Page last updated 26/10/2024.
On Friday, there was a Monash Student Council meeting scheduled. Quorum was met briefly before being lost. Some of those present accused an opposing faction of withholding and preventing quorum. The meeting proceeded without quorum, but binding votes could not be taken.
During the meeting, speakers lined up to attack members not present. The tone was quite vitriolic.
The president of Radio Monash, a division of the Monash Student Association, delivered a few impromptu speeches which are not necessarily representative of the rest of the discussion. The text below is based on those speeches by Radio Monash.
An MSC member reported that a Special MSC meeting will be called for the next Friday.
Plenty more to be said.
All right. I’m unhinged today. So you guys are going to hear a rant, because I feel like it. I was going to say this when we had more people here to reach quorum, but I don’t give a shit anymore. Am I allowed to swear at MSC?
Can I say I’m really disappointed. Period. For this year, as someone who is apolitical. I don’t give a shit half the time about student politics, like at all.
If you go around to most students on campus, most people couldn’t even name the departments at MSA. MSA is known to students as a thing that happens in Campus Centre that occasionally does stuff like Wednesday sessions. Oh, and they do the free food stuff as well.
That’s it.
Students don’t know what the MSA is. They don’t know that we use their SSAF fees to fund this entire thing. They don’t know that there’s a radio station, they hardly know that there’s a magazine, they barely know that there are other free food events. There are plenty of other things as well. But they barely know anything that happens.
Maybe it’s because I’m coming from a place where I’ve got a very active committee and we do a lot of stuff. But to come here to these meetings and to see that so many people don’t even rock up. Their departments - and I’m going to be very bold and vulgar here, so feel free to name me here Josh - do fuck all. They do fuck all. I was talking to people who aren’t involved with university life and I said if this is what corporate and government is like, society’s fucked. Genuinely fucked.
I don’t know how half of - oh this is a real rant - I don’t know how half of you are going to gain employment after this if you can’t do the one thing you are asked to do, which is to show up at 5 o’clock on a Friday. I understand it’s not catered, I’d like pizza to be there too. But it’s not even every Friday it’s once in a while like for the love of God, you’re not being asked to sacrifice a child or a limb. I don’t understand, what’s your excuse? Unless someone’s died in the hospital, the assignment is going to kill you, I just don’t understand.
I have people - and we calculated it the other day. You can fact check me. But me and half my committee, if you calculated all time we put in, and we were paid minimum wage, we would be paid over $200,000 per year. We work day and night. We fixed the whole studio without any help. We have technical knowledge that is far superior than half of the people who are paid here to actually get the job done. That radio station does not run by itself, it runs by a dedicated group of people who put so much time, love and effort into that place.
Lot’s Wife spend hours in a hot un-air-conditioned studio getting an edition out. Clubs and Societies have to look after a bunch of grown children that need to be fed knowledge -and I don’t know how many club committees there are. But we’re all just incompetent uni students. People come to uni expecting, “oh my gosh we’re adults we must be able to know what we’re able to do.” But we don’t. We have to literally guide people like they’re on leashes. And this takes so much time to train all of these people. It’s worth it as it’s an investment into student culture, but it is very time consuming.
Anyway, I’m going to finish my rant, and I understand this has been a very vulgar rant and I love that it’s recorded, and I’m most likely going to be cancelled in five years time for this. I might be, but I’m just going to finish up by saying I have never been more disappointed in a student body or organisation this year, period.
Like genuinely, there’s so many people I can barely look in the eye because of the lack of care you take for your student organisation that is supposed to be represented by students, and you spit in the face of others who are actually doing the work.
[…]
As somebody who is representing Radio Monash, I’m severely disappointed in the student organisation known as the MSA as a whole. I am honestly disheartened to see the lack of concern and effort put in by student representatives who spit in the face of other people who are working 10 times as hard as they are.
[…]
I’m going to give an anti-rant now. Just really want to quickly shout out some really cool shit that’s actually happened. So if any actual observers or students are listening in, know that your fees have actually gone to good use.
Shout out to Wednesday Sessions, Gina and Anban. Done really cool shit, managed to pull off 12 Wednesday sessions, that’s a lot of work. Great job, honestly fantastic.
Welfare, you guys did a lot of cool stuff too. A lot of free food, fed a lot of hungry starving students, welfare packs, amazing stuff.
Lot’s Wife, six editions, that’s really awesome.
ESJ, you guys did environmental justice week, really cool, cool stuff, cool speakers, cool things.
Women’s, safe and sexy week, incredible stuff. People felt safe and hopefully sexy as well. That’s the goal. That’s the aim.
C&S looking after uni students, great job. You know, that’s a huge workload.
MSA Executive tolerating us. And us tolerating them.
D&C. So much cool stuff, so much cool stuff. We did a silent disco. That was fun. That was big. That was cool. You’ve also done a bunch of advocacy stuff, still on that lift that may or may not get fixed.
Now I’ve just listed those few things. I know a lot of other stuff has happened. RadMon did a lot of cool stuff too. But those are the wins for the MSA departments.
MSA Volunteering as well has something cool stuff. MUST done great stuff. Wholefoods has done cool stuff. SURLY has done cool stuff.
Student culture is so important.
MUISS also ran the international games, they’ve done really cool stuff really well.
But other than that, after a long hard year we have achieved some things. Hopefully next year we will achieve more things, which would be preferable. But yeah, that’s my anti-rant. I just thought I should finish it on a positive note, otherwise I’m going to be Georgie the negativity queen.
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