NZUSA name change won't solve core problem

Changing the name of the New Zealand University Students Association (NZUSA) can't disguise the organisation's fundamental problem - its illegitimate claim to represent all university students, Student Choice said today.

An NZUSA meeting currently underway in Hamilton plans to change the organisation's name to the New Zealand Union of Student Associations.

"The new name more accurately describes the organisation as a collective of student associations, but the fact remains that NZUSA is not an organisation which comprises or represents individual students," Student Choice spokesman Mike Heine said.

Even though NZUSA claims to represent all students, it's an organisation that individual students don't belong to; that individual students have to fund; whose leaders students can't directly elect; that says things that many students don't support, Mike Heine said.

A national student body won't have legitimacy until individual students are free to decide whether or not they join and fund the organisation, he said.

Student Choice upholds voluntary student association membership on the grounds of freedom of association.

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