News

This week’s meeting went on for nearly three hours, but the presence of the 2015 Executive made for a little more excitement than usual.

2015 OUSA President-elect Paul Hunt held the chair for this meeting to give him some experience as the incoming top dog. The Executive also welcomed the new International Officer, Eric Lim.

Welfare Officer Payal Ramritu says that Women’s Week went “awesome” and is working on trying to communicate with Student Health regarding the recent addition of a $10 fee to students.

Colleges Officer Jess McLean said she has received emails from students complaining that they are being kicked out of the halls 24 hours after their last exam even though they are paying for the full year. After meeting with the Accommodation Services Manager, Jess said the fees are actually for the “academic period,” which is until a student’s last exam and “they don’t wanna change it.”

Finance Officer Paul Hunt has been promoting the DCC submissions and the online petition, as the “online [petition] was a lot more successful than the physical copy and the door knocking.” He believes he has over 2,000 signatures now.
The Executive, after some fascinating discussion in committee of the whole, passed a motion to install a new accounting system to a value “not greater than $38,000.”

Admin VP Ryan Edgar declared the breach of internal policy recently made by OUSA, “we gave 3.5 days of notice before the budget instead of five. It doesn’t cause any issues but this needs to be noted.” He also said there would be another round of referendum questions coming up because OUSA did not ask students what they wanted to include in the questions for the referendum at the start of this year. He said people tend to respond to referendums better over exam period anyway, “that’s why all these Facebook pages appear over exam time, because people are finding ways to procrastinate.” Critic notes the double meaning following his “media shitstorm that has not been included in my 20 hours of work,” referring to the recent discussions over the “Rack Appreciation Society” page.

Paul also addressed the issue of how future Executive nominations are run: “we need some serious consideration as to how people are nominated.” He says, “With the exception of last year, there is an exceptionally low voter turnout and no competition for positions.” He asked the Executive to start thinking how future campaigns could be improved, with some excellent suggestions of his own including providing live updates on who has been nominated online, as “then you can see where there’s a lack of competition.”

OUSA General Manager Darel Hall presented the latest Health and Safety report. 2015 Education Officer Greer Mahoney showed particular interest in attending next year’s Health and Safety meetings, indicating a once-in-a-generation interest by any Executive member in H&S. The medical student said, “I’m always interested in the health of people.”

The Executive discussed Victoria University’s Student Association withdrawing from NZUSA. Paul said he wants to have “serious discussions about whether we leave or really commit” to a future with NZUSA, considering “it has been a discussion lingering for the last ten years.” He says they need to have discussions over “what it offers and what it doesn’t.” He also wants to investigate what other areas are missing out due to NZUSA spending.

Greer asked what the positives of NZUSA were. Ruby replied, “They were really helpful with labels, stickers and badges. Sending us pamphlets. That was really positive. Also they helped ensure various MPs came along for debate and have lobbied for the student issues.” She added, “I’m aware this is a public place so let’s just point out the positive relationship we have with NZUSA.”

Postgraduate Officer Kurt Purdon said, “I’m of differing opinion to Ruby [and] I’d like to provide an equal amount of contrary opinion.” Greer also asked again for a quick rundown of the positives, but Paul and Ruby ended the discussion and assured it would be continued later. Critic suspects that the issue of throwing $45,000 a year to a questionably useful organisation is a contentious issue.

After going into strict committee of the whole, as Payal wanted to discuss Student Health issues, OUSA stated that they wish to “publically oppose the changes occurring in the Student Health trial period regarding exams.” They also said that they will be requesting any future changes like this be told to OUSA and students in advance.

Kurt also presented his report, which provided a summary of some of the consultations provided to OUSA over the last few years. These were the Deloitte 2011 Organisation Review, Former President Francisco Hernandez’s 2013 Governance and Representation Review and the Deloitte’s 2014 Governance Structure Review.

The recommendations included that the OUSA General Manager should continue to attend Executive meetings. The number of members of the Executive should also remain at 11.

The other recommendation was that there should be an advisory board established, made up of the President, the Admin VP, former OUSA members and the Finance and Expenditure Committee, to help assist OUSA with governance decision-making. This board would replace any shortfall in commercial experience as a result of the final recommendation, which was to dissolve the Planet Media Dunedin Limited Board (PMDL). All functions would then directly report to the General Manager of OUSA.

Critic, Radio One and Planet Media Sales currently report to the General Manager of Planet Media Dunedin Limited, who then reports to the board (which includes external parties with experience of Critic and a lawyer), who then report to the Executive. Currently the General Manager of OUSA and the General Manager of PMDL is the same person.

Kurt said, “This last point is the most contentious. I have no opinion on this right now as I don’t know enough about it; I’m just informing you.”

They then went into committee of the whole to discuss Radio One, although Kurt doubted the necessity, as “it’s not commercially sensitive.”