Voluntary student membership is based on a simple principle: individuals should be free to decide whether or not they join an organisation.
This freedom to choose is called freedom of association. Freedom of association is a fundamental civil and political right.
Freedom of association has two elements:
- you should be free to associate with others for legal purposes
- you should not be forced to associate with others.
The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act grants every New Zealander the right to freedom of association, as does the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which New Zealand is a signatory.
The principle of freedom of association is also a core value of civil society and underpins many private organisation such as all incorporated societies (except student associations), political parties, churches, sports clubs, community groups and charities.
What’s wrong with compulsory membership?
Compulsory membership of tertiary student associations violates the second element of freedom of association by forcing students to associate with others.
In New Zealand people who go to a tertiary institution to study are told they first have to associate with others. This takes the form of forcing people to join and fund an incorporated society, namely a tertiary student association.
There is no equivalent in New Zealand society. Motorists don’t have to join the Automobile Association. Pet owners don’t have to join the SPCA. The elderly don’t have to join Grey Power. Farmers don’t have to join Federated Farmers. And people who shop at The Warehouse don’t have to join the Consumers Institute.
True freedom of association would allow individual students to decide for themselves whether or not they join a student association.
"The formal attitude of the trade unions to the automatic enrolment of all wage-workers as union members has introduced a certain degree of bureaucratic distortion in the trade unions and has caused the latter to lose touch with the broad mass of their membership. Hence, it is necessary most resolutely to implement voluntary enrolment both of individuals and of groups into trade unions." - Lenin, 1922
