Each industry, or corporation, represented a key field of interest in the economy – for example, steel, agriculture, fishing, engineering, woodworking, and textiles. Not a corporation in the usual sense, this system of grouping aimed to map each key area of the economy into a political unit. The reasoning behind this stated that leaders of industry, with representatives from employer, worker, and consumer interests, were far better equipped to manage a modern economy than representatives elected on a geographical franchise. This approach was combined with a focus on autarchy – disconnecting from the global economy and promoting domestic self-sufficiency.

Historically, corporatist economics evolved as a perverted twist on the ‘Third Way’ position espoused by the left. Building on the ideas of syndicalists like Georges Sorel and Alceste De Ambris, and early fascist experiments such as the Charter of Carnaro, individuals such as Benito Mussolini, Giovanni Gentile and Alexander Raven-Thompson gradually evolved the concept of corporatism during the 1920s and 1930s. They rejected the excesses and failures of unregulated capitalism in favour of a state-managed economy directed at serving the best interests of the state. However, they equally rejected socialism, preferring the idea of ‘class collaboration’ over that of the class struggle. Rather than abolish the private market entirely, the corporatist economy sought to regulate and manage it through a political system designed specifically to represent economic interests.

Participatory Economics – Participation by Degree

Participatory economics, or parecon, is the brainchild of political theorist Michael Albert and economist Robin Hahnel. Whilst parecon shares socialism’s opposition to the unfair distribution of resources under the free market, its core purpose is to allow greater participation for all members of society in the economic decision making process. Albert and Hahnel assert that each and every person should have a say in each decision in proportion to the degree the decision affects them. Whilst their theory has never been implemented at a nation-wide level, Albert has experimented with parecon through Z Communications, a media group he co-founded with Lydia Sargent.

To facilitate this process of decision making, parecon advocates the establishment of consumer and producer councils divided on a geographical basis. This horizontal division is supplemented with a vertical division, with neighbourhood, city-wide, state-wide, and nation-wide councils nested above each other in a hierarchy. When an economic decision is proposed – such as the construction of a playground, a bridge, or a highway – all councils that are affected by this proposition are consulted in the decision-making process. Whilst a playground may be solely a neighbourhood issue, building a bridge or a highway may require a wider consultation process at a city or state wide level, respectively.

Binary Economics – Reformed Capitalism

Binary economics, whilst fundamentally supportive of private enterprise and the free market, proposes significant reforms to the banking system and the level of workplace democracy. It is based upon the idea that there are only two factors in an economy that influence production – the labour of the employee and the capital of the investor. Whilst all employees may own their labour, binary economics stresses that the proportion of employees who own significant deposits of capital is far less. It is the goal of binary economics to remedy this imbalance.

Firstly, binary economics seeks to eliminate one of the most common means by which capital is unfairly distributed – the charging of interest on bank loans. It advocates instead the widespread availability of interest-free loans, within appropriate lending criteria, to allow a broader allocation of investment capital to members of society. Secondly, binary economics promotes workplace democracy through employee ownership plans. By providing employees with shares in their company as their career progresses, it is claimed that a greater sense of ownership and dedication is cultivated in the staff. This also serves the purpose of spreading financial capital among the employees rather than a few wealthy shareholders. This is, incidentally, rather popular, with many companies around the world already operating under Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs).

Social Credit – Production / Consumption Alignment

Social Credit was developed by a British engineer named Clifford Hugh Douglas in the first half of the 20th Century. It argues that there is a fundamental disconnect between the wages that an employee is paid versus the cost of the goods that they produce – in other words, the wage of the employee is insufficient to meet the higher cost of the goods they have produced. Asserting that the only purpose of the economy is to provide consumer goods, Douglas claimed that the economy was not providing the consumer with the required spending power to purchase those goods.

Douglas proposed two main reforms to this system – the adjustment of prices to ensure that individuals could consume as much as they produced, and the provision of a National Dividend to redistribute wealth through consumer rebates based upon the rate of consumption versus the rate of production for a particular item. Whilst his ideas were also never adopted at a national level, they became popular with many far right-wing movements during the Great Depression.

Conclusion

With such a vast field of economic theories, it is small wonder there is such dissension over how best to combat the current economic crisis. Here in New Zealand our government seems to advocate an economic policy on the right of the capitalist spectrum (with tax cuts and pro-business legislation). Other nations in Europe and the Americas have injected billions of dollars into the private market to prevent the collapse of major firms. President Obama has already been tipped as the new Franklin D. Roosevelt, proposing vast public works programs to combat unemployment. Is there a new Keynesian consensus and a second ‘Bretton Woods’ type agreement on the horizon?

This article provides you with the economic arguments and various political positions in society so you can engage in rich and well-informed debate. You’ll notice I have not mentioned the advantages or disadvantages of any system. This I leave to you.

So, where do you stand?

On the one hand, I strongly believe that the Left plays a pivotal role in the social and political process. Not only are they a vital counterbalance to the conservative Right, they are also the driving force behind radical social change. Civil rights, the feminist movement, social democracy and the welfare state – these are just some of the many brainchildren of the Left that have profoundly changed the face of our world for the better.

On the other hand, I find myself increasingly disheartened by the shape and direction the Left has taken over the last few decades. The once great intellectuals of Leftist thought have been usurped by virulently vocal protestors who spend more time screeching at authority figures than they do developing genuine suggestions for change. An ideological platform once rich in powerful tools for social justice has degenerated into an endless cycle of marches and flag-waving. The spirit of free choice and constructive argument, once the cornerstone of Leftist thought, has been replaced with a mob mentality masquerading as moral righteousness. Revolutionary ideas have been swept aside by pointless catchphrases and slogans, inappropriate (and often vicious) name calling, and a ‘with us or against us’ attitude that both stifles and condemns debate.

The true spirit of the Left has been thoroughly commandeered. Where once it held a unique and substantial footing in its own right, it is now all too often defined solely in opposition to its opponents. Nowadays, rather than presenting alternative viewpoints, liberal protestors posit themselves as challengers of tyranny and oppression; their opponents, whoever they may be, are cast as ‘Big-Brother’ type overlords with fascistic intentions.

I am aware that this is not always the case, and there are exceptions to any rule; however, a large proportion of the Left is in danger of being reduced to a shadow of its former self.

But this was not always the case. The essence of the Left is not truly represented by the one-track battle-cries of its hijackers, any more than the essence of the Right is monopolised by tinpot dictators or global military voyeurism. At its core, the Left is about the desire for change, equally opposed yet complimentary to a Right that is about preserving the status quo. Traditionally, this has represented itself through the philosophy of promoting the state as a means to affect beneficial change. The Left views government and the nation as a vessel through which social and economic equality can be more efficiently ensured – thus, it aims to increase the power of the state to enable it to do so. The Right, in contrast, seeks to limit the power of the state in the belief that increased personal liberty is the key to equality. The view of the Left as a tool to combat tyranny and dictatorship – a dictatorship inherent in anything not in line with its own message – is quite modern and, in my view, is the very means by which the true message of the Left has been corrupted. By its own hand, the Left is in danger of becoming the very tyranny it now claims to combat.

The extent of the derailing of the Left is most evident when compared to the efforts of its best known thinkers. Martin Luther King, a man of peace and a stalwart champion of civil rights, backed up his passionate rhetoric with a just vision that was heartfelt and practical. Betty Friedan, gender rights campaigner and visionary of second-wave feminism, wrote with an eloquence that awoke a nation of women to the inequalities in their lives and inspired them to achieve much needed change. American Presidents like Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson saw the flaws inherent in unbridled capitalism and sought to restructure the state to combat poverty, unemployment and economic inequality. These renowned personalities wrought a better and more just world through a dignified and pragmatic challenge to the status quo. Moreover, their positions stood as unique and solid in their own right, rather than mere empty railings against their opponents. They defined themselves by what they stood for, and not merely by what they stood against.

And so, I challenge the Left. Do not degrade yourself to a mere caricature. Step beyond the confines of the narrow-minded and take up arms for the social causes that need you. Challenge the lingering cultural inequities that women are faced within the workforce. Challenge the prejudices in society that prevent gay couples from celebrating their love in the same legal fashion as their heterosexual counterparts. Formulate, motivate, aggravate, legislate! Combine passionate ambitions with practical steps and get things done! By doing so, you’ll find that people like me are far more likely to cheer you on rather than dismiss you.

First off, it should be noted that this is not an entirely new phenomenon. America’s honeymoon of popularity started to wane during the 1960s, when the glamorous images of Hollywood were replaced with the more sobering scenes from Vietnam. Suddenly America, the global benefactor, promoter of capitalism and bane of totalitarianism, was touted as a materialistic and imperialist superpower by a generation of disenfranchised students and workers. Were they wrong? Of course not. Freedom of speech has the unavoidable side-effect of allowing the Vietnams and the Iraqs to slip into the cultural tributary right alongside the Friedans and the Luther Kings. But, then and now, those who stood in the vanguard of anti-Americanism had one major blindspot – they latched on to the bad and neglected the good. The very same consumerist lifestyle that they criticised for being materialistic had in fact provided the stage from which to protest, and the democratic notions they sought to challenge had allowed them the right to do so.

The first decade of the 21st century sees us faced with a number of parallels to the 1960s: an unpopular president and an equally unpopular war, a global economic downturn, and the rise of buzz phrases like ‘regime change’ and ‘weapons of mass destruction’. The main difference now is that America has inherited the title of sole world superpower. The haunting spectre of the Soviet Union is no longer available as a tool for ideological justification, and terrorism, such as it is, cannot come close to taking its place. The disheartened and the dismayed have nowhere left to aim their protests but to the only remaining world power, especially when said world power has had an economic and cultural influence on almost every country in the world. And, given the current events at our disposal for forming an opinion – the Iraq War, the looming oil crisis, and the human punch-line that is George W. Bush – it is easy to see how so many have decided upon the path of anti-Americanism. But, as with their counterparts in the 1960s, I suggest looking beyond the boundaries of the contemporary situation when evaluating the influence of the United States.

What about the post-World War security that American influence facilitated? Europe, the cradle of crisis and conflict since Roman times, is now more closely knit than the homemade scarf your Grandma gives you every Christmas. What about the economic benefits? Despite its shortcomings, capitalism has done more for raising living standards, increasing the average lifespan, decreasing the income gap between rich and poor, decreasing child mortality, and improving the quality of life than any other economic system in the history of civilisation. What about the umbrella of protection that American military might has bought us? The Cold War may have brought out the worst qualities of both sides of the Iron Curtain, but I am eternally grateful to live in a country that was nursed by American democracy rather than Soviet authoritarianism. Yes, America might not be perfect, but it is certainly not the root of all evil that it gets portrayed as. Those who choose to think otherwise would be prudent to remember that their very right to protest was bought with American values of freedom of speech, thought, and action. If you don’t believe me, talk to a citizen from East Berlin, or ask a veteran of the Hungary Uprising or the Prague Spring. The problem is, the multitude of positive benefits that American influence has wrought are so commonplace and subtle that they go unnoticed behind the screen of more damning historical events.

So why is America-bashing so popular? Perhaps it is merely a by-product of left wing intellectualism. One of the first things we get exposed to when we start to broaden our intellectual horizons is the sense that our world is not all that it is cracked up to be. This is easily mistaken by many as a light-bulb moment of truth – a step into the world of ‘us, the enlightened few’, a liberal cadre who ‘see the world and all its injustices for what they truly are’. This kind of liberal elitism is impractical and dangerous. It paints a biased picture of the world that is in gross need of a reality check.

It is all too easy to jump on the anti-American bandwagon in the belief that you have seen or understood something that nobody else has. But before you do, take a pragmatic step back from the situation. Think about all of the wonders of the modern world that we enjoy and all too often take for granted. Yes, America’s track record is far from perfect, but you don’t have to pledge allegiance to the flag to be bloody thankful that it is there.