Save Our Services Campaign Slammed
Douglas ignores SOS plea
Sir Roger Douglas has been quick to strike back against the ‘Save Our Services’ (SOS) campaign, recently launched by a broad coalition of community groups in opposition to the proposed Voluntary Student Membership (VSM) bill.
“The claims by students’ associations yesterday that my VSM bill is going to decimate membership and cripple services merely highlights how poor the current services provided to students must be.
“The only logical reason for the students’ associations’ concern must be that the services they currently provide have so little value, they know that students will not spend money on them once they are no longer forced to do so.”
NZUSA have announced a fortnight-long tour of tertiary institutions to raise awareness about the VSM bill.
NZUSA Co-President Pene Delaney said the visit would also see NZUSA addressing a number of issues with administrations, including “high student unemployment, threats to loan eligibility, threats to access into university, loss of student representation at polytechnics, rising student debt, and the threat of even higher fees.”
NZUSA are visiting Massey University’s Wellington campus on 18 March and Victoria University on 19 March.
Privacy Act Adjustments
Privacy protection paramount
The New Zealand Law Commission has released an Issues Paper on the review of the Privacy Act, a week after its report entitled Invasion of Privacy: Penalties and Remedies.
In addition to raising questions over how to protect privacy in the wake of technological innovation, the Law Commission has taken up a number of other issues in the thorough review.
The Law Commission have raised significant concerns regarding what extent government departments should be able to share information about its citizens, and whether there should be an obligation to notify people if information about them is wrongly released or lost.
The paper also calls into question the clarity of the wording in the Privacy Act.
The Law Commission is encouraging the public to submit their views on the changes.
“We want to know what people think about how the Act is working, whether it needs to be changed and whether new things need to go in it.”
Submissions are due by 30 April.