Following on from More Evidence of Student Association Delusions of Grandeur, where I shared Auckland University Students Assocation's (AUSA) unfathomable intentions to incorporate the UN Declaration of Human Rights into their constitution, a fellow student and reader of this blog, brought my attention to today's email to all University of Auckland students which he described as "bribery now to get what they want." I must concur:
Again we see the disregard for proper constitutional process in the statement "All you need to do is bring along your uni ID card and flash it in favour of human rights!" AUSA membership is voluntary, as such, possession of a Uni ID card does not mean that you are an AUSA member and are entitled to vote but they do not seem to care about this detail.
So basically you can receive material benefits if you vote the way they want you to (doesn't matter if you're not really to eligible to vote) and all this is in the name of AUSA's strong commitment to human rights.
This would be funnier if I wasn't paying for it.
Student apathy was at its worst today when we failed to get 200 people to turn up to the quad to hold the AUSA Winter General Meeting. However, all is not lost - we are going to try again!Again I am left wondering how on earth this move can "MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE" for human rights.
So come to the quad at 1pm on Thursday the 27th of August (tomorrow) and vote in favour of putting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into the AUSA Constitution! We were only about 20 people short so I cannot stress enough that YOU REALLY WILL MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!
Even if the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not your thing, we will be giving out candy! FOR FREE! Maybe even a few muesli bars for the health-conscious amongst you. All you need to do is bring along your uni ID card and flash it in favour of human rights!
SEE YOU IN THE QUAD AT 1PM, THURSDAY 28 AUGUST. DO IT.
Again we see the disregard for proper constitutional process in the statement "All you need to do is bring along your uni ID card and flash it in favour of human rights!" AUSA membership is voluntary, as such, possession of a Uni ID card does not mean that you are an AUSA member and are entitled to vote but they do not seem to care about this detail.
So basically you can receive material benefits if you vote the way they want you to (doesn't matter if you're not really to eligible to vote) and all this is in the name of AUSA's strong commitment to human rights.
This would be funnier if I wasn't paying for it.
at University of Canterbury the student's association promised free sausages and hamburgers for all who attended the AGM (held in the premises of the student pub, no less)
ReplyDelete<span style="color: #808080;">This is funny, technically they are encouraging voter fraud and offering enrichments to vote in favour of the ammendment. Of course the amount is trivial, but in principle thats what they are doing. </span>
ReplyDelete<span style="color: #808080;">Max may remember more clearly, but I recall when I was at Waikato some students getting into trouble for fraudlently voting in order to get free jelly beans they had entered as joke candidates and were forced, by the WSU president, to resign their nomination because they had cast an invalid vote to get a jelly bean. </span>
<span style="color: #808080;">Funny to see the student union encouraging this sort of behavour to pass a motion which has no real point to it. </span>
Muesli bars for the health conscious? Are they kidding?
ReplyDeleteYou will be interested to know that exactly the same thing happened at Otago when they were trying to get a Queer rep as a position. Then they were giving away free sausages. The email I got said come along and vote IN FAVOUR of a Queer rep - and get your free food. If the email had said "come along and vote whichever way you want - and there is free food to get numbers up" it would have been slightly better. The specifying which way to vote was just not on though...
ReplyDeleteYes Matt. It was me (and another chap) who voted multiple times to get our free Jelly beans... and yes the student president of the time - can't recall his name - threatened us with all sorts of things if we did not un-enroll as candidates. Being young and naive at the time we did step down. Shame really. Nice jellybeans though....
ReplyDeleteThis was before the age of computer voting by the way. So they just took your ID number and crossed it off the list on their particular stall. But there were several stalls around the campus so we just ran from one to one. I recall another time we were putting up hundreds of Vote No Confidence posters and getting into a fight with some student politicians in G-block.... good times... thanks for reminding me. I had forgotten all about the jellby bean incident.
ReplyDelete