Page last updated 5/7/2025.
Disclaimer: no guarantees of factual accuracy. Some claims are based on best evidence.
Updates on this page in reverse chronological order.
Polls are open Monday 1st September to Thursday 4th September. Students will vote in elections of MSA office bearers, committees and National Union of Students delegates.
Update 5/7/2025 - 8 weeks until polls open.
Here is a more comprehensive list of election regulation changes from a drafter:
On 4/7/2025 I incorrectly stated that “feeder tickets have not been a thing in any MSA election in recorded history”. But evidence does support the claim that generally “they are useless when voters fully control their preferences”, which is the point that matters because it is the current system. MSA elections had group voting tickets before 2022, in which preferences were entirely controlled by the ticket receiving a front page vote, not the voter. Feeder tickets can be seen in 2017 and 2016 - the withdrawn tickets in committee elections. Feeder tickets have not been a thing in any MSA election since the 2022 reform.
Additionally, it is worth noting that the efforts to change the definition of “carer” in the MSA constitution have a specific impetus. The current definition has been exploited for electoral advantage. A fundamental weakness of most autonomous elections is that they rely on voters to self-identify, which means there are no controls on whether the voter is genuinely part of the autonomous group. However, it is against the rules for campaigners to encourage voters to dishonestly identify themselves as eligible to vote.
In 2020, Together asked its members to vote in the Disabilities & Carers Officer election if they fit in the broad definition of “carer” given by the MSA constitution, even if they were undertaking care only as an MNHS student. The result ended up being close, Together winning with 260 votes against Student Voice’s 220. An appeal against the result by an outgoing D&C Officer was rejected on the basis of the MSA constitution’s definition.
Update 4/7/2025 - 8 weeks until polls open.
Elections and referenda were dealt with at a marathon MSC 6 on Wednesday 2nd July.
Amendments to the MSA constitution passed by student referendum in 2018, 2020 and 2021 had not been lodged with the Registrar of Incorporation Associations as required due to the MSA’s incorporation, so this MSC had to validate them and in one case call a Special General Meeting to formally adopt the amendment. The Clubs & Societies President (and Executive Division representative) Jay blamed Together for the errors, as they occurred during their tenure.
Moving onto the approaching elections, former Change authorised officer Jay, seconded by the Change authorised officer (and Secretary) Felix, proposed revoking the Election Regulations and replacing them with freshly drafted Election and Referendum Regulations. The initial draft had been reviewed by the election organiser OGL Group and the MSA lawyer with most recommendations incorporated into the final proposal. Only the MSA Executive was consulted in drafting the new regulations - other members of the Change ticket, the MSC, other factions and MSA members were not, apparently due to the urgency. According to the Executive, they had planned to consult more widely after drafting but the process took longer than expected.
The MSC was given 7 days notice of the proposal - the old regulations required 7 days notice to amend and the new regulations require 14 days notice, and regulations cannot be amended after the appointment of the Returning Officer for an election. This meant that given the Executive’s proposed election date, the proposed regulations could not be amended at this meeting or any time later before the election. Both the old and new regulations required the MSC to appoint the returning officer and electoral tribunal no later than the Monday “9 weeks” before the annual elections, but an exception was made for this year to extend the deadline to Wednesday - coincidentally the date of the MSC meeting given an election week of week 6 semester 2.
The old Election Regulations, first adopted in 2000 and amended many times since, had become unwieldy with broken internal cross-references and a structure that they believed was difficult to navigate. The new regulations were mostly a restructure and renumbering with content based on the old regulations, but also came linked with several substantive changes.
These included a few changes to the rules around ticket registration. Ticket names will have “Monash” and “MSA” explicitly banned - last year Party in the MSA was forced to rename to Party in the REDACTED and there was an unsuccessful challenge to Regen - Regeneration at Monash. They will also need to be no longer than 20 characters including spaces - Regen was 30.
And the protection of previously registered ticket names was extended from 3 years to 5 years requiring consent of the last authorised officer holding the ticket name, plus if a ticket did not nominate any candidate but was registered at all in the past 5 years there is no way to register the ticket name. The Grassroots name, which had been the Greens-linked ticket Regen’s first choice in 2024, was last registered by the Labor Right in 2022 meaning that it would have become available for the 2026 elections under the 2024 rules. This rule had first been introduced by the Change-controlled MSC before the 2024 elections, preventing registration of the Grassroots name. The new rules, if they stay, mean that the Grassroots name cannot be claimed until at least 2028.
However, the most controversial change was doubling the number of signatures required to register a ticket from 40 to 80 - getting a ticket is vital to securing a spot on the front page of the ballot, without which it is practically impossible to win an office bearer position. The justification for this was to balance the elimination of nominator and seconder requirements for each candidate in the ticket, streamlining the nomination process for tickets.
Education (Academic Affairs) Officer Paul, while commending the cleaning up of the regulations, questioned the higher ticket registration threshold as counter to the goal of lowering it to 40 last year to have more tickets run when there were no related problems with the 2024 elections. He pointed out that every other student union they were aware of had a lower threshold, and that increasing the threshold hurts smaller tickets while streamlining candidate paperwork helps larger tickets. The Socialist Alternative, the Disabilities & Carers Officer (who defeated Change in the autonomous department with the Access ticket), Education (Academic Affairs) Officers, a Queer Officer and independent observers opposed the doubling of the threshold as anti-democratic and locking out small, non-partisan and autonomous groups. The President Sasha argued that the total effect of changes over the past few years was to make it easier overall to register tickets, and suggested that doubling the threshold would prevent feeder tickets. Feeder tickets have not been a thing in any MSA election in recorded history since 2022 (see update 5/7/2025) because they are useless when voters fully control their preferences. A related unmentioned consequence of a low threshold would be the possibility of registering a ticket name only to block others from using it, as happened to Grassroots.
After calling for votes in favour of replacing the election regulations, there was a wait as Felix and Sasha asked certain MSC members to vote. Despite their efforts, they could manage only 11 votes in favour with 6 against and 3 abstentions - short of the 13-vote absolute majority required.
Jay asked for a recount.
When votes in favour were called for again, 12 hands went up. Sasha delayed moving on while Felix made a phone call, eventually getting a 13th vote. With 13 votes (mainly the Labor Left) in favour, 6 against and 2 abstentions, the new election regulations passed and will be implemented for this year’s elections. International had changed from abstention to in favour, while one of the Change members had voted in favour after failing to vote in the first count.
SAlt was also concerned about the early proposed date of the election requiring ticket signatures to be collected before semester starts, making it difficult to get that many when students are disengaged from student politics and university in general. The justification given for why week 6 of semester 2 was chosen by the Executive was that it would align with most other Victorian student union elections. This would limit foreign interference by student politicians from other universities, who are technically not allowed to campaign but would “stooge” - posing as a Monash voter to speak to opposing campaigners.
SAlt suggested nevertheless delaying the election, but the Executive insisted that this would not be possible as OGL Group had said they would be available week 6 and had not been asked about other weeks. SAlt demanded that the Executive call OGL Group immediately at the meeting to ask, which Felix rejected as inappropriate. Over the course of debate, they accused the Executive of fixing the election, characterising the timing and conduct of the election regulations and dates motions as strange and irregular.
6 MSC members supported SAlt’s proposal of a one-week delay, to hold the elections in week 7 instead, with 10 against and 4 abstentions. Having failed to amend the dates, SAlt and D&C boycotted the vote on the final motion to confirm a week 6 election. With 13 votes in favour and 3 against, the motion passed and the election was set for Monday 1st September to Thursday 4th September, week 6 of semester 2.
D&C moved to run a referendum alongside the elections on the definition of “carer” in the MSA constitution, the third attempt after 2023 and 2024 referenda failed due to insufficient turnout despite overwhelming votes in favour. The 2023 referendum, run with the elections, suffered from problems with visibility on the voting platform and received a 91% Yes vote on 1.77% turnout. The 2024 referendum was run separately in October due to administrative failures and received an 87% Yes vote on 3.04% turnout. Labor members argued that the referendum being run alongside the election would suppress turnout and should instead be run early next year. With 7 votes in favour, 5 against and 3 abstentions, the motion failed to reach the absolute majority required so the referendum will not be held with the MSA elections.
The 2024 MSA elections saw Change and the Labor Left consolidate their grip on the MSA by absorbing the Socialist Alternative into the ticket, after ending the Together dynasty in 2023’s tight three-way race. Since the elections, members of the ticket descended into severe internal disputes over personalities, governance and the MSA budget.
Throughout the first half of the year, the 2 positions held by Labor Left General Representatives elected on the Change ticket have seen 3 resignations, each replaced by Change. During the winter break, the MSA Treasurer, one Education (Public Affairs) Officer and one Creative & Live Arts Officer resigned and were replaced by the Monash Student Council, with all incoming office bearers being leading candidates for Change at the 2024 MSA elections. The outgoing EdPub and CLA Officers had practically left and been replaced earlier in the year but their formal resignations were delayed to avoid running expensive by-elections.