Any VUWSA campaign that does not address the looming shadow of the next year’s general election is not worth your time. There will be a job to do next year, and it is kicking this current government out. Students have as much of a responsibility to play their part as everyone else.

Under this government, we have witnessed:
- The dismantling of Te Pukenga
- The gutting of Marsden funding for social sciences
- A tuition fee cap increase of 6%
- The removal of first-year fees free
- The dismantling of numerous graduate job programs
And much more…

But it is not simply enough to elect a Labour-led government back to Parliament. Successive Labour-led governments have abandoned students by introducing user-pays education, by failing to implement a universal study wage, and by chronically underfunding the tertiary education sector.

Students have been taken for granted time and time again. Next year’s general election exists as an opportunity for us to organise and hold politicians accountable to one of the left’s strongest but most neglected voter bases- the student body.