Page last updated 24/9/2024.
At O-Week in 2023, I paid for membership of the Monash Association of Debaters. Before I had the chance to go to a single event, I was told that the club would be deregistered.
By all accounts, MAD is a well-loved and well-regarded organisation at Monash University and in the global university debating community, to the extent that some people have chosen Monash University due to MAD. Even one associate of mine who is not a debater once attended a training session and debate hosted by MAD and gave it fervent praise.
For those who were impacted by the conflict that gripped the club in the leadup to the deregistration, MAD became unsafe with many members experiencing real harm.
This is a story that has relevance for any club. Here I present a high-level overview of the events of 2023, with a focus on the deregistration and subsequent successful appeal. Details of the alleged conflicts or the roles of players involved are out of scope.
MAD is one of the very oldest clubs at Monash University, having been founded early in the University’s first year of teaching in 1961. It predates Clubs and Societies, and the Monash Student Association by decades.
Some passages from MAD’s website, which is now offline.
“The largest and most successful debating society in the Southern hemisphere, MAD has a rich history spanning over 50 years, and we are passionate about building on this legacy.”
“Monash remains the first and only debating society to ever have won the World University Debating Championships three times in a row.”
“Monash (MAD) is widely regarded as one of the best debating universities in the world – as the first university to ever win back-to-back World championships, and the fantastic record of having won 9 Australs and 5 Worlds since 1990, more than any other University during that time.”
Unfortunately for MAD, it is in some ways simply a regular club and so always under the threat of deregistration at the will of the C&S Executive. This is in contrast to the University of Sydney, where debating is a protected part of the University of Sydney Union’s Constitution and a core activity (in fact, the founding activity) of the USU separate from clubs and societies.
From early 2022, internal rifts within the Monash Association of Debaters Inc. and its committee were developing. Infighting escalated through 2022 and 2023, including a threat to influence an Australian Debating Council election. Serious incidents reflected an unsafe environment for members of MAD. Attacks were exchanged in the MAD group chat (containing members both inside and outside the committee), through personal social media, in private meetings, at events, and openly at the 2022 AGM. Resignations from committee were frequent in this period as a result of the infighting.
Complaints were brought to MAD’s Equity team which attempted to mediate, despite personal grievances being constitutionally outside the scope of Equity. These issues were escalated to the university’s Safer Community Unit which issued directives restricting the behaviour of a number of MAD members.
For the 2023 MAD committee, including the Secretariat (big 4), there was apparently no comprehensive handover. Most of them were second year students with little if any club committee experience and lacked institutional knowledge especially after the pandemic.
Exacerbating this handicap, it was difficult for members of the new committee to seek assistance or advice from former committee members for multiple reasons: members of the previous committee had requested not to be contacted to protect their mental health, some committee members felt unsafe with the previous committee, some people had blocked others, individuals were attacked over any perceived mistakes, and the act of asking for help had become politicised and viewed as supporting certain people when they may have hurt other members of the club.
These barriers combined with general confusion over responsibilities and the onerous and inconsistent paperwork requirements for different events contributed to the administration breaches identified by C&S.
The new committee also had trouble getting important information such as passwords from the previous committee. For some months, people who were no longer on committee still had access to the MAD committee Google Drive and emails, and continued to log into MAD’s accounts and block transactions. In the end, the MAD committee were forced to reset the Google Drive and suspend some email accounts.
The 2023 World Universities Debating Championships in Madrid (Worlds), scheduled in the period around the 2022-2023 new year, was the first in-person Worlds tournament after the pandemic. The outgoing Secretary, who remained on the committee, took on responsibility for Worlds paperwork, however they faced difficulty due to the aforementioned reasons. Additionally, responses from Worlds organisers overseas took time, and during the holiday period C&S staff were difficult to contact. The paperwork was submitted less than a week before the Monash contingent left the country, without enough time for it to be approved.
In March 2023, the former Secretary resigned from the committee. As one of the few possible event coordinators with the C&S required training due to the infighting, they were then asked to come back to help with part of the paperwork for the 2023 Australian Intervarsity Debating Championships in Sydney (Easters) in April. Some of the paperwork was submitted over 2 weeks late, less than 2 weeks before Easters was to commence, without enough time for it to be approved. Participants were not aware that the activity was unapproved until after.
In late April, on the day that C&S called a misconduct hearing for MAD purely over the late paperwork (C&S not being fully aware at this point of the safety issues), a document was distributed by a MAD member, through the MAD group chat and their personal social media, containing allegations against other club members. Subsequently, the misconduct hearing was delayed.
A special general meeting was called for May. At the SGM, the committee positions of Treasurer, WGM Officer and 3 Members without portfolio (1 Socials and 2 Member Training Officers) were to be elected. Contesting the election for Treasurer were the acting Treasurer against a former MAD President. WGM Officer and MWOP received one nomination each ahead of the SGM.
41 hours before the SGM, all MAD members received an email, following a directive from C&S earlier the same day.
“Unfortunately, due to a directive from Clubs & Societies, we have had to postpone our Special General Meeting which was due to be held on the 18th of May. Clubs and Societies have waived the usual time period requirements for re-electing members and have asked us to wait until the second semester to hold an SGM. Clubs and Societies have cited that there are administrative tasks that need to be processed beforehand and to ensure the safety of all club members.
Thank you to everyone who applied to be on the executive, we will try to reschedule as early as possible in semester 2, where you will be able to re-apply.”
Another SGM never eventuated.
Two weeks later, MAD members were notified of the club’s deregistration by the C&S Executive, comprising office bearers elected by C&S affiliated club presidents.
The decision had been made at a three-hour misconduct hearing in the days following the date for which the SGM had been scheduled. In attendance were 7 members of the C&S Executive (1 was chair and 1 exited the meeting partway through), the MAD Secretariat (big 4), and MAD’s immediate past President.
The C&S Executive members present unanimously found MAD guilty of misconduct under sections 7.1.1 (ii) and (iii) of the C&S Constitution. The penalty of deregistration was passed with 4 votes in favour and 1 member, who had been active in MAD in the past, abstaining.
MAD appealed the C&S Executive’s deregistration penalty. The appeal hearing would be an in-person Extraordinary General Meeting of the C&S Council, comprising the presidents (or their proxies) of all C&S affiliated clubs, at the beginning of August.
For MAD, this was a “debate” with perhaps the highest stakes. A C&S representative would speak, then a MAD representative would speak, followed by question time. The outcome would be decided by the majority of the C&S Council.
Several days before the appeal hearing, the C&S office distributed a document to all clubs containing an agenda and attachments, one of which was the unconfirmed minutes of the misconduct hearing conducted earlier by the C&S Executive. Contained in the minutes was a heavily redacted discussion and recount of the details surrounding the infighting, with most redactions being names of individuals involved.
Even with the redactions, that the details had been minuted and subsequently released to all C&S clubs was seen as damaging by members of MAD - at all stages, efforts had been taken to avoid letting the infighting become public and exacerbating the harm to members.
Critically, the redaction method could be bypassed, revealing names. In the hour after the email had been sent, C&S became aware of this issue and broke the link to the document. Clubs were asked to delete the original email and a new agenda document was distributed.
Other attachments were written submissions by the C&S Executive and MAD. MAD’s submission included statements from its acting President (who had assumed the role following the misconduct hearing and the resignation of the rest of the committee), a group of MAD general members, and many debating societies around Australia - the University of Western Australia, University of Queensland, University of Wollongong, Queensland University of Technology, Deakin University and Australian National University.
The appeal hearing lasted a total of four hours. The majority of clubs were represented at the hearing, including a single representative from MAD.
C&S Executive position:
MAD appeal position:
Deliberation lasted just under an hour, during which C&S Executive members and the MAD representative were out of the room. The C&S Council unanimously found MAD guilty of misconduct under section 7.1.1 (ii) of the C&S Constitution. The C&S Council also found MAD guilty of misconduct under section 7.1.1 (iii), although this was not unanimous. Section 7.1.1 (iii) is a broad power allowing C&S to deem any conduct it decides is “prejudicial to the interests, of C&S” as misconduct, a passage which has been used in the past as the main justification to deregister certain clubs.
Deregistration was overturned, with 24% in favour of deregistration and 69% against. A proposed ban on MAD committee members from holding office in other clubs for a period of time was rejected by C&S staff as violating procedural fairness. Some recent MAD committee members have naturally gone on to become important committee members for other clubs.
The motion that was ultimately passed, with 92% in favour and 2% against, read:
“That the C&S Council moves to reprimand the Monash Association of Debaters. The club will be required to submit confirmed committee minutes to the C&S Executive for 2 years, they will be restricted from holding off-campus events for a period of 1 year and the club will be demoted to probationary affiliation status for 1 year.”
The effect of probationary affiliation status is mainly to restrict access to certain grants. MAD had been saved from the worst by the C&S Council. They would still be an affiliated C&S club, they could still attend events online, and they could still host events on campus for anyone from Monash students to overseas students.
Following the appeal hearing, a journalism student approached a number of clubs to ask for an interview. This was shut down by the C&S office.
Following the successful appeal, MAD’s AGM was called for late August. The AGM was entirely in person and the returning officer was a member of the C&S Executive, with 2 other C&S Executive members and a C&S staff member also present. The entire committee was vacated and elected at this AGM.
Most of the previous committee did not run for reelection, having resigned earlier in the year. The acting President, who had been part of the previous elected Secretariat and subsequently represented MAD at the appeal hearing, ran unopposed for the Presidency.
A full committee was elected, with most positions contested. During MWOP candidate questions, a former MAD committee member, who was not running for any election, made allegations against a candidate and former committee colleague relating to issues which contributed to the deregistration. The candidate was not elected and later complained to C&S. This incident is a sign that tensions have not been fully resolved.
Like 2022, the newly elected committee were mostly inexperienced. Rebuilding was the year’s priority and challenge for MAD.