Party time: Pledges tested on noisy students

By JULIE MIDDLETON

First day of term, and the chatter from the Auckland University quad sounds like the raucous chorus of evening sparrows.

Backpack-toting students land on the brown wooden picnic tables, group and chatter, move off and return. It's packed at lunchtime when the Auckland University Students Association election forum starts.

A microphone and a concrete dais lift the pollies who are to speak - Steve Maharey (Labour), Richard Worth (National), Deborah Coddington (Act) and Nandor Tanczos (Greens) - above the twittering, but the volume barely abates.

Some students turn attentively; others feign disdain, snog, or read student mag Craccum while gobbling lunch.

The pinstriped Coddington, who elicits a wolf whistle, starts by tackling student allowances. A total of "$450 million will be targeted on a needs basis, not on how clever your father is at hiding his assets".

On loans: "We would look at concessionary interest rates which would come down to about the rate of inflation ... which is fair enough since the taxpayer funds 75 per cent of your education."

Tanczos, whose longest dreadlock now hangs to the knees of his tattered cargo pants, promises to "talk to Labour" about a universal student allowance. There are scattered whoops of delight, and cheers and claps follow as he pledges reintroduction of a holiday unemployment benefit.

Clean-cut Maharey promises to "carry on lowering costs to students. The loans scheme remains one of the major problems, and we want to have a look [at it]".

Worth, an Auckland graduate, pledges: "You stay, we pay." National will write off 10 per cent of a student loan for every year its owner stays and works here, for a period of five years.

Question time for the candidates is rather kinder than Parliament's, but Worth is castigated for National's contribution to student debt. "We will do the things we promise," Worth finishes, lamely.

A foreign student is aggrieved that a 1998 National promise to look at allowances for overseas students came to nothing.

Maharey eyeballs his questioner, saying he's happy to "chat personally" on the issue.

Student Hayley Rawhiti, number 28 on the Alliance list, watches grimly.

The students' association invited what it termed the four best-polling parties three weeks ago, the Alliance not included. (New Zealand First wasn't contacted either, says organiser Simon Coffey, because it doesn't give a toss about students; the Progressive Coalition never responded.)

"It's pretty presumptuous," sniffs Rawhiti. And Alliance president Matt McCarten, standing in the crowd, has been told that he'll be ejected if he gatecrashes.

Funny thing about the forum, says Coffey afterwards, is that no one brought up drugs.

Except that when the Herald photographer visited the boys' room at the same time as Act MP Rodney "Zero Tolerance to Crime" Hide, muffled giggles from students in a locked cubicle accompanied the strong waft of dope. And indeed, not a word was said.

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