Update me on VSU (3 Viewers)

[somborac]

JKDDragon: I prefer not to pay hundreds of dollars for things I don't use.

then i wont pay taxes for ur hospital treatment when u r fat and dieing of obbesity coz u couldn't be bothered to get off ur fat ass at uni and get involved in what the uni has to offer.

If VSU is introduced then lots of athletes in every uni will loose their scholarships and training facilities and you can forget about them representing you at world or olympic games.

 

[withoutaface]

JKDDragon: I prefer not to pay hundreds of dollars for things I don't use.

then i wont pay taxes for ur hospital treatment when u r fat and dieing of obbesity coz u couldn't be bothered to get off ur fat ass at uni and get involved in what the uni has to offer.

If VSU is introduced then lots of athletes in every uni will loose their scholarships and training facilities and you can forget about them representing you at world or olympic games.

That's got to be one of the shittiest arguments against VSU I've ever heard. Honestly it does not affect me one iota whether Australia are ranked 5th or 150th in any given sport. More to the point:
1) Uni facilities still cost about the same as other places EVEN ONCE YOU'VE PAID SHITLOADS TO BE A MEMBER.
2) Most scholarships come through the university itself iirc, not the Union.

 

[somborac]

fool, union provides funds to the university sporting organization, in which they devide total funs between athlete development, new equipment, discounts etc etc.

how bout this, i wont pay council fees for the public transport, for the community play ground, for the schools, because i dont use these things. all i'll pay is for the grabie to come and empty my bin and perhaps something here and there that i might use once in a while. would turn out to save me lots of money.

 

[withoutaface]

For the first 2, I have no problem with that, it's your decision. But you have used schools, and you were not paying taxes at that time.

Again, you haven't explained to me why olympic success is as important as a good hospital system.

 

[somborac]

good hospital treatment is important, and i'll pay for it i don't care. but if we are going to go by "im not using it so i'm not paying for it" mentallity for VSU, why stop there, why not apply the same mentallity to local council, perhaps state or to whole nation.

olympics and sport is an example. athletes are one group of people who benefit from union fees coz they have scholarship provided to them, which helps them train, pay for the books, travel to training, whatever. I know when there are NRL finals, or Australia wins to match that qulafies them to FIFA world cup that heaps of people become patriotic, happy, they praise the athletes and player on their skills. I doubt it that all those athletes would have gotten there without some financial help. university scholarship is a start which helped sussie o'niel the swimmer get where she got. understand????

 

[Collin]

You're as ridiculous as your arguments.

- The Government uses taxes to pay for a whole range of things which either directly or indirectly helps you. The money I pay to the Union didn't help me shit. What, I used one of the food bars once in the whole of last semester.. man, that was a great spend of several hundred bucks. Then we have the whole notion of you sounding like a crybaby because it seems like you think USU is gonna die without contributions from people like myself.. WHAT? NO ONE IS STOPPING YOU FROM PAYING ARE THEY!?!?!

- But let's somehow assume your tax analogy is valid. Taxes are compulsory, and so are Union fees.. that's why I'm paying for them right now, genius. But if the Government suddenly went nuts and abolished compulsory taxing.. do you still think most people are gonna go 'MAN, I don't care that I don't have to pay anymore, I STILL want to give away a huge chunk of my income to the government!'? The point is, right now we're all paying for it, because we all have to. I don't understand anything crap to do with you saying how you'll stop paying taxes.. it's a half-baked analogy.

- Let's give you a handicap and even assume that entire scholarships come from USU funds. Do you think I honestly give a crap about throwing several hundred hard-earned dollars to athletics so they can represent me in sports I won't bother to watch? But hey, like I said.. YOU can still pay for it! It's funny though, this scholarship example is possibly one of the worst issues of VSU you could of thought up. You could of even talked about toilet maintenance (not that VSU would affect that that much) and I would of cared 100x more than something like an athlete's training costs.

 

[walrusbear]

Might tick off a few people by bumping up this thread, but anyway.. after thinking about it properly and realising that I essentially don't even use uni facilities provided by the Union that much, I'm gonna take the (perhaps some of you USU supporters may label 'selfish') road and throw my back behind the VSU legislation. Since the Coalition is gonna force it through no matter what, I certainly hope it bloody well goes through before early next year so I can save a few hundred bucks. Good riddance.

well, of course, if it saves you some money then it MUST be worthwhile
we needn't bother considering the multititude of important and positive effects of the union instead we'll make a policy effectively killing it altogether.

 

[withoutaface]

good hospital treatment is important, and i'll pay for it i don't care. but if we are going to go by "im not using it so i'm not paying for it" mentallity for VSU, why stop there, why not apply the same mentallity to local council, perhaps state or to whole nation.

olympics and sport is an example. athletes are one group of people who benefit from union fees coz they have scholarship provided to them, which helps them train, pay for the books, travel to training, whatever. I know when there are NRL finals, or Australia wins to match that qulafies them to FIFA world cup that heaps of people become patriotic, happy, they praise the athletes and player on their skills. I doubt it that all those athletes would have gotten there without some financial help. university scholarship is a start which helped sussie o'niel the swimmer get where she got. understand????

Unless something can be:
a) proven to be of genuine value to all or close to all of the populous;
b) proven impossible to simulate through the market;
It should not be paid for through compulsory taxation.

Also you might be interested to know that USyd cricket is paying Stuart Macgill and several other NSW state level players to play for it. Now if their primary interest was upandcoming athletes, why would they do this?

 

[walrusbear]

Unless something can be:
a) proven to be of genuine value to all or close to all of the populous;
b) proven impossible to simulate through the market;
It should not be paid for through compulsory taxation.

what's this fucking obsession with the market?
it's flawed as buggery, let's get over it.

 

[withoutaface]

what's this fucking obsession with the market?
it's flawed as buggery, let's get over it.

Where a flaw exists, it is covered by b).

 

[walrusbear]

are you copying this from an econ textbook??

 

[withoutaface]

are you copying this from an econ textbook??

No, nor do I own one.

 

[Phanatical]

I would argue that while it's essential that a thriving student community be maintained, that (in the case of USYD and other larger universities) demanding contributions of up to $590 or totals approaching that is FAR too much to demand of students. Our representatives talk of the positive aspects of unionism, but they forget that what they are effectively demanding is that students (who don't usually have much savings) give up a couple week's pay to take advantage of the "benefits" of membership. For the poorest students, that $540 would be FAR more advantageous in paying rent or buying food, and for more fortunate students. There is NO student that isn't actively involved in student politics at (at least USYD) that uses $540 worth of services. Not a single one.

 

[walrusbear]

I would argue that while it's essential that a thriving student community be maintained, that (in the case of USYD and other larger universities) demanding contributions of up to $590 or totals approaching that is FAR too much to demand of students. Our representatives talk of the positive aspects of unionism, but they forget that what they are effectively demanding is that students (who don't usually have much savings) give up a couple week's pay to take advantage of the "benefits" of membership. For the poorest students, that $540 would be FAR more advantageous in paying rent or buying food, and for more fortunate students. There is NO student that isn't actively involved in student politics at (at least USYD) that uses $540 worth of services. Not a single one.

suggests that the fees are too high, not that the universal payments system is flawed in itself

 

[Xayma]

If VSU is introduced then lots of athletes in every uni will loose their scholarships and training facilities and you can forget about them representing you at world or olympic games.

Just to continue the attacking of this point, I would rather be represented by people who advance humanity through their achievements such as engineers, scientists, psychologists etc. rather then helping people relive their schoolies (which I was not able to afford due to the cost of coming to uni) at unigames.

Of course this happens to be Barnaby's position lets keep sport but get rid of everything else. I personally wouldn't care too much about everything else (well as long as its charged by the university and not the student organisations) and would rather have all then just Barnaby's model.

I still don't see why the union (at least Sydneys) needs to charge so much when it is running a $2 million profit. If it is charging compulsory membership IMO it should be running without profit.

 

[erawamai]

Unless something can be:
a) proven to be of genuine value to all or close to all of the populous;
b) proven impossible to simulate through the market;
It should not be paid for through compulsory taxation.

I think you are being a bit simplistic there. 'genuine value to all but close to all' is pretty grey. The question of whether something is of value to the population is a value laden and subjective question. There isn't really some abolsute value which can tell you when it is beneficial to the community.

Also it is theoretically near impossible for anything to benefit the whole of the population at all times. Rights and liabilities impact on people unequally. That is the nature of modern society. To test the value of some kind of intiative to society against that criteria is utopian, it can never be satisfied and clever people on the right of politics can define value to the community so narrowly that the notion of collective good is destroyed.

Your criteria, if applied rigidly, would see many many things that you would see as beneficial to society as abandoned. Society would fall apart if cold hard market principles was applied to all parts of life, simply because things that support society are not amenable to market principles.

Also you might be interested to know that USyd cricket is paying Stuart Macgill and several other NSW state level players to play for it. Now if their primary interest was upandcoming athletes, why would they do this?

They pay him because they like winning premierships. Usyd winning the 1st grade comp, which they did last year, is presitgious and good for the university. I can tell you that what they pay MacGill and others is is not substantial.

 

[withoutaface]

I think you are being a bit simplistic there. 'genuine value to all but close to all' is pretty grey. The question of whether something is of value to the population is a value laden and subjective question. There isn't really some abolsute value which can tell you when it is beneficial to the community.

Also it is theoretically near impossible for anything to benefit the whole of the population at all times. Rights and liabilities impact on people unequally. That is the nature of modern society. To test the value of some kind of intiative to society against that criteria is utopian, it can never be satisfied and clever people on the right of politics can define value to the community so narrowly that the notion of collective good is destroyed.

Your criteria, if applied rigidly, would see many many things that you would see as beneficial to society as abandoned. Society would fall apart if cold hard market principles was applied to all parts of life, simply because things that support society are not amenable to market principles.



They pay him because they like winning premierships. Usyd winning the 1st grade comp, which they did last year, is presitgious and good for the university. I can tell you that what they pay MacGill and others is is not substantial.

Good for the university? I couldn't tell you what USyd's position in any sport was, nor could 75% of the rest of students who study there.

 

[erawamai]

Good for the university? I couldn't tell you what USyd's position in any sport was, nor could 75% of the rest of students who study there.

Whether you like it or not sport and fitness is good for society. Perhaps you should apply your own test to sport. I believe a healthy, fit society is a good society.

But then again people play sport for fun and not money. Some people might consider sport good for character building. The university might consider it prestigious to have good sporting teams.

I mean wouldnt it be good if everyone in society was fit and healthy and active. Think of HOW MUCH YOU COULD CUT FROM PUBLIC HEALTHCARE! But damn. How do you reconcile that with the right of people to stuff their faces and be lazy shits. Damn ay.

I mean I could use your test to justify public health programs where tax payer money is used to force people to be healthy but making it illegal to be fat. A healthy society would save heaps from the budget.

 

[Phanatical]

ISA policy is that we oppose VSU as an ideology, but that it's better than forcing students to give up a fortnight's wages. It's a great position, but my personal grudge with Unionism stems from the fact that we pay $144 towards sports, but only about $2-3 towards Music. At the Conservatorium, 94% of students now support VSU not because we have shitall services compared to main campus, or because the SRC/Union are full of shit, but because of the Sports fee.

It's true a healthy society is something the Union should be contributing towards, but we don't need a Sports Union for that. Instead of paying exorbitant cash to top-ranked players, they should be focusing more on health issues among the rank-and-file student. Running courses on nutrition, raising awareness on important health and wellness issues. NOT first grade cricket or whatever.

It's also true though that as much as we need a healthy society, we need even more a cultured society that appreciates and contributes to the Arts. Arts funding should be equal to, if not more, than the Sports funding because the Arts are more important to students than subsidising a bunch of rugby players.

 

[erawamai]

Instead of paying exorbitant cash to top-ranked players, they should be focusing more on health issues among the rank-and-file student.

You seem to be very good at hyperbole.

Honestly how can you maintain the first argument and then maintain the 2nd. Do you realise you make no sense whatsoever. Sports no cultured society yes? Honestly could you be anymore unbalanced?

What on earth does a cultuered society have to do with the small state? or are you going argue that mental health given to people who do liek the arts is something that should be subsidised by the state. I would argue that withoutaface would have different ideas.