Page last updated 18/2/2024.
State of the Monash Student Association pre-Change
Disclaimer: no guarantees of factual accuracy. Some claims are based on best evidence.
The contents of this page are based on the situation as it stood immediately before the 2023 MSA elections, in which Labor Left-led ticket Change defeated the incumbent Labor Right-aligned Together ticket.
A brief context
Each campus of Monash University has its own independent student union. The Monash Student Assocation (MSA) represents undergraduate students at the Monash Clayton campus and is a member of the National Union of Students (NUS), the peak body representing tertiary students in Australia. The MSA is governed by the Monash Student Council (MSC) which is comprised of MSA office bearers (except editors of Lot’s Wife the MSA paper), Division Presidents (Monash University International Students Service, Mature-Age and Part-Time Students Association, Clubs & Societies [C&S] Council, Radio Monash), and 5 general representatives.
The MSA received 25% of the compulsory Student Services and Amenities Fee collected by the University in 2022, with total income almost $6 million.
Monash University is governed by the University Council. One student sits on the University Council for a 2 year term.
The Academic Board is responsible for academic oversight of the University’s teaching and research. Each member has a 2 year term. The Academic Board consists of 2 undergraduate students, elected in alternating years, as well as 1 coursework graduate and 1 research graduate student, elected in alternating years.
Electoral system
The MSA holds yearly elections for the MSA office bearers, committees, the 5 MSC general representatives, and 7 NUS delegates. Divisions hold separate elections. The MSA Constitution prescribes elections by secret ballot using “optional preferential proportional representation”.
OGL Group, which has conducted MSA elections since 2010, is linked to the Australian Labor Party.
The practice of directly electing office bearers by the general student body means that single tickets tend to “sweep” office bearer positions even if a substantial minority of the electorate support another ticket, since students preferring a certain ticket are likely to vote for that ticket across all positions. This all-or-nothing system favours the development of larger tickets and pre-election coalitions, and recent history shows that incumbent tickets remain dominant for a long period of time. The phenomenon of large tickets is probably cemented by the 2019 introduction of booklet voting.
Political clubs
The political clubs registered with C&S are the Monash ALP/Labor Club (Labor Left), Monash University Greens Society, Labor Unity Club (Labor Right), and Monash University Liberal Club.
Another political group on campus, in fact the most prominent, are the Monash Socialists (Socialist Alternative). They were the “parent church” which planted the University of Sydney Socialist Alternative, now the largest faction in the University of Sydney SRC. The Socialist Alternative Club were in ancient history a C&S club but were deregistered in 2014. C&S is officially apolitical and controlled by presidents of registered clubs.
There is generally a perception that certain factions are led by or aligned with certain political clubs. Whilst convenient, this should not be considered a hard rule.
A note on terminology
The different layers of political groups require some subtle distinctions in how we refer to them.
“Political club” is used to mean the “official” sort of organisation, and are a convenient system to categorise and label the allegiance of individuals: ALP/Labor Club (Labor Left), Greens, Labor Unity (Labor Right), Liberals, Socialists (SAlt).
“Faction” is used to mean a particular grouping, generally aligned with a political club but also including others, that aims to win positions for its members in MSA: Go, SAlt, Grassroots, Together, Activate, Student Voice and so on.
“Ticket” is used to mean a ticket registered for an election, with which candidates are labelled on the ballot paper. Factions (except SAlt) tend to have a ticket using the faction name, but historically there were feeder tickets run by the same faction which funnelled preferences to the main ticket.
Notes on conventions
Rainbow Collective is the autonomous ticket that runs candidates for MSA Queer Officer, and other tickets generally allow them to run unopposed.
Lot’s Wife is the MSA student paper. Lot’s Wife editors are elected with the MSA elections, and candidates generally run with a ticket contesting the regular elections.
HeGOmony
For over a decade, Go was the dominant faction. Aligned with the Labor Left, Go’s opposition were the grassroots left (Activate/Switch/Grassroots tickets, closest to the Greens and linked to the Wholefoods Collective) and SAlt (Left Action/Left Hook tickets), with the Labor Right and Liberals also occasionally running. Traditionally, factions such as Go and SAlt would run feeder tickets with humorous or obfuscatory names intended to hide their alignment with a faction, but in fact sent preferences towards the faction’s main ticket.
Grassroots had a tradition of avoiding election deals and negotiations, and presented itself as a left-wing activist alternative to Go. In 2014, Grassroots formed a coalition with Go. Despite this, the first day of voting was believed to have given Left Hook the lead. Only a social media astroturfing campaign ended the threat to the Switch ticket being handed several office bearer positions.
In 2015, Grassroots ran a full ticket against Go. They were defeated across all positions. After that disaster, Grassroots sat out almost all office bearer elections in 2016 except for the Environment and Social Justice Officer race which they lost to the Go ticket (which as a result of an election deal ran SAlt members for this position). 2016 also saw an independent ticket, supported by the outgoing editors (elected in 2015 on the Go ticket), receive 38% of the vote for the Lot’s Wife Editors in their loss to Go.
Switch
To challenge Go and the Labor Left’s long term dominance of the MSA, the Together ticket was formed for the 2017 election. Together itself was a coalition of the Labor Right and leaders from over 50 clubs, including several faculty societies, whilst Grassroots and Together entered an alliance, with Grassroots to claim the more political positions. Grassroots and Together together won a landslide victory, sweeping out the 12-year Go ascendancy.
In response to Together’s seizure of power, Labor Left-backed ticket Activate (not related to the past Grassroots incarnation of the same name) was formed to contest most positions in 2018. Together and Grassroots won an even larger landslide, consolidating their grip over the MSA.
The Together-controlled MSC controversially implemented booklet voting for the 2019 election, against dissent from Grassroots and Rainbow Collective. Together’s booklet voting reform allowed voters to cast a single vote for an entire ticket listed on the voting booklet cover, with only tickets running over 15 candidates qualifying for the front cover. This tactic is not original to Together; for example, it is similar to the Melbourne University Student Union scheme detailed in the State of the Union documentary.
3 tickets qualified for the booklet cover in the 2019 election: Together, Grassroots and Climate Action (Labor Left led). All candidates from tickets which failed to make the booklet cover withdrew from the election after close of nominations. Booklet voting failed to lift voter turnout, as the offices of President, Secretary and Treasurer went to Together unopposed with all other contested offices also won by Together.
Support Your Students
In March 2020, members of the Labor Left, including the President of the Monash Labor Club, organised a petition and Facebook page named Monash University: Support Your Students!. Spurred by the MSA and Monash University’s initial inaction the campaign pushed for policy changes, with key wins achieved alongside the 2 undergraduate representatives on Academic Board, aligned with Labor Left and Grassroots, and eventually the MSA. Together’s MSA claimed credit for these victories.
After rejecting online voting in 2019, the MSC approved a fully online election for 2020.
The SYS movement decided to run a ticket for MSA, but found that 3 other people had attempted to register the same name (Mojo News ran an article about this incident that has since been deleted). The original SYS group ended up rebranding their Facebook page and running as Student Voice, unrelated to the ticket labelled “Support Your Students”. Backed by Labor Left and Grassroots, which broke their alliance with Together to merge into the ticket, Student Voice nominated the Academic Board representatives for President and Secretary of MSA.
SAlt also ran the Student Fightback - Climate Action ticket. Under booklet cover voting introduced in 2019, Student Fightback qualified for the “front cover” of the online ballot. However, it was not possible to cast a front cover vote for Student Fightback and the online ballot paper breached election regulations. After these allegations were raised by the ticket, the Returning Officer issued a temporary campaigning ban for Student Fightback based on a nominally separate issue.
Yet again, Together won all office bearer positions, although Student Voice managed to secure almost a third of seats on committees.
Unite
The 2021 election was marred by controversy as the Together-controlled MSC passed election regulations banning “campaigning on campus” and “promotional material” on campus. This sparked the Defend Democracy at Monash campaign, culminating in a Student General Meeting despite MSA executive opposition. Student Voice ran again, with Restore Democracy at Monash (SAlt aligned) also contesting the election. Climate Justice, a SAlt ticket, failed to make the booklet cover under system introduced in 2019, and thus withdrew to support Restore Democracy at Monash. Together maintained their hold on the MSA, locking out all other tickets from office bearer positions.
Together was practically unopposed in the 2022 MSA election. It is in fact too easy to list the positions they did not take: independent Indigenous Officer (unopposed), Rainbow Collective Queer Officers (unopposed), independent Women’s Affairs Committee member (contested), independent Activities Advisory Committee member (contested), independent People of Colour Committee member (contested), independent NUS delegate (contested). Climate Action/Climate Justice (SAlt aligned) did contest, but won nothing. Notable is that a “Grassroots” ticket which ran no candidates was registered by a Labor Right member, practically blocking any genuine Grassroots ticket from running under that name.
Throughout 2022 and early 2023, the Student Voice (formerly Support Your Students) Facebook page was inactive, where previously it had advocated on student issues and held Together’s MSA to account.
Charts
Vote totals based on presidential votes, booklet covers when presidency unopposed.
As it is
The dominance of tickets, and especially Together in modern times, means that students who genuinely want to represent and make life better for the Monash community have practically no option but to run on the Together ticket. Thus, students who appear on the Together ticket and also show up in other (including apolitical) representative positions should not be taken to be intending to be part of a Labor Right takeover conspiracy, but might as well just be the sort of person who tends to go for representative or leadership roles.
In 2017, a member of the Socialist Alternative commented that “Turning the MSA over to the right will be the one lasting political legacy of the Grassroots at Monash.” By 2023, Grassroots appears to have collapsed as a group. Its historical powerbase the Wholefoods Collective is struggling to recruit and keep volunteers, an existential challenge.
The 2022 election results mean that the MSC is dominated almost entirely by Together members. MSC minutes indicate that all motions in recent times pass unanimously.
The Facebook group Monash StalkerSpace around May 2023 saw a series of Anonymous posts criticising Together’s MSA. These included over its 2022 deficit (the MSA recorded a surplus in 2021), its proposal to national media to alleviate the student housing crisis by asking staff to host students, and its event held at the time of the 3 May Monash NTEU strike.
Notes on Clubs and Societies
Together has been supported by leaders from a range of clubs, including some of the largest. Methods by which this might have been achieved could have been offering positions or club benefits for support, or “stacking” club general meetings.
Nevertheless, the presidencies of some prominent clubs, including the largest C&S club, are controlled by the Labor Left.
C&S is a division of the MSA, governed by presidents of its affiliated clubs. C&S Officers and Executive are elected by these presidents, independently of the MSA. At least 6 of the 9 2023 C&S Office Bearers, including 3 of the “top 4” positions, have also been elected to the MSA on the Together ticket. Another hails from the Labor Left.
The C&S Executive has the power to disaffiliate clubs, depriving them of recognition, funding and other benefits. The Socialist Alternative Club was deregistered in this way and at some point they were banned from campus entirely. In 2023, the Monash Association of Debaters, among the most successful debating societies globally and historically host of MSA election debates, was deregistered with no dissenting vote by the C&S Executive (overturned on appeal by the C&S Council comprising all club presidents). The MAD President at the time of the C&S Executive deregistration decision is associated with the Labor Left and had previously been elected to the MSA on a Student Voice ticket (serving alongside a 2023 C&S Office Bearer from Together among others).
Documents
- 2014 MSA Notice of Results
- 2015 MSA Notice of Results
- 2016 MSA Results of Elections
- 2017 MSA Notice of Results
- 2018 MSA Election Report
- 2019 MSA Declaration of Positions Elected Unopposed
- 2019 MSA Notice of Results
- 2020 MSA Declaration of Positions Elected Unopposed
- 2020 MSA Notice of Results
- 2021 MSA Notice of Results
- 2021 MSA Count Sheets
- 2022 MSA Election Report
- 2022 MSA Count Sheets
- 2022 MSA Election Regulations