An ‘Organ of Student Opinion’? Alternative Print, Protest, and the Politics of Education in Salient, 1973-1989 Max Nichol Image: Tim Bollinger, ‘Salient – The Newspaper Speaks…’, Salient, Vol. 50, No. 10, 25 May 1987, p.19. A Thesis Submitted to Victoria University of Wellington in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master’s of Arts in History 2019 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations ............................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... v Abstract ................................................................................................................ vi Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One - “SALI 101”: An Overview of the Production and Print Context of Salient ............................................................................................... 17 Chapter Two - Salient Through the Long 1970s: Activism and Socialism, 1968-1981 ............................................................................................................ 43 Chapter Three - Changing Contexts, New Challenges: Salient’s Response to Neoliberal Education Reform, 1982-1989 ......................................................... 83 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 120 Appendix – Salient editors 1970-1990 ............................................................. 125 Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 126 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Illustration Page 1 Blank cover of Salient Vol. 45, No. 2, following the printer’s removal of the 37 front-page story. 2 Covers of the National Student Issues for 1987 and 1989. 41 3 Cartoon of Salient editor Peter Franks during an NZUSA visit to China in 48 1973. 4 Selection of protest advertisements from Salient in the mid-1970s 50 5 Route of the South Island Resistance Ride in 1975, as portrayed in Salient. 53 6 Cartoon of Bruce Robinson and John Henderson discussing socialist theory, 69 1975. 7 Stressed student overwhelmed by VUWSA Education Officer’s work 72 against high workloads in 1976. 8 Cartoon depicting Labour’s inaction on the Standard Tertiary Bursary prior 74 to the 1975 election. 9 Cover of Salient featuring a banner hung from the Rankine Brown Building 113 in protest of user pays education policies, 1989. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, thanks are due to Cybèle Locke, who supervised this thesis. Your extensive knowledge of the communist left and trade unions in New Zealand proved to be invaluable. Thank you for the chats, the comments, and for seeing the potential in this project from the very beginning. The History Department at Victoria University of Wellington is a first-rate place to study. Thank you to all of the staff and my fellow postgraduate students who in sharing their research and expertise have greatly enriched this thesis and the process of writing it. School Administrator Teresa Durham deserves specific mention for all of the incredible work she does to make the Department run smoothly. Particular thanks also to Professor Charlotte Macdonald and Dr Rebecca Lenihan, both of whom provided valuable thoughts and advice at the beginning of my research. More importantly, both played an integral role in my decision to pursue postgraduate study in history in the first place. I will always be grateful to you both for setting me on this path. Thanks to my family, for their unwavering love and support during my time at Victoria University, and to all of the incredible friends who have supported me as I researched and wrote this thesis. Many thanks to Melissa Harward and Kiriana Haze, my flatmates in 2018. The warmth and brightness you brought to our home on The Terrace almost made up for how freezing it was. I am immensely grateful to Mark Cubey, Peter Franks, Jane Hurley, Roger Steele, Margie Thomson, and Simon Wilson, who agreed to be interviewed for this project. Your thoughts and reflections on your time at Salient shaped this thesis in ways both big and small. Thank you for sharing. Thank you to the editor of Salient in 2018, Louise Lin, and the co-editors in 2019, Taylor Galmiche and Kii Small, for the opportunity to contribute a “From the Archives” column to Salient. It was a great creative outlet and allowed me to make use of some of the material which did not make it into this thesis. The bequest of F P Wilson, former Professor of History at Victoria University of Wellington, provided a scholarship at the beginning of this research. It seems fitting that it contributed to the writing of a thesis which further illuminates the history of the university he worked in. v ABSTRACT This thesis explores Victoria University of Wellington’s student newspaper, Salient, in the 1970s and 1980s. Salient covered a wide array of issues, performing its role as a campus newspaper while closely engaging with and informing students of wider political issues during a period of significant student protest. As a publication, it consistently and deliberately set itself apart from the mainstream media, a position which placed it alongside other alternative or radical publications. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates that the connections between Salient and the Wellington Marxist-Leninist Organisation (MILO) were profound and enduring in the 1970s, with significant implications for the kinds of analysis and issues that Salient presented to its readers. While individual editors did have unique editorial policies, the nature of Salient’s journalism in the 1970s was notably socialist and activist in its outlook. In the 1980s, while Salient maintained a progressive political outlook, the direct association with MILO (by then the Workers’ Communist League) loosened. The paper’s political content still covered a range of contemporary social issues, and its editors took political stances, but its content was more akin to political commentary than an extension of political activism. The exception was Salient’s opposition to user pays tertiary education, which was seriously considered by David Lange’s Labour Government as part of its neoliberal reforms. As the possibility of a user-pays tertiary education system became more likely, Salient dedicated more space to covering, opposing, and organising action against this disruptive policy which had major implications for its student readership. Salient often did not speak for all students, but provided a platform for alternative analysis of social and political issues, pushing the boundaries of the purpose of student media and its place within the print landscape of New Zealand. vi Introduction Student newspapers occupy an almost unique area of the print media in New Zealand. They can do, in essence, what they damn well please. They are not bound by the normal constraints on newspapers – advertising, sales and so-called ‘objective’ journalism.1 This is a history of Victoria University of Wellington’s (VUW) long-standing student newspaper Salient, between the years of 1973 and 1989. In the quote above, Salient editor Richard Adams captures many of the themes this thesis investigates – the significance of Salient’s funding relationship with the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA), the irreverence for mainstream journalistic conventions, and the amateur spirit of so many of its contributors. Across the 1970s and 1980s, Salient regularly and intentionally positioned itself in opposition to the mainstream press, rejecting the notion that objective journalism was an attainable or even desirable standard of reporting. As such, Salient should be understood within the alternative print culture of the time which made significant contributions to the organisation of political protest activity. However, it was different from other alternative publications in a number of important ways. Due to its relationship with its printer, Wanganui Newspapers, and the need to manage a relationship with VUWSA, its publisher and funding body, it was perhaps not as radical as other alternative media at the time. However, that relationship with VUWSA also lent it a financial security and regularity of publication not afforded to other alternative publications, meaning it was likely one of the most widely read alternative publications in Wellington at the time. It had a large audience in the ever-expanding student body of VUW (not all of which supported Salient’s content) as well as having some readers among the wider Wellington public and students at other universities. Despite this, the histories of student publications like Salient have not been explored in much depth. This thesis examines more specifically than previous accounts the issues and events Salient covered and the content it produced, with a view to explaining what was informing that coverage. Key questions this thesis considers are how did the historical context and the personal politics of Salient’s editors influence the newspaper’s content? 1 Richard Adams, ‘Editorial’, Salient: National Student Issue, Vol. 48, No. 17, 1986, p.3. This issue was the product of a collaboration between Massey University’s Chaff, Lincoln University’s Caclin, the University of Otago’s Critic, the University of Canterbury’s Canta, and Victoria University of Wellington’s