Page last updated 4/5/2026.
There is a sense of destiny and inevitability about the Monash Student Association and its governing ticket Change today. The now-ascendant subfaction within the Labor Left has over the years consolidated dominance of the student political space at the university - in the MSA, the Change ticket and the Labor Left faction. Under this administration the MSA has implemented and advocated a series of sometimes perhaps ill-advised but undeniably popular populist policies which should secure its hold on the student union for a while.
This piece comprises an overview of three events in April 2026: the third regular Monash Student Council meeting, the Monash ALP (Labor) Club spill, and the introduction of subsidies at MSA establishments.
Change first came into power at the 2023 MSA elections. The ticket was organised by the students of the Labor Left (National Labor Students, Socialist Left), back then a united faction. Since then, roughly two subfactions (fractions) have emerged within the Monash Labor Left faction, driven by both political and social factors. While there is no known universally used designation for these subfactions, today there is a majority subfaction (sometimes referred to as the hard left, Bolsheviks or the Executive subfaction) and a minority (sometimes referred to as the soft left, Mensheviks or the Lot’s Wife subfaction). These names are essentially meaningless but are convenient to keep track.
For most of 2024, the MSA Executive was controlled by members of the Lot’s Wife subfaction. The Executive subfaction has since progressively sidelined the Lot’s Wife subfaction and supporters from the MSA Executive and Monash Student Council, and now have basically full control of the 2026 MSA. Since Change got into power, the Lot’s Wife subfaction have provided the editors of the Lot’s Wife student magazine. The editors this year have attacked the MSA Executive through editorials and articles in the magazine, claiming that the MSA Executive has sought to undermine the Lot’s Wife using various means including room allocations and proposed and actual budget and honorarium cuts. Leading members of the Executive subfaction tend to demonstrate disdain for student media and Lot’s Wife.
The third regular MSC meeting of the year was held in week 6, following the early mid-semester break.
An initial draft agenda was circulated 2 days before the meeting. A revised agenda was circulated at 1:29am the morning of the meeting.
The first motion that mattered was to appoint the Academic Affairs Committee, which would be organised by the MSA Education (Academic Affairs) Officers. It was noted that this would be the first time in effectively forever that the committee would be appointed before semester 2.
The Socialist Alternative including the MSA Education (Public Affairs) Officers objected to the motion - particularly the nomination of the Law Students’ Society’s president who is a staffer for a prominent Liberal MP on the side. He had been nominated based on longstanding precedent that the Academic Affairs Committee’s voting members would consist of students selected by each faculty society’s committee. Usually this was an academic-focused committee member of the faculty society, but the LSS had decided to send its president due to the current situation in the Faculty of Law.
The LSS has among the most robust election processes among Monash clubs and societies, with its president, executive and committee elected asynchronously in a public campaign process rather than at a general meeting.
One of the EdAc Officers defended the nomination by arguing that the Academic Affairs Committee is an apolitical body, to SAlt uproar. SAlt, meanwhile, challenged the Labor Party members on where the line would be drawn for allowing reactionaries, racists and anti-unionists into the student union, asking them whether they would let One Nation members in. In the end the appointment was passed with SAlt voting against.
Various policy motions were passed with broad agreement after some discussion and amendments.
The final two motions dealt with advocacy campaigns on Palestine. For background, there are broadly two pro-Palestine movements on campus. There is Students for Palestine, part of the national network of SfP front groups led by the Socialist Alternative. Then there is the non-SAlt grouping comprising the loosely linked Monash for Palestine, Monash Arab Society and Monash University Islamic Society which the non-SAlt elements of Change are more closely aligned with.
The two Palestine motions are item N motion 14 and item O motion 15 of the final agenda. Below are the bodies of the motions - the preambles can be read in the agenda.
Motion 14 was moved by the Socialist Alternative and included from the initial draft agenda circulated 2 days before the meeting. Weapons off Campus is a national Students for Palestine and National Union of Students Education office campaign. The EdPub Officers and one of the two ESJ Officers are SAlt, with the other ESJ Officer aligned with the Executive subfaction of the Labor Left.
This MSC:
- Supports the Weapons off Campus campaign at Monash.
- Commends the work of the Education (Public Affairs) Officers and Penelope from the Environment and Social Justice Office on this campaign.
- Invites other MSA Offices to participate in this campaign.
Motion 15 was moved by MSA Treasurer Lana - a Palestinian, part of non-SAlt Change and former Monash Arab Society President. The motion was not on the initial draft agenda but was included in the revised agenda circulated at 1:29am the morning of the meeting.
This MSC calls on Monash University to:
- publicly disclose all current research partnerships, institutional agreements and engagements with defence-linked companies involved in weapons development, military technologies or surveillance systems.
- review partnerships with defence-sector organisations and if they are found to be involved in weapons production or military technologies contributing to ongoing regional conflicts and mass civilian harm suspend these partnerships.
Before the SAlt/SfP motion could be considered, Lana moved a produral to “foreshadow” it. The MSC Standing Orders provide that
- A foreshadowed motion is a motion moved that is contradictory in meaning or intent to a motion that is being discussed.
- Foreshadowed motions shall be considered in the reverse order in which they were foreshadowed, unless the Chair resolves otherwise.
- If a foreshadowed motion is passed, the motion it is foreshadowing lapses unless the Chair rules that that motion and the foreshadowed motion are not mutually exclusive.
The effect of the foreshadowing was that Lana’s motion 15 would leapfrog the SAlt motion 14 in the agenda order to be debated and voted on first, and if Lana’s motion passed then SAlt’s motion would automatically fail and would not be debated or voted on.
The chair, MSA President Leroy, accepted that Lana’s motion foreshadowed the SAlt motion. In response, SAlt moved dissent in the chair asking the MSC to vote to overturn Leroy’s ruling. The chair passed to the Deputy Chair Lana for the duration of debate and voting on the dissent in the chair procedural.
For his speech in the dissent in the chair debate, Leroy justified his ruling that the SAlt and Lana motions are “contradictory in meaning or intent” by declaring that the SAlt motion focusing on student unions and the preamble to Lana’s motion emphasising the role of clubs meant that the motions were contradictory. SAlt protested this, insisting that the two motions were not mutually exclusive and that SAlt supported both motions.
Following repeated interruptions, Lana ejected a SAlt activist from the meeting who eventually left the room after some protest. The dissent in the chair failed, with only SAlt voting for it, and Leroy resumed the chair.
Skipping the SAlt Palestine motion, Leroy and the rest of the MSC pushed on to Lana’s motion amid incessant heckling from the SAlt contingent in the room. Leroy attempted to eject SAlt EdPub Officer Madi who refused to leave and continued to argue with the chair and the Labor members in the room, accusing them of sectarianism within the so-called left and Palestine movement while welcoming right-wing politicians into the student unionism.
Despite having been directed to leave the room, Madi joined the rest of SAlt in voting in favour of Lana’s motion in a pointed show of anti-sectarianism. While SAlt continued to shout over the rest of the meeting, Leroy skipped the lapsed SAlt motion and closed MSC 3.
The Monash ALP (Labor) Club is the events arm and official MSA Clubs & Societies affiliated shopfront of the campus Labor Left, serving as one of the faction’s recruitment organs. Over the past few years its committee has generally been led by members linked to the Lot’s Wife subfaction.
The Club’s 2025 Annual General Meeting was held on 3rd September, during MSA election week. The Executive subfaction alleges that this was a tactic to lock out the Lot’s Wife subfaction’s opponents from the Club committee by making it difficult to organise and draw numbers to the AGM while people were campaigning in the MSA elections.
The AGM was attended essentially exclusively by members from the Lot’s Wife subfaction. Three Lot’s Wife subfaction members were unanimously conferred honorary life membership, the only people to be given this Club honour in recorded history. The entire committee was elected unopposed, with election confirmation motions unanimously passed.
The first Club general meeting of 2026 was the EGM held on 2nd April. It was basically an ordinary Ordinary General Meeting to elect the First Year Representatives and some more General Representatives. Except that one of the motions was to ratify the committee election outcomes of the 2025 AGM.
It had been brought to the Club committee’s attention in early 2026 that the 2025 AGM notice was technically late and therefore invalid. “Technically” because while there is no dispute that the notice was invalid, the common but mistaken interpretation of the rules would not pick up that the notice was late.
The requirement stated in the Club constitution, which is based on the standard C&S society constitution template, is “at least 14 days notice”. For the AGM scheduled at 6:00pm Wednesday 3rd September, notice had gone out at 11:49am Wednesday 20th August.
The Club constitution does not define what “at least” or “days” means when calculating time. Legally, that the rule says “at least 14 days” is equivalent to 14 “clear days”, excluding both the day of the AGM and the day of the notice. The notice needed to go out on or before Tuesday 19th August, with Wednesday 20th August to Tuesday 2nd September being the 14 clear days.
This was an issue that had come up in the MSA before, and legal advice (on other matters) from the MSA lawyer gave that non-obvious interpretation. On 25th August 2025, a proposed amendment to the C&S constitution was circulated to societies, later passed by the C&S Council:
In this constitution a period of notice of a meeting expressed in days— does not include the day on which notice is given; but includes the day on which the meeting is held.
On 25th March 2026, the same wording was inserted into all C&S-affiliated society constitutions by an amendment to the C&S constitution, relaxing the requirement for all future general meetings.
This provision displaces the presumed requirement of ‘clear days’ for notice of general meetings.
Given that the 2025 AGM was invalid and expected to be disputed, the EGM’s motion intended to ratify the committee elections regardless and note that all positions were elected unopposed with a unanimous confirmatory vote. The motion was voted down, effectively triggering a spill of all previously elected positions on the club committee: President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Women’s Officer, General Representatives and Publications Officer.
Notice for a second EGM 2 weeks later at 6:30pm Thursday 16th April went out the same night at 8:09pm Thursday 2nd April. The location was confirmed at 9:48pm Friday 10th April (at least 7 days being required).
The Lot’s Wife subfaction incumbent Club committee members, originally elected at the 2025 AGM, recontested their elections against opponents from the Executive subfaction. The Rest is Student Politics (podcast in le redacted) reports that the result of the ballot for president was 45 votes to the Executive subfaction against 15 votes to the incumbent.
After the presidential election, all Lot’s Wife subfaction candidates were withdrawn leaving the remaining elections to be won by the Executive subfaction unopposed. The Lot’s Wife subfaction abstained from voting on the motions to confirm elections.
In taking over the Club committee, the Executive subfaction has taken another step in confirming its ascendancy in the Labor Left faction and sidelining the Lot’s Wife subfaction. Once again the Executive subfaction has taken action when they could afford to bide their time a while - an outward flexing of the numbers and a demonstration of which direction the power balance now leans.
Perhaps this episode helped spur the change to the C&S society constitutions that ended the “clear days” implied requirement. It exposes an issue that probably affected a very large number of Monash society general meetings for years and could throw into question the 2025 AGMs and elected committees of many societies if members choose to pursue it as part of the Club did. From a sample of 2025 AGM notices, under the old rules over half of the notices were late while about one in seven notices were late if the new rules were in force. About two in five notices were late under the old rules but would have been valid under the new rules.
To help with student cost of living, the Change administration of the MSA introduced a new policy announced mid-April and coming into effect immediately - the MSA discounting main meals at Wholefoods and Sir John’s Bar with up to $5 off for semester one. The subsidy is incredibly popular.
There was about no forewarning for Wholefoods and Sir John’s before the change was announced and implemented. They were immediately swarmed with customers.
Without sufficient prior notice, food ran out quickly and Wholefoods and Sir John’s had to scramble to cope with the overwhelming influx of orders and consequent bad behaviour. For the rest of the week they consistently sold out of affected menu items, some instantly. On top of the lack of preparation of both supplies and labour to cope with the high volume of orders, they have struggled with customers ordering early in fear of food running out, but not arriving to collect orders for hours.
Staff and volunteers are overwhelmed and overworked, and have had to find more help exclusively to deal with the elevated demand. They have had to destroy prepared but uncollected orders, causing huge food waste. They have had to reduce opening hours due to consistently selling out within a short window of time and to dedicate more working time to food preparation. They have had to remove items from the menu. With time, they have increased food quantities that were not available in the first fortnight or so of the subsidy.
The food relief subsidy will remain in place for the rest of the semester and continues to be well-utilised by students.