Comments on: Oh dear what can the matter be…

By: Matthew_Cunningham

Matthew_Cunningham — Wed, 26 May 2010 02:29:50 +0000

I should add, for the writer of the article, that I found the rest of it quite informative.

Cheers,
Matt.

By: Matthew_Cunningham

Matthew_Cunningham — Wed, 26 May 2010 02:12:58 +0000

Alpha / mcswine: Whether you agree with VSM or not, it’s pretty clear that portions of this article are biased against it.

The first paragraph likens it to a “pungent odour … [s]tinking up the future of student politics”.

The second paragraph likens it to “forc[ing] students to choose”, which is an oxymoron. “Force” implies coercing an individual to do something against their will; “choice” implies allowing an individual to decide between two or more options. You might counter that VSM “forces” the individual to actually sit down and choose between joining or not joining a students’ association, but this is not the case when the default option of not joining does not require any action from the individual.

The third paragraph asserts that an individual can opt-out of a students’ association “if they have ideological objections”. This is not entirely true. The current legislation only allows membership exemption in cases of “conscientious objection”. The validity of an individual’s claim to such an objection – and whether or not ideological grounds count as such – is determined by the students’ association itself. In VUWSA’s case, this is done by emailing your conscientious objection to the President. If your objection is accepted, the legislation mandates that the association donate your fee “to a charity of its choice” (although the VUWSA website does state that they will donate it to a charity of the individual’s choice).

As I said, you can agree or disagree with VSM as much as you want – but let’s call a spade a spade here.

Cheers,
Matt.

By: mcswine

mcswine — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:25:34 +0000

awful spelling Peter

By: Angela Mabey

Angela Mabey — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:10:21 +0000

For missmarty, VUWSA fees this year are $139.20.
The difference in fees between UofA and Vic will be due to the fees being set by Uni Councils, not because of being a member of a Student Association.

By: Alpha

Alpha — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:36:12 +0000

Gotta hand this one to Milky – a forced choice makes no sense. It’s a terrible way of describing VSM.

I much prefer ‘piece of shit’.

By: missmarty

missmarty — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:32:47 +0000

It should be voluntary. And free. I spent my first year at Auckland University, and my fees there were much lower, simply due to the fact that I didn’t have to pay to be in the student union.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Mon, 24 May 2010 00:30:35 +0000

Meanwhile Max Hardy fails for the third time to fulfil the one weekly act which allows him to touch base with the members he purports to represent.

I noticed Trevor Mallard said VUWSA did a good job in their submission on this Bill… ha! VUWSA only does a good job when its life depends on it – now that sounds like an argument for VSM!

By: peteremcc

peteremcc — Sun, 23 May 2010 22:41:14 +0000

Aweful article.

“lingering, pungent odour, stinking up student politics”?

Wow that isn’t biased!

And gotta love the political contortion of calling VSM “forced choice”!

Is that like how the nasty university FORCES students to choose what papers they want to take?