Voluntary Student Union Membership on the Cards

Had my second TV interview on Monday. The first was with TV3 just prior to election '08, about Jacket-gate. TV3's reporter, Sia Aston covered the issue of voluntary student union membership today, with Roger Douglas's reform bill set to go to its first reading with Government support on Wednesday. She googled "compulsory + student + union", clicked through to my article about the corruption at VUSA, followed it through to my Facebook page and messaged me, asking for an interview.

The interview went well, however Sia took just one of my comments, focusing instead on a confused NZUSA rep, and UCSA president Steve Jukes verbosely defending the current fascist structure of student politics. While I acknowledge that many student associations and their respective execs, (my own at Canterbury included), do a great deal of work on behalf of students, it is clear that there is an unacceptable level of corruption going on, among a list of other undesirable outcomes of having compulsory unions. As I said to the reporter Lachlan,

"Look at the UCSA for example. At the recent student union elections candidates were called upont to submit a photo and a summary of what they stood for, for the student mag CANTA. One candidate didn't even submit anything but still got elected onto the exec. Or the AGM which took place shortly before the election, CANTA advertised "Free hamburgers, sausage sizzle and $5 jugs of beer" for those who attended the meeting. It was held in the casual setting of an outdoor amphitheatre, adjacent to the student pub, with a quorum of 200 students from a student membership of over 15,000. And no surprises as to what was on the agenda: a move to increase the salaries of those on the exec, with the president on well over $40,000 pa. - money taken forcefully from thousands of other students who probably didn't even know this was going on."

I will say more about the University of Canterbury Students Association in the future, but the above is a sumamry to give you an idea of why I and so many others throughout New Zealand are glad to see the VSM bill before Parliament, and to see the all-too-often anti-democratic National government pledging to support the bill to it's first reading and the select committee process.

Essay Writing

Click here to read the accompanying How to Prepare for an Exam guide.

Smacking Democracy

Wrote this article for CANTA, the student magazine of the University of Canterbury Student’s Association.

We’ve all heard about it and we’re all sick to death with it. The smacking referendum. The Electoral Office will have posted us all a voting form on 31 July, and we’ll have 3 weeks to fill it out and post it back to them. The $10 million dollar question being asked is, “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand”, and not surprisingly there will be two cute little tick boxes next to the question: Yes or No.

Why are we going through this whole rigmarole of having a referendum about smacking? In 2004, Sue Bradford’s bill to amend Section 59 of the Crimes Act was drawn from the ballot. She referred to it as her “Anti-Smacking Bill”. Thing is, the law doesn’t just ban smacking - it bans any use of reasonable force when parents or caregivers need to correct their children. And yes, that includes placing your children in time-out when they’ve been naughty. However unsurprisingly, polling since 2005 has indicated with incredible consistency that 82% of Kiwis think that Bradford’s bill should never have been passed. (check out voteno.org.nz/polls.htm) Heck, I have personally spoken to several thousand Kiwis while I was collecting signatures on the petition for the referendum. A few people were absolutely disgusted at the concept of a “loving smack” - one anti-smacking advocate got so wound up that he “smacked” myself and an elderly woman who stood at the table signing the petition. The irony was lost on him.

An overwhelming majority of the people I spoke to told me that they would never beat up their children - but that an occasional smack to reinforce that they had disobeyed really seemed to work well. I was surprised at the number of children and teens who came up asking to sign, annoyed when they were told that only people 18yrs and older could put their name to the petition. For the most part, the mainstream media in New Zealand has ignored this groundswell of opposition to the law - preferring instead to espouse the same tired old drivel that we’re hearing from Parliament and branches of the bureaucracy.

The new law criminalises all parents who use a smack to correct their children from time to time. “Yes, but they won’t be prosecuted - all the new law does is to remove a defence under which parents were getting away with beating their children with blocks of wood and horse-whips to within an inch of their lives,” say Sue Bradford the Yes Vote lobby. It’s all smoke and mirrors. It is correct that at this stage few parents will be prosecuted for giving a corrective smack. However parents will still be criminalised for smacking - what are the kids going to think? Mummy’s giving me a smack for stealing money from her purse - but my school-teacher told me smacking is illegal. The law-change was purported to ensure that the defence of smacking was not able to be used when parents abused their children. However in the entire history of the law there were only 7 or 8 cases in which the jury reached a perhaps less than satisfactory decision.

But the question’s loaded - it’s a leading question! John Key and Phil Goff can’t understand it and so have said that they won’t bother voting. Over the past few weeks reporters have been churning out articles faster than you can read them, explaining why the referendum question is hopeless and completely destroys the credibility and effectiveness of the whole process. They have intentionally sought to shift the debate from the real issue - parental authority, to a side-issue: the wording of the referendum question. However when mother of two, Sheryl Savill submitted her petition question to the Clerk of Parliament it was put to the public for a month, to get feedback on the wording of the question. The question originally read “Should a smack within the context of positive parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”. The Ministry of Justice among others contacted the Clerk raising various issues with the question.

After this process, the Clerk - who has the reputation of being the most balanced and respectable clerk’s in the history of New Zealand Parliament, approved the final version of the question; “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”. When proponents of the new law claim that the question presupposes that smacking is, by definition, a part of good parenting, they are applying preschooler logic to the issue. I tell you what, the 390,000 Kiwis who signed the petition didn’t have any trouble reading the question. It is pathetic that I should have to explain this, but the correct way to understand the question is as follows. Should a corrective smack that is administered as a part of good parenting be illegal? And in other words, should decent parents who love their kids and want what’s best for them be criminalised for giving their child a smack for the purpose of correction?

“Save the country $10m, withdraw the referendum, give the money to victims of abuse” bleat the anti-smacking brigade. Of course the thing they conveniently forget is exactly who is responsible for this huge cost being imposed on the hardworking taxpayers. It is a convention of Parliament that when a petition has been successful, the referendum should take place within one year, and usually at the general election - estimated to cost around $2m. Helen Clark decided that the referendum would not be held at the election though, as it would be extremely detrimental to her party as well as making smacking a key election issue. Just recently, Savill made a statement in which she offered to withdraw her petition for a referendum if the Government would amend the anti-smacking law so that it better reflected the will of the people of New Zealand. This offer was not accepted.

Don’t be fooled. Voting yes will do nothing that will even remotely help lower New Zealand’s deplorably high child abuse statistics. Voting no will send John a clear message that we’re not going to stand for Nanny State. Let’s get this confounded referendum out of the way and then roll up our sleeves and put our effort into initiatives that will drive a stake into the heart of child abuse.

Spotlight on NZ Abortion Law

I had an article published in the 18/May edition of CANTA, the magazine of the University of Canterbury Students' Association. It was entitled NZ Abortion Law Under the Spotlight, and not surprisingly has received some interest from other students.

On 15 December 1977, the National Government passed the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Bill into law. The long title of the Act mentions that it was enacted “to provide for the circumstances and procedures under which abortions may be authorised after having full regard to the rights of the unborn child.” 

This was designed to ban abortions in all but the most extreme cases. It established the Abortion Supervisory Committee (ASC), and laid out the grounds on which an abortion could legally be performed. The ASC selects a number of certifying consultants who assess women seeking to have an abortion. Two of these certifying consultants must then establish that the woman’s life or her physical or mental health is in serious danger before an abortion may proceed.

In 2007, 98.7% of the 18,382 certified abortions performed in New Zealand were approved on the grounds of the mental health of the mother being at risk. The vast majority of this figure actually represents “convenience-abortions”, since the mother’s health was not sufficiently endangered as to warrant an abortion under the law.

Indeed the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977, Section 37 (2) states that an abortion is only justified if it “is immediately necessary to save the life of the patient or to prevent serious permanent injury to her physical or mental health”. The Crimes Act 1961, Section 182 (2) also states that the only exception where an abortion is justified is if it is “in good faith for the preservation of the life of the mother”.

In New Zealand, the number of pregnancies presenting a serious threat to the mother is under 1%. With approximately 78,000 known pregnancies in 2007, you would expect the number of abortions to have been around 780. Why then, were there over 18,000 abortions performed?

Click here to read the rest of the article. Because the outcome of the Court of Appeal case was so unexpected, the article had to be altered at the last minute, however the version that made it into CANTA was not the most recent one, and requires the following correction:

However in an unexpected turn of events, the Court of Appeal dismissed the case on Tuesday, determining that the original case should be re-heard in the High Court, saying the case was outside its jurisdiction. This will probably take place some time next year.

should be...

However in an unexpected turn of events, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of the ASC on Tuesday, saying the case was outside its jurisdiction. Right to Life and the ASC will return to the High Court at an early date, where they will seek to clarify the declaratory orders of Justice Miller. The original ruling by Justice Miller still stands, and the case will not need to be re-heard.

500th Post

not going to make too much of a big deal about it...

A mate sent through a chain email full of pictures, and this was one of them...

Have been giving anarchism a bit of thought lately, and also just submitted an essay which discusses the advantages of anarchism. I thought I'd may as well share a bit of that...

The most prevalent form of anarchism today is social anarchism, an ideology which calls for the removal of the state and rejects the concept of private property. Social anarchists hold that “property is theft” (Proudhon, 1970, p.12) and that the only people entitled to own land are the workers who “create wealth” on that land. This is a poorly-thought-out principle though, as it fails to account for the land-owner who facilitates this creation of wealth and the fact that the workers themselves have voluntarily entered into a contract with the land-owner. Anarcho-syndicalism is one road down which social anarchists hope to travel in order to reach their utopia. It hopes to overthrow the bourgeoisie through a number of different actions taken by massive worker’s unions. Stirner discredits this position with his teaching that though people are equal, their possessions need not be. In ‘The Ego and Its Own’ which he wrote in 1845, Stirner states “But, even if the persons have become equal, yet their possessions have not” (Stirner, 1845, pp.152-163). Social anarchism is a corruption of anarchism in its purest sense as it attempts to lay out a social structure which individuals must fit into, thus undermining the concept of anarchism. Therefore this paper will focus instead on individualist anarchism...

The inevitable question arises: in an anarchical state, what eventuates when there is a clash due to the choices made by two parties? Stirner taught that all individuals are faced with two options in such a situation. “The combat of self-assertion is unavoidable… The victor becomes the lord, the vanquished one the subject: the former exercises supremacy and ‘rights of supremacy,’ the latter fulfils in awe and deference the "duties of a subject." (Stirner, 1845, pp.9-17). This understanding of individualist anarchism holds that no-one is answerable to anyone-else and at the end of the day it comes down to one’s ability to defend one’s self. Casting aside Mill’s harm principle, Stirner ignored anything or anyone outside of himself, claiming “If it is right for me, it is right.” He went on to explain, “my freedom is diminished even by my not being able to carry out my will on another” (Stirner, 1845, pp.203-225). Primitive as this may seem, it is not only the purest strain of anarchism; it is also the ultimate definition of freedom. By refusing to acknowledge the rights of others, or to accept a responsibility to value the rights of others, Stirner adopted a consistent and rational position, not only with himself at the center of the universe, but rather, as all that ever mattered. “Let me then likewise concern myself for myself, who am equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the only one (Stirner, 1845, pp.3-7)...

Max Stirner... his book "The Ego and Its Own" is weird, otherworldy... I'm not sure that he was all there. Anyway, click here to read the rest of the essay if you like.

Victoria University Student's Assn. a Disgrace

The Victoria University of Wellington Student's Association (VUWSA) has arrogantly presumed to misrepresent its constituents in a libellous attack on the brave soldiers who died for our freedom during WWI, WWII and other wars to date. The VUWSA executive was invited by the Wellington City Council to lay a wreath on the war memorial at the dawn service on ANZAC Day. However "president Jasmine Freemantle [responded that] there was no 'official mandate from students' to recognise Anzac Day." - Stuff 28/04/09

The union's student magazine emergency toilet-paper reserve Salient stated that "Some on the executive said that to lay a wreath would be to condone war." Former student Peter responded, asking if anyone could possibly be so thick as to say that ANZAC Day was pro-war. (quotes from Stuff)

VUWSA president Jasmine Freemantle is pushing her barrow over the members of the union which she is paid to represent (aprox $30,000 pa), ignoring the fact that the majority of them respect their fallen forefathers and desire to honour them on ANZAC Day. This from the VUWSA website,

Jasmine is a member of the Workers’ Party of New Zealand, and has also been involved in a variety of campaigns and movements, such as the anti-war movement and volunteer organising for Unite Union. - VUWSA website

One of the worst things about this shameful fiasco is that students at Victoria University of Wellington have no choice but to become members of the student's association. They are unable to attend university unless they join the union. As such, they are implicated in the disrespectful attitude of their executive, whether they want it or not. Just by the way, the VUWSA is forecasting an income of $1,560,000 from student memberships alone in the 2009 budget.

Student union membership must be made optional; anything less is totalitarian and unjust. Arguments claiming that lack of compulsory membership will lead to lack of representation are frivolous, as individuals should have the right to choose whether or not they wish to be represented at all.

ACT on Campus has been demanding voluntary student union membership for many years now - and this latest display of the injustice of compulsory membership should serve as ample evidence to the Minister of Education, Anne Tolley that it is time to repeal this fatal flaw in student politics.

Chauvel and Goff

In our New Zealand Politics paper today, we were privileged to be delivered a lecture by the (token) leader of the Opposition, The honourable Phil Goff. Also in attendance were Phil's office-lady, an ecstatic looking Brendan Burns (Tim Barnett's replacement as MP for Waimakarari), and the ever-uninspiring back-bencher list MP, Charles Chauvel.

Chauvel, Burns, office-lady

Phil's lecture was informative as he explained to us his experience of being in Parliament as well as answering a few questions regarding Labour, the 2008 election, and the general workings of Parliament. His three colleagues sat and listened to their leader, with Chauvel popping up at one stage to pass Phil a note telling him that "he had 10 minutes left". Phil read the note out loud and we all laughed; Chauvel and Brendan exchanged a few whispered, seemingly humourous comments - as MPs do when they're nervous or confused.

David Garret (ACT's Law and Order man) told me that Burns is a remarkably nice man to work with in Parliament - so despite his FAIL billboard and my run-in with him on abortion at a public forum, I haven't got too much against him; he sat bolt upright, switched on throughout the entire ordeal.

Chauvel on the other hand was his usual, arrogant self. While the other guests left their cellphones in their pockets, and their briefcases stacked near the wall, backbencher Chauvel obviously felt compelled to make the most of the indespensible 50 minute slot to get some work out of the way. He looked at - or used his cellphone several times throughout the lecture, as well as shuffling through various files from his bag, making notes here and there; catching up on office work while supposedly engaging in a teaching/campaigning opportunity with a room full of bright young, future politicians. The paper shuffling and sorting went on for well over half the lecture. Brendan, the office-lady and our lecturer shot the occasional concerned glance in Chauvel's direction but he didn't appear to catch on. Simply reinforce for me the fact that he's a drain on the tax-payer and we'd be better off not having people like him in Parliament. (Click here to see some of his speeches)

Some students asked ridiculous questions such as "I really want to enter Parliament, but I'm concerned about corruption...", or "What is the favourite part of your job as leader of the Opposition"... However, one or two asked a decent question, for instance, why had Labour passed the Electoral Finance Bill, and then been happy to vote for it's repeal once National was in power. "Oh... we knew it wasn't perfect when we passed it... we want to discuss a new approach with National..." (not verbatim) was the weak response.

Phil's done twenty-five years in Parliament now - 15 years in government, and he's currently in his 10th year of opposition. I wonder if he's got it in him to lead the Labour party to the '11 election.

Update

A scene from my favourite movie.  Here's some more great screenshots. From today until Wednesday we hope to run a table at the clubs days on campus at Canterbury University for our new Prolife group .  We're doing a free raffle, and naturally, the prize is a brand new DVD of the movie Bella!

Arts

Huh, I've finally got around to applying for my courses this year at University. I've made the seismic shift from going for a Bachelor of Commerce, to a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Political Science and Mass Communications.  I was happy that they let me transfer across everything I'd done in Commerce into the Arts degree, as that means I can start on my 200 level papers next semester (mid 2009).

Right, now off to the pig farm for my last week of work there.  Last week we had weaning on the Thursday, which was pretty epic.  This week we're doing A.I. Yay.  I've got some cool pictures on my phone from last week, but I haven't got my bluetooth connection set up, so will hopefully pop some on the blog sometime next week.

Ok, I know it's not Christmas, but anyway...

Don't Delay for a Minute

Ah, good to be back blogging again.  Had my last exam at the cruel hour of 9:30am this morning, so good to get that out of the way - just in time to catch the tail end of the election campaign...


Sometimes Cry
by Poor Old Lu

don't delay for a minute
cause if you do i'll know you're too far into it
i mean the world around us
the world around

to keep your head above water
to be humble amidst tears and laughter
sometimes we need to hide
sometimes cry

run away
far away
to Yahweh
He's my hideaway

*star-studded-super-step*
yeah, you've turned around again
well i can feel it inside
in His side

and i'll tell you what He sees
but first i must fall down on my own knees
let me hold your hand
holding our hands

i need to lower my head
i don't know if i can
i've been so lost
i don't know if i can
i really have to fall
i don't know if i can
i'll say it again
i don't know if i can

and now we're losing time
no, we can't say we never got a sign
the love is all around us
and it surrounds us.

That's one of my favourite songs by Poor Old Lu.

enjoying some fish and chips before they make them illegal.

Well, they've said that Rodney's yellow jacket is probably breaking the law.  But Rodney's going to ignore them, and heck, good on him.  Not sure if our new Act on Campus t-shirts are breaking the law, but we don't care either.  Nanny state is moving back to China on Saturday, to be followed shortly thereafter by her hideous spawn, the Electoral Finance Act.  A National/ACT government will also ensure that we dump the economy-destroying Emissions Trading Scheme - which they quizzed us on in the exam earlier today.

Higher Education

Just after 7am and I was walking from Uni down the road a kilometre or so to the bakery where I used to work to score some brekkie. Just next to the bus-stop I saw a smashed windscreen and some bits and pieces of broken car on the shoulder of the road right in the driveway entrance to Uni Halls of Residence.

Coming around the corner I spotted the vehicle that was missing it's windscreen - and all the rest of it's windows.

As I stood by the car taking photos, a bus approached, slowed down and opened it's doors. "Are you ok?" came the voice of the lady bus-driver as she drove past. All I could do was laugh convulsively and yell back "it's not mine!".

If the young fools have to destroy a car, why can't they go and do it in their back yard, instead of leaving it out on the street?

Yeah... come to University for a higher education, where you can be truly inspired to new heights, and mix with other academically minded young people such as yourselves. And you can get drunk every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and get up to mischief with "the lads".

How To Prepare for an Exam

1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well-lighted place with a computer in front of you.
2. Open your web browser of choice.
3. Check your emails. Reply to any that need attention.
4. Check out what's happening on Facebook. Write on some friends walls and accept an invitation to a group.
5. Check your blog reader.
6. Write a post on your blog responding to a blog-post you just read.
7. Pull the bottle of water out of your backpack and begin to wish that you had some energy drink.
8. Start planning a trip down to the cafeteria to buy some energy drink.
9. Decide to make a good start on your exam preperation before you treat yourself with such a treat.
10. Open your text-book.
11. Open your excercise book.
12. Write the date at the top of the page and then look for the ruler to underline it so it looks neat.
13. Use the text-book as a ruler because you left your ruler at home, propping up a little tomato-plant you're trying to grow.
14. Yawn.
15. Check your emails again.
16. Check your blog reader again.
17. Check to see if anyone has txted you.
18. Txt some friends to see if they want to catch up and eat some wedges with sour-cream later.
19. Look out the window and feel sorry for yourself, stuck inside studying on such a wonderful day.
20. Examine your fingernails.
21. Massage your knee-caps because your legs are feeling stiff.
22. Go fill up the water-bottle in the toilets.
23. Sit back down at the desk, ready to study again.
24. Quickly check emails and blog-reader again.
25. Reply to an urgent email.
26. Flick through the text-book, muttering short meaningless prhases to yourself.
27. Rest your head in your hands and groan.
28. Find a PDF of the exam from last year on the University's website and download it.
29. Question one... Huh, you haven't come across that concept before.
30. Bring up Wikipedia and search for some info about the concept.
31. Just quickly check your emails again while that page is loading.
32. Bring up the default University homepage on the screen so nobody comes along and reads your emails, and then get out of your nice comfy (sweaty) chair, slip your jandals back on and then head down to the cafeteria to buy a bottle of energy drink. Because you're worth it...

To heck with study. Look, what I've figured out is, the way to do really well at exams is just to make sure you get plenty of sleep (during the day), and also watch thought-provoking movies which may trigger your subconcious to start thinking about the things you learned? in the lectures. Your learning process should be natural and integrated into your everyday life. If your brain wants to turn to thoughts of study, then that is the ideal time for the concepts and ideas to be really solidified in your mind. Turn up at your exam without having done any preperation, and you will find that your style will be more natural, and not forced as if you have just been studying all day for it. Take a blimmin bottle of energy drink in with you, and it will help you remember things that you never even learned.