As VUWSA president Andrew Little put it, back in his 1996 op-ed for Salient—and I quote—"Neither the Labour Party nor the National Party have yet made decisions about the future of tertiary education and education funding, and it's important to maintain the pressure on both sides to influence their decisions." As Otago University student president Ayesha Verrall stated in 2001, "This [Labour] government [has] a mandate to remedy a tertiary sector education in crisis. Instead the barriers to education continue to mount". Or as VUWSA president Chris Hipkins warned that same year, "We've had enough of broken promises by politicians. It's time for the Labour Government to put their money where their mouth was before the election. Ministers, the buck stops here, and 400,000 students are standing by."