Otago’s Student Movement has found its fabulous spark

OPINION: There is something worth noticing in Otago right now, and it is bigger than one name on an OUSA vote campaign. Rosie Cruickshank is one of four candidates seeking the OUSA presidency for 2027, but the part of her campaign that interests me most is the rapid organising happening around it.

Students are meeting, marching, handing out flyers, arguing about power and asking what their union should actually be for. Student politics does not have to be all about posters, election-week slogans and a few familiar faces.

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What Cruickshank and those organising alongside her are doing is fabulous. Whatever students ultimately decide at the ballot box, bringing people together, creating debate and giving young people the confidence to organise is something worth celebrating.

Cruickshank has tied her campaign to a push over tertiary fees, university decisions and worker solidarity.

Image: Students march for free education. Rosie Cruickshank says joining a rally or union can show people what collective action can achieve. (Supplied / Mark McQuire / markmcguire.net)

Cruickshank has tied her campaign to push over tertiary fees, university decisions and worker solidarity. Her energy was visible when about 400 Otago students marched to the Octagon in May after the Government moved to scrap fees-free tertiary study.

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Dunedin has seen this kind of organising before.

In 1996, University of Otago students occupied a room where the University Council was meeting as it considered higher tuition fees. The proposed increase still went ahead, but the occupation remains part of the city’s history of student protest scene.

This time it is growing faster than ever and it might stay for good if the momentum keeps up to tune.

The present movement is also pushing into argument about student union independence.

New Zealand legislation says students cannot be required to join a students’ association, a position entrenched through voluntary membership legislation and carried into the Education and Training Act 2020.

Cruickshank and the Education Action Group have also taken their politics beyond campus.

Image: A student strike in Dunedin. A growing programme of strategically organised meetings points to momentum behind the fees-free campaign. (Supplied / Mark McQuire / markmcguire.net)

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Protesters gathered outside ACT candidate Paul Henry’s Glenroy Auditorium event this month, where BHN podcaster Mike “Chewie” Bennett was removed from the meeting and subsequently arrested after initially refusing to provide details for a trespass notice.

None of that tells a student how to vote but it can show newcomers what happens when young people decide participation should mean more than turning up once a year with a voting-mindset.

The important spark is the work itself.

Learning to organise, speaking publicly, bringing people into a campaign and testing ideas in the open, all of which can draw more students into what increasingly looks like a new movement taking shape on campus.

A student movement should be noisy enough to be heard and disciplined enough to know what it is trying to achieve.

The most useful part of this resurgence in Otago may be the confidence it gives students to participate, disagree, organise and keep asking harder questions. That is a civic habit carrying well beyond campus.

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