Newly-elected Otago University Students’ Association president Liam White says he too would have abstained on the vote to increase tuition fees.
His comments come after the decision of his predecessor, Keegan Wells, to abstain on the university council vote to increase student tuition fees by 6% for next year.
She was the only person on the council not to vote in favour of the measures.
"We hadn't talked about it before she went for the vote, but I asked her about it afterwards and she said, ‘well, the choice was either staff cuts or [increased] tuition fees’.
"Neither was the right choice, and I tend to agree with that. So she abstained and I do think that was the right call because council were going to push through the tuition fees increase regardless."
He admitted there had been calls from some students to vote outright against the move.
Mr White was OUSA’s politics representative this year and felt his experience put him in a good position to run the top job.
He became the second consecutive OUSA president to be elected unopposed, after Ms Wells was elected in the same way.
"It's probably worth noting that there have been four uncontested OUSA presidential elections since 2000 ... I don't know whether that's just a statistical anomaly that it's happened two years in a row or if that speaks to a bigger issue.
"Either students feel intimidated by the roles or it could be that they're just too busy. You know, the expectations on students right now are pretty high."
Mr White said it was time for OUSA to forge an identity for itself separate from the university.
"OUSA has moved from, I think, the centre, towards the periphery of uni life, to be honest.
"Which to me is really disappointing because we do a lot of cool work and the students that know this really appreciate what we do, but not enough students do.
"A lot of students think that we're just the uni with a green coat of paint. OUSA is having a bit of an identity crisis right now and it has been for a little while."
Mr White said the university council’s decision to raise OUSA activity fees by 7% next year was "the nature of the beast".
"With student fees there is the problem that fees haven't kept pace with inflation ... OUSA made a submission to the university advisory group and we suggested maybe a 4.5 or 5% increase instead."
Mr White said he was keen to get a warrant of fitness monitoring scheme for rental properties, push forward on a new student bar and encourage more participation from students with OUSA.
He was "optimistic" about the prospects for a student bar; and hoped progress could be made on the WOF for rentals.
"People get really, really sick down here and we kind of don't talk about it, but people's lives have really changed just because of where they live. Winning that lottery of getting a good student flat in your second year really changes things."
