Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Doesn't the 1999 law allow the same outcome as the Bill's proponents want?
No. At present, for example, it doesn't allow me to study at Victoria University while choosing not to be a member of VUWSA.
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Graeme, I understand the matter of principle that you have outlined clearly as always, but the equivalence doesn't stand.
I really wasn't trying for equivalence.
As I noted in my other piece, I've been thinking about posting this for some while. I've a word document on my desktop with a bunch of half-commenced blog posts in it, with various kernels of ideas floating in there - half a thought here, a nice phrase here. The drawing of the bill from the ballot gave me the impetus to finish this one.
The idea that we're now fighting over small potatoes (compared to say, equal pay for women) as evidence of the advance of society, rather than the decline of activism, was a thought that came to me maybe six months ago in an on-line discussion (I think here). It's been in my word document ever since. The idea that students in particular aren't activist anymore isn't new; and I think the argument that this might in part be because the big fights that might affect them are over is an intriguingly different take on the matter. We're not going to have conscription again, or another apartheid tour; and the Equal Pay Act isn't going anywhere. etc. etc.
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Motoring offences *are* criminal offences, like all others.
Speeding is illegal. Speeding is an offence. But it is not a crime. The definition of "crime" in the Crimes Act makes quite clear that this is not that case.
Our law has a basic hierarchy - infringement offences, summary offences, and indictable offences/crimes. There is some overlap - infringement offences can sometimes be laid treated as summary offences, summary offences can sometimes be treated as indictable offences etc. But speeding is not a crime.
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I would like to see a serious argument that deals with the fact that universities are fundamentally associations & all the arguments against CSM also apply to universities full stop.
At it's most basic the argument is:
I want to be a member of Victoria University, why should I be forced to be a member of the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association?
This argument doesn't apply in reverse.
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If you didn't vote, then you indicated a desire to go along with the majority views of those that did.
It might also indicate that you were 8, and wouldn't attend the university in question for 10 years.
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Students have the choice of attending an institution that doesn't include such membership in the package
Unless they go to one, which then changes to compulsory - like Waikato did, and Auckland has (twice?) tried to.
Having a student association as part of the "package" of higher education offered by some universities is no different to this.
The fact that there's a law which mandates it is a pretty big difference for me. If they try to pass a law which requires newspapers to be NACT pamphlets we can fight it together.
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That seems a strangely weak argument from a lawyer. I thought you might have pointed to precedent or common law. Instead, you're telling me that it's the vibe?
No. Merely that it was a side-point I didn't particularly feel like delving into in great depth.
So I obviously have no legal training, but umm, isn't that covered in the bit where it says "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and to hold opinions without interference"
It is. But notice how it doesn't say "... the right to adopt or not adopt, or to hold or not hold opinions without interference"? My point was that that doesn't matter. You still have those rights, even though the Bill of Rights doesn't expressly say so.
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Would this argument still apply if SAs were apolitical?
And why should public institutions have more or less obligation with regards to the Bill of Rights?
The Bill of Rights only affects public institutions. Or rather, bodies exercising public powers. If you don't fit the following, the Bill of Rights doesn't restrict you.
3 Application
This Bill of Rights applies only to acts done—
(a) By the legislative, executive, or judicial branches of the government of New Zealand; or
(b) By any person or body in the performance of any public function, power, or duty conferred or imposed on that person or body by or pursuant to law.Yes. The argument would still apply if students' associations were apolitical and non-political. It's freedom of association with which I'm primarily concerned. This applies across political and apolitical groupings.
I'm still trying to locate the point of contention here. So, is your beef not with the tyranny of the majority within the student body, or the fact that an institution makes membership of an organisation a prerequisite, but that the institution has a state mandate to do so?
It hasn't really got too much to do with the institution. VUW hasn't made membership of VUWSA a prerequisite to study.
1. We have the right to freedom of association. This is a right recognised in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and which that act recognises may only be reasonably limited to the extent that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
2. Parliament passed a law empowering students in 1999 to decide whether they and future students should be compulsorily made members. That law (or the one passed in 2000 by the then Labour government) allows periodic exercises of that power if enough students ask for it.
3. Without that law students would have be able to join together and force other people to belong to their students association. I right other organisations do not possess (some - like trades unions until the 1980s? - used to have similar powers)
I object to that law. To be able to force people to do something (come with you when they're arrested, stay in prison when convicted, join a students' association) you need a power. That power is found in a law. In this case it is a few sections of the Education Act 1989.
I see no reason why a large organisation called the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association shouldn't be at the forefront.
I do. (Swear to god, not just being argumentative for the hell of it.) If they are created through legislation for a specific purpose, and funding is levied for a specific purpose, then it can't fuck around and do something else.
It's not created specially through legislation for a special purpose. It was created by a bunch of students for whatever purpose they want to give it. It's existence is recognised in legislation that gives them certain powers (in my opinion, unjustifiably so).
The HRA section 3 objections only apply if SAs are political. If SAs are bound by their constitutions to be apolitical, nobody is losing their political rights. No more than members of charities have their right to make a profit removed.
Section 3 of the Human Rights Act reads "this Act shall bind the Crown". Also, this isn't (primarily) about political rights, but rights of association - the same right that means the government shouldn't pass laws to allow people to stop you from joining (or force you to join) a trade union, an Automobile Association or a book club.
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placing student association membership as the last stake in a line of human rights battles was a rhetorical device crying out for a tart response.
That was the exact (well maybe not exact) opposite of my intention.
This wasn't the last in a long line of human rights battles. The last was some time ago. This was one of little things left over after human rights were triumphant.
In unrelated news, I'm interested that the New Zealand Bill of Rights it simply says "Everyone has the right to freedom of association". In some expositions of freedom of association, it is simply that a person is not limited with whom they associate with; in others there is also a freedom to not associate. Given that the Bill of Rights is entirely silent on that, where is the source of the freedom to not associate?
It just really goes without saying. Not least because this is a pretty dangerous argument; not least because the Bill of Rights also doesn't explicitly recognise a right to freedom from religion. Trust me. We have that too.
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Craig - students associations have a long history in New Zealand in assisting with the provision of university infrastructure. The Student Union Building at VUW was purchased with funds raised over many years by students, as was the gymnasium ('though that has a longer history - going back to the early years of Victoria College...).