Dear Craccum,
What is this weak shit from the AUSA? I was reading a press release about the new doctor’s fee and it says “we accept that a shift in the University’s attitude to universal service provision may be inevitable” – Fuck that. There is nothing inevitable about this, but if students just eat shit when it’s served, no wonder management can do what they like. Was it inevitable that McCutcheon got a $40,000 pay rise last year? How does that fit with this austerity racket? Student unions and associations used to be uncompromising, they used to occupy buildings and organise massive protests when management tried to pull this shit … but oh no, the young brats and little labour lackeys have squeezed the life out of student politics so all we get is the same tired old shit that might one day get them elected into the concrete dalek. “It’s inevitable” or “you have to be realistic”… Fuck that, our reality is inter-generational theft driven by crisis junkies and the stunted imagination of apolitical hacks. The rate of preventable disease in New Zealand is already appalling, why? Because people who can’t afford health care don’t get treatment. What will happen to students from poor backgrounds… they get sick, fail, drop out, stay poor. What if you get sick during exams and it’s a choice between childcare and a doctor. No matter I suppose, just weeding out the undeserving. These people think there is one kind of student. A young white middle class male who does engineering and wants to grow up to be an entrepreneur, whose parents top up his allowance so he has enough money to fill his Nissan Skyline with petrol, who goes to keg parties and thinks John Key is a good bloke…look again fuckers.
Management raised the fees by the maximum allowed last year, but that 4% is not enough for these parasites, now they are wringing the stone dry by filching what they can from the student services levy. Don’t be surprised if you are walking about the campus and you find McCutcheon trying to reach into your pants for spare change. Now students that get sick will have to borrow more, work more, beg more or just get more fucking sick. Speaking of sick, this fucking sickens me. And what is the AUSA doing about it??? Huh? They need to stand up for students and drop the bureaucratic bullshit. This is not fucking inevitable, it’s just another attack on students as a source of profit. Please, somebody make them tell it how it really is.
Love from
The Flu
Dear Craccum,
To: Vice Chancellor McCutcheon
Subject: Fwd: RE: summer of discontent/unemployment
Well, I’ve been down so Goddamn long
That it looks like up to me
Well, I’ve been down so very damn long
That it looks like up to me
Yeah, why don’t one of you people
C’mon and set me free
I said, warden, warden, warden
Won’t you break your lock and key
I said, warden, warden, warden
Won’t ya break your lock and key
Yeah, come along here, mister
C’mon and let the poor boy be
Love,
Jimmy
Dear Craccum,
I am appalled to discover that not only have student health started changing $12 per visit for something we already pay for through student levies, but they are also charging an additional $8 for a cervical smear. In a country that is recognised for its high rates of HPV in young women, a virus that can lead if unmonitored into cervical cancer, smears are something that should always be free. But especially so for a demographic the majority of whom are both young and poor. Smears are not something women do for fun, nor are they an optional indulgence for those who can afford them. It seems this university considers health more of a privilege than a right.
Smearless.
Dear editor,
Is it just me or have student fees increased ridiculously!? I’m not one to really care much or make a fuss about anything really but this is one thing I think we should all make a fuss about! I was helping my brother enrol into his papers a little while back and was extremely shocked to see how much student fees have really increased! I usually don’t look at the numbers as it’s something Studylink deals with but when we finished enrolling the number just jumped out at me – about $3000 for one semester in a Bachelor of Science! What the heck? What happened to the good old days when an entire year of study only cost around $4000? Now we’re going to have to pay around $6000 for just one year? How much more will these fees increase? It’s ridiculous to think how we’ll even pay back all this money! I’m doing 5 papers and for this semester alone it’s going to cost me $3600. There has got to be something we can do about this because quite frankly, its bullshit!
Apathetic student turned poor and angry.