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Overnight Box University set up at Victoria in opposition to management slash and burn.

Students at Victoria University have constructed a ‘Box University’ within the Murphy Overbridge, overlooking Kelburn Parade, to raise awareness and organise against the cuts and attacks which University management are undertaking against staff and students.

The box university is a rare chance for students to creatively construct and engage with what we want Victoria to look like. The box uni is an environment conducive to critical thinking and free thought, something that management has denied students.

“This University is funded by ten’s of millions of dollars of public money, through taxes or directly through student loans and yet we have no say over what happens in our name and with our money,” says Shannon Keast – student and Site Manager of the Box Uni.

The International Relations programme is being fundamentally reshaped, against staff wishes and in the face of over 1000 students who have signed a petition against the changes. The Certificate in University Preparation, VUW’s bridging course is also being cut, with staff handed out redundancy notices for February 2012.

“People who have tried to engage with the changes or express their thoughts have been bullied by management. I’m really excited to be engaging with other students to find a creative way forward for Vic” says Bronte, student and spokesperson for the group.

Students will be staying overnight and have planned lectures, boardgames and wider discussions about the direction of the university.

In the last few elections the Workers Party has stood candidates in a number of electorates. In the 2008 election we became a registered party after signing up over 500 members and we were therefore able to stand a party list. The intention of standing in the elections was to try and raise the profile of both socialist ideas and our own organisation. The 2008 election gave quite clear evidence that this strategy wasn’t working with not only an extremely low vote but also the fact that the campaign did not win people over to our politics. This opinion was universal within the organisation prior to January this year. The party has no policy against standing in local or general elections under different circumstances such as increased class activity or increased support for the organisation or individual members who may find good opportunities to stand as candidates.

Ian Anderson, member of Workers Party and The Spark editorial board. Originally printed in the October Spark.

Recently Nick Maryatt, Green Party candidate for Hamilton East, suggested in a blog post that Labour voters were switching to the Greens because they are the “real opposition” to attacks by National. Maryatt is aligned with workers movement issues and has participated in the Hamilton Left Initiative, a non-sectarian left group which also involves members of the Workers Party. Radicals must develop a clear analysis of the Greens, given both their relationship to ruling-class parties, and with the left.

The Green Party of New Zealand first entered parliament in 1996 as a part of the Alliance, at that time a coalition of parties opposed to neo-liberalism. Green Party ideology was informed by international green politics, described in its most conservative parliamentary form by the recent slogan “some things are bigger than politics.” This means they would work with a range of forces, including ruling class parties, to achieve environmental reform.

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