A registration scheme for students planning flat parties is being considered by OUSA following its successful implementation in the Riccarton West suburb of Christchurch.
The scheme allows people who are planning to throw a party to register it in order to seek advice on issues such as their responsibilities during it and have risk assessments provided by police for the event.
OUSA are simply considering its viability for the North Dunedin area, although members of the executive have noted many concerns over its intrusion into the lives of the student population.
Sean Gamble, Campaigns Officer, noted that in May, a meeting was held with the relevant stakeholders to discuss the composition of such a scheme and how it would run in the student suburb and, although he wasn’t present at the meeting, he revealed that “OUSA was still evaluating what they thought of it.”
He believes that the “intention of the party register is to actually help people but it comes across like it’s more to monitor people’s lives, and I think to implement it here would be very difficult and it would appear that they were intruding into people’s lives.”
He also said that: “the whole intention of it is to work with the police when planning a party but who wants to do that?”
Administrative vice-president, Jarred Griffiths, also stated that “any initiative that has the support of the University, Dunedin City Council, and Police should be scrutinised by students and OUSA very closely.”
With the relatively recent Code of Conduct, the establishment of Campus Watch, and the issues surrounding CCTV cameras in student-based areas, Griffiths believes that were are certainly seeing the “disciplinary hand of the University reach into students private lives.”
“With proposals on the table to introduce CCTV cameras in the North Dunedin area—any further measures like the Party Register need to guarantee that there will be no further erosion of the rights and freedoms of students."