Te Tira Ahu Pae is Massey University Student’s Association… or is it?

The current iteration of the Student’s Association of Massey University is in its first year of operations, and I suspect it is already unfit for purpose and perhaps never was.

The governance of Student’s Associations is complicated, and here we will explore the origins of these institutions, their relationship with the students they are supposed to represent and the Universities they operate alongside of (and later, under). We will find that the modern iteration of Massey’s Student’s Association, Te Tira Ahu Pae, is an entirely different organisation than that of its origins. My knowledge of Student’s Associations comes from my experience as a member of the Albany Student’s Association from 2014 to 2019, and as a current member of Te Tira Ahu Pae. With that noted, I will be limiting our investigation so that these two organisations are the setting. Research for the Albany Student’s Association was conducted using the now unavailable Annual Reports dating from its 1999 inception to its 2022 amalgamation (I had prudently saved copies before the ASA website was taken down).

To keep the focus on our modern legal settings, we begin with the end of compulsory unionism in New Zealand, which was enacted in 1991 (Employment Contracts Act). From this point workers were not compulsorily enrolled in their worker’s union, which meant union fees were now opt-in and voluntary. Student’s Associations, being a union of students, escaped this legislative change and remained able to require students to be fee paying members of their organisation. That is, until 1998 when the Education Act was amended to no longer require student membership in a student’s association. After 1998 Students Associations around the country were allowed to hold referendums and choose whether they continue with mandatory membership (and therefore mandatory fees), or move to voluntary membership (and an opt-in for fees). The Albany Student’s Association (ASA) was founded in 1999, the year which student referendums to choose voluntary or compulsory membership were first held. In its first year of operations the ASA convinced enough of its members to vote in favour of compulsory fees, thereby binding all future students to fees that would fund their organisation indefinitely.

The ASA was stable for a time, but in 2011 a further amendment to the Education Act moved all Student’s Associations to voluntary membership models regardless of student preferences. After twenty years of being the last compulsory union in New Zealand, the Student’s Associations were returned to the same requirements as the Tertiary Education Union and other worker’s unions around the country. Now they had to ask students to become members and pay fees out of pocket (previously the compulsory student’s associations fees could be paid for out of the Student Loan Scheme).

At this point we might expect the ASA to begin the difficult process of financially validating their organisation. Voluntary membership and opt-in fees force unions to prove and maintain their value proposition to their members. The Tertiary Education Union provides value in advocacy to many workers in Tertiary Education Institutions (like Massey University). Staff members pay their fees because of perceived value in membership, which includes employment law assistance, lobbying efforts and pay negotiations. Despite being heralded as the death sentence of Student’s Associations, this change could have moved the ASA to clarifying its value proposition and operate efficiently in the same way as for-profit organisations. At least, that is the intention of the amendment in spirit. We never saw this change in operations from the ASA, because rather than seek voluntary membership fees like every other union, Massey contracted the ASA’s services to students and paid them using the compulsory Student Levy (paid by all students of Massey also out of their student loan). In effect, the ASA continued to get the same funding but instead of directly coming from their student members, Massey University itself became the collector and transferrer of funds. Hardly the intention of the amendment, and ultimately causing the ASA to become independent contractors of the organisation that they work with on behalf of students.

This would be like the Tertiary Education Union suddenly being funded directly by the Universities themselves. If that bizarre event were to happen you would be right in criticizing the independence of the union. When union fees are now controlled by the employer rather than the employees, surely there is now a conflict of interest? I can’t find an example of a workers union being funded by the employer rather than the employee, yet in this instance that is effectively what happened post 2011 for the ASA. Since that point the ASA and its successor, Te Tira Ahu Pae, has been an independent contractor for Massey University to deliver services determined by Massey. These services are defined through the transparency requirements of the Student Services Levy that Massey charges to students for non-core services, however threading what is done by Te Tira Ahu Pae and what is done by other subcontractors is not possible with the information I have access to (Massey and Te Tira Ahu Pae does have this information themselves though).

The ASA became Te Tira Ahu Pae at the end of 2022 by amalgamating with 9 other Student’s Associations affiliated with Massey. Massey University has four campuses, and each campus had multiple associations representing different demographics of the student body. This amalgamation was passed through all ten Association’s Annual General Meetings simultaneously. The ASA’s Annual General Meeting that officiated the amalgamation and winding down of the original Association was held on the 19th of October, 2022, and involved 22-27 votes in favour and zero votes against (there were multiple motions to get the full amalgamation and wind down approved). Under 30 students represented the more than 3,000 Albany students enrolled that year to change the organisation over to Te Tira Ahu Pae, however I acknowledge student engagement has always been low on this campus and this poor turnout remains common, meaning the poor turnout is not reflective of disinterest or deceit in this particular AGM. Through this process, a new Constitution was adopted and the rules of the Association changed to reflect the new Incorporated Societies Act 2022, which is prudent and useful for students to have an updated entity.

This new Constitution details how student representation is to be achieved, and what the strategic priorities of Te Tira Ahu Pae is going forward. Remember that Te Tira Ahu Pae is a subcontractor for Massey University, therefore all of its funding is tied to services specified by the University and there is no expectation of negotiations. The power is asymmetric, and student representation is coincidentally a service required by Massey for Te Tira Ahu Pae to provide. To quote a publicly available website, “Te Tira Ahu Pae are fully accountable to students through the university“.

Knowing that Student’s Associations were once independently funded and could therefore represent student interests exclusively and are now funded through their respective universities is an important difference to note between Te Tira Ahu Pae and the origins of the ASA. Now, if the interests of Massey University are in conflict with the interests of the students it is not clear what Te Tira Ahu Pae will most faithfully represent. In fact, it is recorded on the ASA Special General Meeting mentioned previously on the 19th of October, 2022, that “Massey University requested the centralisation of services delivered by the 4 general student associations in 2021”. It was the University itself that forced the associations to amalgamate in the first place, and the amalgamation movement was not initiated by students. The push for amalgamation was spearheaded by the staff of the Associations; they knew where the funding was coming from and pushed forward their financiers objectives for amalgamation while making it look like a student initiative. I know that the process was democratically followed only in name; I was there in Albany during 2022 and no student understood what was being proposed.

Te Tira Ahu Pae proudly states on its website that they are “your student’s association at Massey University, run by students, for students !” and that they are “independent from the University”. Firstly, they are independent subcontractors for the University. Secondly, they are a registered charity and incorporated society, which might be considered a student’s association depending on your definition – if they represent the express interests of students I would agree that they are in fact a student’s association, however their interests are divided due to funding. And finally, are they run by students? It is this question we will now investigate.

The Tira Ahu Pae Constitution creates an organisational structure under the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 with some adjustments to make it a unique entity. At the top of the organisation in power is the Board, which are normally eight people, all of them students holding various important titles. Three Board members must be on the Board and are the three Presidents of the Tripartite system (General President, Mana Whakahaere and Pasifika President); the other five are effectively selected by these people out of other student officials such as a Vice-President (there are 4 to choose from), three Kaiwhakahaere (4 to choose from too) and a Pasifika Student Representative (also 4 to choose from). These eight members are the Board, and they get to choose who will replace them. The named titles above are not all elected positions: the three equally top President roles and all of the four Vice-President roles are appointed by… the Board itself. That doesn’t mean they appoint themselves, just that they appoint their replacements in an unelected manner. There are an additional 16 roles that are in fact elected by the relevant student body.

The top seven student positions in Te Tira Ahu Pae are not democratically elected. Half of the Board (the highest hierarchical body in the Association) is not democratically elected. Below the Board are staff members, who are also not elected of which there are four Manager positions who are employees to the Association. Below them there seems to be 30 additional staff (one role currently being vacant). Under one of the Managers, the Representation Manager, are all the student representatives, 23 in total of which 16 are elected by students. Of those 16, four of them are selected to be on the Board and have the highest power, but the rest are at the bottom of the hierarchy. If you look at the top twelve positions overall (4 Managers and 8 board members), only one third of them are elected and they are chosen by the Board themselves of which half of them are not elected at all! If this is getting confusing, note it took me some hours to understand their structure in full to get it even this concise (or unconcise). The point is that democratic representation of student voices is not being clearly prioritised by this organisational structure.

When I first heard about this structure as a student I just assumed that all student roles were elected. They didn’t hold an election in 2022 because the Association hadn’t been created yet, so I thought the first people in the role must have inherited their positions from their elected roles in the old associations that amalgamated. When I learned that three President titles and four Vice President titles were by appointment I was confused and had to Google whether these titles implied being elected. As it turns out the title of President and Vice-President does not necessarily imply an elected position, so that was my mistake, however I would suggest a more appropriate title would be CEO, Executive or simply Board member rather than President.

In any case, the statement that Te Tira Ahu Pae is run by students is not a lie; the Board is occupied entirely by students. Neither is the statement that Te Tira Ahu Pae is independent (subcontractors for) from Massey University. That Te Tira Ahu Pae operates in the interests of students is evident in their relevant service contracts with Massey University that they presumably succeed in delivering to the satisfaction of their client (the University). So yes, the new Students Association for Massey Students does what it says it does. But is it enough that it isn’t directly lying about its independence and student voice? Clearly it isn’t independent in the way students interpret the statement, and clearly the organisation is dominated by unelected officials and employed staff members.

I suggest that there are improvements to be implemented in the organisational structure of Te Tira Ahu Pae, and I further suggest that were Massey to wholly run the services that they contract Te Tira Ahu Pae for then student outcomes would improve.

To keep this short; the improvements I suggest all involve increasing student representation in the Association; restore elected positions to the top seven student roles, make student engagement in these elections a top priority, and place all of the student roles in a hierarchical position above the managers through sub committees.

I suggest that Massey could do a better job running the Associations services itself because Massey is a huge organisation with well functioning IT, HR and other support systems that can help the service delivery of student success. In a way Te Tira Ahu Pae has the worst of both worlds; it’s not independent in voice but it is independent in its inability to access the shared resources afforded large organisations. Why have a Students Association with no real independence but also be left out to dry? We can’t speak out against Massey using the existing organisation (I’ve never heard of Te Tira Ahu Pae move against Massey even a little, in fact they hold Barbeques during forums for the Stop the Cuts movement). Massey can subcontract the advocacy service to another third party (like the EAP system it currently uses for staff) while delivering clubs and societies, student magazines and sausage sizzles itself or with other more competitive subcontractors.

If it is best that Te Tira Ahu Pae winds up in its first year of operations, I would have to engineer that wind up procedure myself. I know how, and can do so alone, but that explanation will have to be for another time.