Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association Presidential candidate Alan Young revealed today that he supports Voluntary Student Membership (VSM) of students’ associations.
Young, the self-proclaimed “people’s voice”, went on to say many of his supporters think VSM is a good idea and consideration should be given to it.
Max Hardy, who is also running for president, said he would fight against VSM but acknowledged that if his views ran contrary to the majority he will go with what the students wanted.
Young is running for President, Vice President (Education) and Activities officer. It is convention that if elected to multiple positions the candidate will assume the highest ranking position. A by-election is then held to replace vacant positions.
For full story please check out next week’s edition of Salient. For more information on the candidates please see this week’s Election Guide pull-out in Salient.
Off the cuff: What the candidates said about themselves
Fraser Pearce on why he should be council rep: “Cheaper drinks, pimping out the van—YOU!” He then compared himself to Sarah Palin.
James Sleep gave a coherent and well thought-out talk about why he should be education officer, saying “student voices need to be heard in the appropriate way.”
Alan Young on being activities officer: “Guy Williams was the one who got me into politics… I want to continue his legacy.” Williams was on the VUWSA exec for less than two months before the election result was invalidated.
Bridie Hood promised she wouldn’t throw produce at anyone and urged the need for “awareness and promotion” about the association.
Fraser Pearce once again got up to tell us why we should vote for him to be Clubs Officer. He said he wanted to give more money to hostels.
Former Women’s Rights officer Caitlin Dunham was greeted with a rousing applause from the audience. Caitlin outlined her achievements in the past two months. Probably the most qualified and passionate person to speak thus far.
Craig Carey, who is running for Welfare Officer, wanted to be part of making VUWSA “respectable and competent”.
Zach Dorner believes that by harnessing his powers of cool he can beat no confidence, saying “I rock the block everytime.” He also emphasised that he was committed to the long haul, saying “commitment is part of who I am. I’m single as well.” He also claimed no confidence is “crap”. No Confidence could not be reached for comment at the time of posting.
Long time VUWSA execer Seamus Brady listed his achievements and rightly said: “vote for me to keep the good work going.”
Sam Mason, Kieran O’Connor, Alice Pan, Conrad Reyners and William Wu did not show up to the forum.
Queer Representative, VP Administration and publications committee representative did not recieve nominations. A by-election will be held for these positions early next year.
EDIT: Hardy pointed out that I had misquoted him slightly. This has now been fixed?