Page last updated 20/9/2024.
2024 elections of the Monash Student Association
Disclaimer: no guarantees of factual accuracy. Some claims are based on best evidence.
Polls are open Monday 16 September to Thursday 19 September.
Update 20/9/2024 - University Council results
The Academic Board undergraduate student representative elected last year has also been elected as student member of University Council, easily defeating 19 other candidates including major challengers in a Liberal and an Elevate-linked Labor Right member.
The NTEU failed to elect their candidate for staff member of University Council.
Update 20/9/2024 - No surprises
Provisional results have been distributed, revealing the extent of Change’s victory.
Total turnout was 13.2%, marginally up from 12.1% last year.
In the presidential election, Change increased their primary vote share significantly from 35% last year to 53%, with Elevate’s share identical to Together’s at 36%. Party in the MSA and Forward both won 4%, with Regen trailing on 3% of the vote.
In direct head-to-head elections between Change and Elevate, Change won the two-ticket preferred vote 57%-43%. Compared to the primary vote, after the exclusion of the small tickets Change gains 4% whilst Elevate gains 7%.
With a majority of the vote, Change has won all non-autonomous office bearer positions and again achieved a majority of the Monash Student Council. The Labor Left will almost certainly hold the entire MSA Executive. Together, Change and Elevate have locked out the smaller tickets from non-autonomous committees with Change winning 4 to Elevate’s 3 seats on each committee and the National Union of Students. Change will hold 3 Monash Student Council General Representatives, with Elevate winning 2. The Monash Student Council will have a Change majority (including the Socialist Alternative), with representation of Elevate and Access alongside the divisions (which also might be politically linked).
Access has defeated Change in the Disabilities & Carers Department. With 60% of the vote, the incumbent D&C Officer and Access organiser has won re-election, alongside 4 seats to Access on the D&C Committee against Change’s 3.
Elevate will hold all seats in the Student Affairs Committee, winning 96% of the vote in this election. The only other ticket contesting this committee, Free Palestine, received a dismal 4% of the vote and no seats after failing to qualify for the front page of the ballot.
Elevate has defeated Change in the Women’s Department, following Together’s victory last year. Elevate won Women’s Officer with 52% of the vote and secured 4 seats on the Women’s Committee, with Change taking the remaining 3.
Change has defeated Regen to gain the Queer Officer on 58% of the vote after taking the Queer Affairs Committee unopposed.
People of Colour Officer was the only office-bearer election to require a distribution of preferences in order to determine the winner. Change received a primary vote of 47% to Elevate’s 42%. After preferences from Party in the MSA (6%) and Regen (5%) were distributed, Change were elected with 49% against Elevate on 46% and 5% of votes exhausted. The POC Collective balance is uncertain with Change holding 45% and Elevate holding 43%, however based on the POC Officer election it will likely go 4 seats to Change and 3 seats to Elevate.
Despite the failure of Free Palestine, members of the Socialist Alternative elected with the Change ticket include both Education (Public Affairs) Officers, one of the two Environment & Social Justice Officers, an MSC General Representative and an NUS Delegate.
This election was a success for Change. Although not quite a landslide by MSA standards, the incumbents have importantly strengthened their vote after a closely contested election last year. Coming from second on primary in 2023, Change has jumped to a majority of the vote after absorbing most of the Social Justice/Socialist Alternative vote, holding the Labor Right ticket to a static share, and easily seeing off challenges from a broader array of tickets. However, they have not come close to meeting the landslide proportions of the Together victories and will be very aware that even those buffers are no guarantee of retaining the MSA next year.
Update 19/9/2024 - Change wins
The incumbents have scored another, crucial, victory, consolidating their hold on the MSA after coming to power at last year’s elections.
Update 19/9/2024 - Polls closed
Campaigners now nowhere to be seen on campus. We await results.
Today, Regen joined Elevate in reporting unsolicited phone calls asking the receiver to vote for Change.
I have been given a photo of a room being used to store some merchandise of a ticket. While the room is widely considered/assumed to be a club office of an MSA C&S-affiliated club, it is not officially recognised as such by C&S.
And yes, I did vote although my ballot for NUS Delegate did not go through in time. I also forgot that I am a person of colour.
Update 18/9/2024 - Third day of polling done - 1 day until polls close
Free Palestine copped a pretty substantial campaigning ban today. They have been pushing for Change votes.
In a funny encounter today an Elevate campaigner approached me and asked me if I have voted, and I replied that I have not, to which they walked away.
Update 17/9/2024 - Second day of polling done - 2 days until polls close
Posters showed up on campus “Different name. - Different colour. - Elevate = Together - Same people. - Same mistakes. - Don’t go back.”
Some students have reported being called by members of Socialist Alternative who obtained phone numbers from the Students for Palestine petition to call the SGM. Elevate have linked this to the Change ticket.
Monash for Palestine, a group separate from Students for Palestine, has endorsed Change.
Update 16/9/2024 - First day of polling done - 3 days until polls close
Elevate had a relatively strong presence on campus today, alongside Change and Free Palestine campaigners. Elevate in red, Change in green, with Free Palestine blending in with their darker colour scheme.
A number of tickets have published “how to vote” posts today. Change is not recommending any further preference, which is unsurprising as they are running in almost every contest and would be expecting to easily make the top two across all elections. Elevate is recommending Access for the D&C Department and Regen for Queer Officers, both of which have Change as the only other ticket. With the decision to not contest these two departments, this HTV reflects Elevate’s priority to lock Change out of all contested positions. Regen is recommending full preferences in order to Access, Elevate, Change, Party in the MSA, and Forward last. Forward is recommending preferences to Elevate followed by Access.
Free Palestine, which did not achieve front page status, has not published an HTV. Members of Socialist Alternative running on the Change ticket generally are campaigning for Free Palestine and pretending that they are part of that ticket instead. On the other hand, a few Socialist Alternative members promoting Free Palestine are saying to “vote 1 Change”.
Voters are not obligated to follow the tickets’ suggestions nor submit full preferences, and there is not a lot of reason to believe that a high proportion would do either. Overall, in the two-ticket contest between Change and Elevate, Change is favoured by Free Palestine whilst Elevate has the support of Regen and Forward.
Update 16/9/2024 - Graduations - 3 days until polls close
There are graduation ceremonies at the Clayton campus for all four days of polling.
Update 16/9/2024 - Polls open - 3 days until polls close
All eligible voters have been emailed a link to cast their vote online. Voting closes 5pm on Thursday.
Update 12/9/2024 - Access and Regen exchange endorsements - 4 days until polls open
2 days ago, Regen endorsed Access. Today, Access has endorsed Regen. The two tickets do not compete directly for any positions, with Access running only for Disabilities and Carers Officer and Committee which they are contesting against Change.
Update 11/9/2024 - Election Guide released - 5 days until polls open
Read it here.
Update 11/9/2024 - On “joke” tickets - 5 days until polls open
This is not specifically about the MSA, it is a bit of student politics history. “More beer” is perhaps one of the more common phrases and policies in student union elections.
The 11th of September happens to be a historic date for Australian student politics. The national growth of the initially Melbourne-based Socialist Alternative was catalysed by the S11 (September 11) protests in 2000. SAlt tried to replicate the protests again on 11 September 2001, which overlapped with election week at the Melbourne University Student Union. This was one of the speculated reasons that the left-wing administration of MUSU decided to delay the election. After going to court, the result was the original election dates reinstated and nominations not reopened. The only tickets to have successfully nominated by the original date were the Labor Right ticket and a small “quasi-joke” opposition ticket, headed by a figure later central in the More Beer club and its MUSU ticket. So the Labor Right gained control of MUSU practically uncontested, which it maintained until the union’s collapse.
Despite running joke election campaigns, More Beer was a core part of the opposition to the Labor Right and its corruption of MUSU. Its representative on the Activities Committee recognised and delayed the establishment of the subcommittee which would go on to deregister the leftwing clubs and deprive them of a box on the front page of the ballot booklet. The subcommittee failed to deregister More Beer due to its rock-solid paperwork. More Beer was first to recognise the value in collaborating with the filmmaker Gary Newman. It was central in creating the coalition to exchange preferences and try to take down the Labor Right in that election. More Beer ran as a joke ticket, but it was serious about the union.
Update 9/9/2024 - University Council candidates - 7 days until polls open
The candidates for student member of the Monash University Council have been released. With 20 candidates successfully nominating, this is an especially crowded election for a position elected once every two years from both undergraduate and postgraduate students across every Australian campus. Familiar names include a leader of the Labor Right closely linked to Elevate, a Liberal and current MSA MAPS President, and the student representative to Academic Board elected last year. The current student member is a former MSA President and Academic Board student representative, from Together and the Labor Right. Voting starts tomorrow and runs for one week.
Update 6/9/2024 - New C&S Executive elected - 10 days until polls open
The Annual General Meeting of the MSA Clubs and Societies Council has elected a new C&S Executive. Of the big four, three have been linked to Change and one is running this year for an MSA office bearer position and NUS delegate on the Change ticket. C&S is often said to be autonomous and apolitical - it is not surprising that some people interested in being on the C&S Executive would also be interested in being in the MSA and interested in government generally.
Update 3/9/2024 - Student General Meeting motions passed but not binding - 13 days until polls open
The vote was roughly 450 in favour and 40 against, but failed to meet the threshold of 1% of Clayton students voting in favour and so is not binding on the MSA.
A context
See the recap of the last MSA elections, in which the Change ticket organised by the Labor Left won a narrow victory over the incumbents. Aspects of the election, such as the circumstances around the formation of the Change coalition and the fall of the dominant Together administration are still very murky. Almost no ordinary student knows or could even imagine the full story. Certainly not me.
A number of positions have changed hands since, some of them apparently less consequential than others. It is worth paying a few words to Dilhan, a member of the Labor Left who continues to be an actor.
In 2022, Dilhan organised with friends to be elected president of Wired, the Faculty of IT Society. Later that year, he was elected a General Representative on the MSA Clubs and Societies Executive, a position open to C&S or club office bearers. In July 2023, he was a candidate with the attempted stack of Radio Monash. In the 2023 MSA elections, he was not a candidate but helped to organise and campaign for Change. In February 2024, he was appointed by the Academic Board to fill one of two undergraduate representative positions on Academic Board, after the 2023 MSA President departed. In March 2024, the Monash Student Council General Representative elected second on the Change ticket resigned, and Dilhan ascended to the position. Subsequently, he was elected to be the General Representative sitting on the MSA Executive, a position which had been left vacant after insufficient support for a candidate at an earlier MSC meeting.
The position of Authorised Officer for the Change ticket changed hands and ended up with Dilhan. This gave him the power to appoint people to fill vacancies if a person elected on the Change ticket resigned from their MSA position, besides office bearers but including MSC General Representatives.
Palestine
From the point of view of the Socialist Alternative, the big focus this year has been Palestine. Through their front Students for Palestine, they organised the solidarity encampment at Monash during May. Repeatedly, they have expressed frustrations with the MSA’s lack of support for their cause and the encampment, particularly in defending students from suspension.
In March, the Queer Officers posted to MSA Queer social media, attacking members of the Queer Affairs Committee for moving to restrict their use of social media, which they had been using almost exclusively for Palestine activism. The post was removed with permission of the MSA President. In late May, the Queer Officers claimed to have been locked out of MSA Queer social media. On 31 May, an MSC meeting was scheduled to which Students for Palestine had submitted a number of motions. Labor members of the MSC withheld quorum, and the meeting was rescheduled to 21 June. The rescheduled meeting again could not meet quorum. On 28 June, quorum was finally met and the meeting had to get through a mountain of motions, including organising the MSA elections and passing changes to the Election Regulations. The Students for Palestine motions were finally considered, but were amended without the consent of the movers.
Separately, the Greens Society (and SFP indirectly) called on engineering clubs affiliated with MSA Clubs and Societies to break ties with weapons companies.
Who is running?
Coming off the back of a remarkably close three-ticket election in 2023, this year will see an extraordinary number of tickets nominate candidates compared to recent MSA elections. The factions participating in tickets are the Labor Left (under Change), Labor Right (Elevate), Socialist Alternative (Free Palestine, Change), Greens (Regen) and Liberals (Forward).
The incumbents Change are led by the Labor Left and also includes candidates from the Socialist Alternative for Education (Public Affairs) Officers, one of two Environment and Social Justice Officers, one MSC General Representative and one NUS Delegate. Change is running the most candidates of the contesting tickets, with 88 across all positions except Indigenous Officer and the Student Affairs Committee (in which Free Palestine has nominated). An item of trivia about the Change candidate for Treasurer is that they feature in one of the few documented stacks in recent Monash history.
Elevate, which could be considered successors of the previously dominant Together ticket, is organised by a coalition of subfactions of the Labor Right. Running 86 candidates across all positions except Indigenous Officer and the Queer and D&C Officers and Committees, Elevate will compete directly against Change in the vast majority of elections.
Regen is the first separate Greens-linked ticket since Grassroots was absorbed into the Student Voice ticket with the Labor Left for the pandemic elections and ceased to exist as an identifiable faction. Organisers of the ticket had initially intended to revive the Grassroots brand. However, they were thwarted by newly introduced Election Regulations which prevented them from doing so as the name had been registered by the Labor Right in 2022. Regen is running 25 candidates for President, Treasurer, the ESJ and POC Officers and Committees, Monash Student Council General Representative, Queer Officer, the Women’s Affairs Committee and National Union of Students Delegate.
Party in the MSA (also known as Party in the REDACTED) is a ticket formed by Mannix College residents. It is running 12 candidates for President, Secretary, Treasurer, Activities Officer, Education (Public Affairs) Officer, Monash Student Council General Representative, Lot’s Wife Editor, People of Colour Officer and National Union of Students Delegate.
This year marks the first distinct Liberal ticket for ten years, in Forward. It is running 10 candidates for President, Secretary, Treasurer, Activities Officer, Education (Academic Affairs) Officer, Education (Public Affairs) Officer, Monash Student Council General Representative, Welfare Officer and National Union of Students Delegate.
The Access ticket is organised by an incumbent Disabilities and Carers Officer who is running for re-election alongside 7 candidates for the D&C Committee.
Free Palestine is led by the Socialist Alternative and members of Students for Palestine, running 7 candidates for the Student Affairs Committee (in which Change has not nominated) and 7 candidates for National Union of Students Delegate. The Socialist Alternative appears to have done a deal with Change, with a few of its members running on the Change ticket for office bearer positions.
Access, Change, Elevate, Forward, Regen and Party in the MSA, in that order, have qualified for the front page of the ballot. Free Palestine failed to reach the front page.
Positions declared elected unopposed are the Queer Affairs Committee, all on the Change ticket, and independent Indigenous Officers. One of the Queer Affairs Committee candidates, a former president of GLEAM (Queers in STEM), ran last year for Queer Officer with Rainbow Collective but was controversially defeated by Social Justice. There is no Rainbow Collective this year, with Queer Officer contested by Change and Regen. One candidate for the Activities Advisory Committee, a member of the Socialist Alternative and incumbent Queer Officer from Social Justice, appears without a ticket.
Keep in mind that candidates in a ticket are not necessarily members of or even aligned with the political faction involved with the ticket.
Other votes
Students for Palestine ran a petition to call a Student General Meeting. The last (unofficial) SGM had been held online in 2021, organised by another Socialist Alternative front Defend Democracy at Monash after the Monash Student Council refused to run it in contravention of the MSA constitution. SFP claimed to have gathered over 900 signatures, comfortably enough to require an SGM. The first scheduled MSC meeting at which the petition was to be presented failed to hit quorum. In frustration SFP unilaterally set the date to 3 September. At a rescheduled MSC meeting, that date was unanimously endorsed, despite the MSA claiming to be only able to verify about 250 signatures as belonging to students due to restrictions on student data access. The SGM will be held from 12pm Tuesday 3 September in Campus Centre, 13 days before polls open.
The resolutions proposed by SFP are:
- MSA, on behalf of the students at Monash University Clayton Campus, supports an immediate and just end to Israel’s war on Gaza. This means stopping the bombing, a permanent withdrawal of Israeli troops, an end to the 18-year long blockade, and reparations to be paid for the reconstruction of Gaza.
- MSA calls upon Monash University to reveal and cut all ties with companies and institutions involved in the development and manufacturing of weapons used by the IDF against the Palestinian people.
- MSA will make representations on behalf of students by bringing resolutions [1] and [2] to the attention of the Vice-Chancellor and the General Manager of Monash University.
An election for the student member on the Monash University Council will be held Tuesday 10 September to Tuesday 17 September, essentially the week leading up to the MSA elections. Elections for student members on the Academic Board will be held in October.
There are also many elections and Annual General Meetings coming up for the MSA Divisions and clubs. These include the MSA Clubs and Societies Council’s AGM on Wednesday 4 September to elect a new C&S Executive and the Law Students Society’s elections from Wednesday 4 September to Friday 8 September.