The President, All members of the Executive and all the members of the Otago University Students Association
I am intending to apply to come to “OU” next year
Here at the University of Canterbury where I am a first year student our Student’s Association elections have been cancelled, the Association’s President known as “President two pay packets”, supposedly speaking for the Executive, claims to have a legal opinion justifying this appalling decision and despite having been asked for it formally has refused to make it available to the 12,000 members of the Association or the candidates for whom voting had already commenced. The Returning Officer and fourth year U C Law and Commerce student refuses to comment and does not answer correspondence sent to him on Facebook on the UCSA page or by email and even when reminded at the first of the two debates still fails to pen to paper or fingers to the key board. The access to both UCSA Notice Board and the UC Accom page is not available to all voters although that is where the debate commenced. There are allegations of racism, allegations of a “firearm” being on campus, Huntsoc have been asked to hold their meetings either 25% drug free or 50% drug free or 75 % drug free. NZ Mountain Safety Council are refusing to comment on this dangerous Health and Safety issue. Huntsocs response is for a Society member to contact the fellow member of the society by email, although they provide the addresses, is a breach of privacy of the Huntsoc member. This view is supported by the outgoing UCSA executive
There are at least 10 reasons why the voting should have never commenced in the first place. This happened in the 2011 UCSA elections also. The Association is being economical with the truth and the Vice President refuses to comment on the failure of the President and won’t take over the Presidential role until the elections are held again. This second election date is not known either. The Human Rights Commissioner will respond in detail soon.
In fact we do not know if such a legal opinion exists. The names of the provider, if it exists, has been withheld from the members also. Could well be from the U C Law faculty who overinvolved themselves in the election and showed repeated examples of bias despite being formally told twice to leave the student elections to the students. A fracas on the stage during the Presidential election debate was narrowly avoided. Imagine your law lecturer lecturing class nursing a sore and reddened nose and wearing a “shiner”!
Part of my plans to come to “Dunnas” was to create some employment including some part time work for me and some “scarfies”. I invested over $10,000 in this attempt. So if you are upstairs in the Law Library and look seawards out the window at a nearby factory run by Australian directors you are, or should I say were, looking at a likely source of employment. Even much more important now with the failure of the dairy fraternity to monitor the actions of their directors and the dozens of Fonterra’s millionaire employees. Might as well put the Taieri Plains on Ebay and then the”Cockies” can lament alongside and milk the very same cows they used to own for an overseas owner. Plus accelerate the environmental degradation damage to the once clean Taieri River. When the management & directors of this factory at “51 Forth Street” failed to reply to my attempts to create employment I went to the Allied Press’s local newspaper the Otago Daily Times which proved to be a “WOFTAM” (Waste Of F’in Time and Money) From that you can conclude that although the directors are happy to take their fees from the community they are not committed to cover attempts to create employment in the Otago region. Let alone send a reporter to Forth Street.

Finally I can confirm we have another election this week at U C already surrounded in controversy and should be reheld at a later date. The names of the candidates for the U C Lawsoc elections are being withheld from the voters and members by the outgoing, although the voters are not sure, Lawsoc Executive. The Lawsoc Executive are also refusing to tell the candidates that this most basic of information is being requested of them and therefore is being withheld from the voters until after the commencement of the AGM. Some students have lectures and tutorials and no proxy votes exist even if we did know the name of the candidates which we don’t, Anonymous and faceless and how do we know they even exist if they don’t have a name or gender or race or religious persuasion etc This is U C!

My questions of O U Lawsoc are
1 If and when you have elections will you make the names of the candidates available if asked before the opening time of the AGM?
2 Would it make any difference if there were incumbent members re applying to be elected?
3 Does your constitution allow firstly you to announce the names and secondly to make available the contact details of the candidates?
4 Do you see it as an advocacy role to make sure the names and statements of the candidates are promoted to the voters?
“No Nukes” UC Student 86829284 and Voteless 16/8/2015
Some considerable more reading on the elections and the University Council and the Law Faculty are available at gordondicksonblogtown.nz