Page last updated 20/9/2026.
From the dark side, my MSA candidate experience
I was on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate for Lot’s Wife Editor in the 2026 MSA elections.
A summarised timeline of my campaigning during election week is as follows:
- 4-5pm Sunday: volunteers and I put up The MSA Misogyny article posters.
- 8-9am Monday: I removed my The MSA Misogyny article posters complying with a direction from the returning officer.
- 1-4pm Monday: I handed out The Labor Club Spill, Demise of the Crown and Stacking pamphlets.
- 10am Tuesday - 10am Wednesday: I was banned from campaigning in person or online.
- 12-2pm Wednesday: I handed out amended Censorship pamphlets.
- 3-4pm Wednesday: volunteers handed out the amended Censorship pamphlets.
- 4pm Wednesday - 4pm Thursday: I was banned from campaigning in person or online.
I submitted a nomination because I had tried in recent years to get access to election information such as results on election night, but returning officers would refuse to give me direct access to the information without being a candidate. There were no plans to win (almost certainly Change would) or to participate in any other way besides the normal election coverage.
I did not attempt to join the ticket of Change or Party in the MSA because I originally thought when nominating that my election coverage might attract penalties from the returning officer which might impact any ticket that I was part of. I also did not want to risk being elected.
Throughout the election I got to interact with the returning officer numerous times, predominantly over email but occasionally over phone call. I never saw him in person, although Change members claimed to have met him in person during periods that he told me he was off campus. His communications with me were almost without exception characterised by an inexplicable vagueness. Refusing to explain the reasons for rulings, while frustrating, is common practice in student union elections as far as I can tell, but absolutely unacceptable is failing (then refusing) to give the most basic of information like the start and end time of a campaigning ban or even giving seemingly incorrect information multiple times. Sometimes I would have inferred his likely intention if not in the context of the election in which was risky to speculate without explicit and clear language.
Interestingly, after the election I heard that on matters not relating to me the returning officer applied a test of “asking for support for any particular group in the MSA election” to judge whether particular material was campaigning or not. By the definitions in the election regulations, publicity is a subset of campaigning. So the conclusion from this interpretation by the returning officer would be that none of my material was publicity or campaigning, and therefore the material itself could not be penalised by the election regulations. My first ban was for “conduct” rather than my material directly which may get around it, while my second ban was directly based on the publicity regulations.
What I actually believe from a lay reading of the election regulations is that my pamphlets and posters and distributing them were campaigning and publicity (fully complying with the election regulations) but not soliciting votes in-person, while my website and another person’s Instagram post predating the election were not campaigning or publicity.
The returning officer Owen Wrangle is a grownup (that is, not a student) Labor staffer and operative.
Pre-election
When I started to look at nominating as an unaffiliated candidate, both formats of the nomination form available had room only for a nominator and seconder. Being aware that the Monash Student Council had increased the requirement for unaffiliated candidates to 10 nominators, I asked the returning officer whether only a nominator and seconder were required. He replied that 10 nominators were required referencing the election regulations, and linked the digital nomination form which did not have space to submit 10 nominators, only a nominator and seconder. He later amended the form after I pointed this out.
I am aware that 2 weeks before election week, a candidate sent a withdrawal form to the returning officer. The candidate’s attempted withdrawal from the election was ignored, and they ended up elected.
My second real interaction with the returning officer was to clarify a newly introduced regulation requiring all paper to include the universal recycling symbol in blue.
It took two tries to confirm that printing blue universal recycling symbols in greyscale would not be considered to be complying with the regulation.
As an unaffiliated candidate, I was provided 400 A4 sheets and 10 A3 sheets to use for posters and pamphlets. This was tempting, but what to use it for? I asked Party in the MSA who suggested paper planes, while a former Change authorised officer proposed making shit sheets attacking Party in the MSA for being right wing.
Change’s proposal reminded me of an incident in which an MSA Treasurer elected on the Change ticket accused their own ticket of being right wing, which inspired the idea to print my articles on the pamphlets to hand out. This is what I ended up doing.
The goal of the pamphlets was to inform voters about the goings on behind the scenes of the MSA, the stories that almost no student is aware of but are consequential for the MSA (and hence their own experience) and maybe for the trajectories of future senior politicians. They all dealt with Change, as a result of my MSA articles happening to deal pretty much exclusively with Change. I think that Change is a subject of so many stories because Change has run the MSA for a few years and its controlling Labor Left faction is by far the most active and interventionist political faction on campus. I have not deliberately targeted Change positively or negatively and have written about what I have seen.
To be clear, my pamphlets were not shit sheets. They were not intended to be and were not favourable or unfavourable to Change, which was the subject of all of them, or any other participant in the election. They were not intended to be and were not dishonest, misleading or inaccurate. As is universally acknowledged in Monash stupol, I have a proclivity for fairness and honesty.
The pamphlets and posters consisted of my articles, revised and condensed to fit onto the page, with links to the full articles on this website. Each asked students to vote in the MSA elections. I was not trying to get votes for myself to win (a futile endeavour as an independent against Change, and anyway I had no pre-existing prejudices against Change’s proposed Lot’s Wife Editors) and I was not trying to push voters in any particular direction, but rather to encourage them to vote in the first place and to make an informed vote taking into account the achievements of the incumbent administration, policies and proposals of both sides and the less well-known information I was distributing on my pamphlets.
We printed 300 pamphlets, on the theme of Censorship (The MSA Misogyny article and In Defence of the MSA), on the theme of Stacking (The Wired Stack and The RadMon Stack), of The Labor Club Spill and of Demise of the Crown. We printed The MSA Misogyny article on my 10 A3 posters and stuck a few up on campus and inside the Learning and Teaching Building on the Saturday before polling opened.
Complaint 1
On Sunday, the returning officer emailed me to notify that there was a complaint that my “unauthorised material” was in breach of “several election regulations”, and directed me to remove my posters. The subject was “Material in breach of MSA Regulations”, despite the returning officer apparently having made no ruling on the subject at that time.
The returning officer’s persistent descriptions of my posters and pamphlets as “unauthorised material” were baffling given the quite obvious “Authorised by Nhan Nguyen” on the posters and pamphlets. In fact, I went further in the spirit of the election regulations than the text requires and than other tickets do, with my authorisation being in larger font than the majority of the text and the “Please Recycle” statement also being in the Monash recycling blue required for the universal recycling symbol.
Election regulation 722(5) requires that “Any person or ticket who has been reported must be given an opportunity to respond.”
I replied seeking clarification of what “several election regulations” I was alleged to have breached, which received a prompt reply detailing alleged breaches numbered up to 6 but missing a breach 5. My speculation is that breach 5 was so ridiculous that even the returning officer could immediately see through it.
I do not know who the complainant was, and there is little (but not no) reason to conclude that the complaint was from or intended to benefit any particular ticket.
The alleged breaches that were forwarded to me were:
1 Attempting to Solicit Votes on Non-polling Day
I had indeed forgotten that soliciting votes in-person includes postering. It is true that I had postered on a non-polling day. Nevertheless, that was not soliciting votes in-person because it was not campaigning for a ticket, candidate, result or outcome as defined by the election regulations.
2 Defamatory Conduct (Serious Breach)
I cannot comment on defamatory conduct except that I do not believe my poster or any material linked in the QR codes are defamatory and I have and had no interest in doing anything remotely approaching defamatory conduct.
My material was also entirely accurate, and did not link to any material which I know or suspect to have been considered potentially defamatory by any legal advice.
3 Unauthorised Content
Because my material linked to my personal website and another person’s Instagram post, neither of which contained election authorisations.
The election regulations stipulate that “All publicity must be authorised by an unaffiliated candidate or the authorised officer of a ticket” where publicity “is intended to influence how or whether a person votes in an election”.
My personal website and the other person’s Instagram page are not election publicity and do not contain election publicity. Neither platform, nor the relevant material posted to either, are made to influence voting in this MSA election.
4 Failure to Submit Links to RO
Speculating, accurately, that I did not submit a link to this website vnf.nhan.au to the returning officer. But that is only required where the website was established for the purposes of promoting me as a candidate.
6 Unfair and Dishonest Conduct
I had a fairly inconsequential typo, saying 2026 instead of 2025. While confusing and below the standard that I aim to meet for which I apologise, it could not be misleading for any student reading the material given the dates listed elsewhere in the poster.
They also complained that it was neither fair nor honest that I did not include my commentary that is present in the full online article, implying that this was unfairly disadvantageous to Change. I would have liked to include the commentary for my own ego, but decided to cut it to fit the page. That did not make my poster less fair or honest, in fact the removal of my opinions would have improved it on that front, and all the relevant facts remained.
Clearly, none of the alleged breaches shared with me were valid, and as is apparent from the ruling later the returning officer agreed.
The returning officer shared the breaches with me in an email at 5:31pm Sunday, I responded to the complaint at 8:30am Monday and the returning officer shared his ruling at 7:19pm Monday.
The returning officer’s ruling was that I had breached regulation 721(a)(i) (which does not exist) and issued me with a 24 hour campaigning ban covering Tuesday. Besides the non-existent regulation, I did not know whether it was an action or my material that had allegedly breached regulations, which would determine whether I could distribute my material after the campaigning ban ended.
When I tried to get clarification, the returning officer replied that “the use of unauthorised material is a breach of the regulations” and referred to an excerpt of the election regulations that said nothing about unauthorised material, while refusing to identify what conduct was supposed to have breached regulations or whether my material was problematic. The reference to “unauthorised material” was again baffling when the material in question was clearly authorised.
I tried to find the returning officer on Tuesday morning but was told by election staff that he was off campus that day.
I managed to get a call with the returning officer at 5:35pm Tuesday, in which he confirmed that he had been off campus on Tuesday and would also be off campus on Wednesday. He confirmed that I had allegedly breached regulation 721(2)(a)(i) (dishonest conduct, a serious breach) by linking to my website and and another person’s Instagram post, neither of which contained the statement “Authorised by Nhan Nguyen”. This regulation was not part of the complaint nor was the lack of authorisation of a post which I did not control linked to dishonest conduct by the complaint. While the obvious reference for authorisation matters would be regulation 514(1) it evidently could not be applied here so dishonest conduct, a more serious breach, needed to be applied to allow that my lack of authorisation of a third party resource was in breach of a regulation.
From the meaning of the word dishonest, it may not be immediately clear how this was dishonest. After discussions with my campaign team, we came to believe that the alleged dishonesty may have arisen from my recommendation to read the misogyny article first, which could be taken to imply that I wrote or endorse it. Subsequent events have raised doubts over this hypothesis, but I do not know for sure.
Based on this hypothesis, we amended the phrasing to treat the misogyny article as a source and subject of the pamphlet and poster. We printed 100 fresh amended Censorship pamphlets, and redacted the existing Censorship pamphlets and the few remaining posters. I decided to use the remainder of my A4 paper on Censorship pamphlets because the complaint showed that the material covering the misogyny article was relevant.
I had appealed against the returning officer’s decision at 12:15pm Tuesday, mainly hoping to get the basic information that I was looking for. The next substantial update that I got regarding my appeal was at 3:57pm Friday, in which the electoral tribunal dismissed my appeal without a hearing or any useful information.
Campaigning Monday
Around 9am Monday, I went around to remove my posters as commanded by the returning officer and saw some Change campaigners putting up election posters, who greeted me with strange hostility. I understand that a complaint was later made to the returning officer about them soliciting votes in-person outside the hours allowed by the election regulations.
Later that morning I offered a snack to a Change campaigner while on unrelated non-election business who was interested until one of the campaigners I had seen postering (I did not realise at the time a direct “opponent”) arrived and jokingly (I hope) suggested that I was trying to poison the ticket. Other students were generally receptive except for most Free Palestine campaigners.
I spent 1-4pm Monday giving out the The Labor Club Spill, Demise of the Crown and Stacking pamphlets across the major campaigning route, along Exhibition Walk between the Alan Finkel Building and the Matheson Library and towards the bus loop. Out of caution I did not distribute the Censorship pamphlets given the direction to remove The MSA Misogyny article posters and the still-unresolved complaint about the material.
Several Change, Free Palestine and Party in the MSA campaigners of varying levels of seniority picked up some of my pamphlets, while a few declined because they felt that they were not supposed to or were afraid of their ticket’s disapproval (others of course simply did not want one).
Campaigning Wednesday
The campaign ban across Tuesday was a bit inconvenient since it was earlier in the polling period and I was more free than the rest of the polling days. I did not have other volunteers hand out my pamphlets out of caution, although the campaigning ban probably applied to only me as an individual.
On Wednesday after my ban ended I pamphleted 12-2pm, distributing the amended and redacted Censorship pamphlets. I operated first in Campus Centre and on the Lemon Scented Lawns with relatively low success, then spent most of my time on College Walk and Rainforest Walk between HAL and the Alan Finkel Building. Based on the previous complaint, I expected that somebody might try to complain about the fixed pamphlets too. Even if there was no breach and the complaint was eventually dismissed, the returning officer could direct me to stop distributing them while he investigated which would not be acceptable at such a late time in election week, so I wanted to delay the Censorship pamphlets getting into the hands of election campaigners until I could hand them all out.
I had class 2-6pm, and campaign volunteers handed out the remaining pamphlets between 3-4pm.
Complaint 2
At 2:40pm Wednesday, the returning officer sent an email directing me to stop distributing the Censorship pamphlets and to wait for further correspondence. He had received a complaint over the pamphlets that I had been handing out 12-2pm earlier that day.
At 5:23pm, the returning officer issued me a second 24 hour campaigning ban covering Thursday. I had not been given an opportunity to respond to the complaint.
The email in which the returning officer bans me is cryptic. Its subject states “Misleading and Deceptive Conduct”. It is still unclear what specifically was supposed to be misleading or deceptive and how.
It states that “The MSA has received legal advice that the article referred to could be misleading and defamatory towards participants in the election.” It is still unclear what legal advice this is, when it was received, and what the “article referred to” is. I am not aware of any relevant legal advice that would affect my material or anything linked within.
It states that “You have acknowledged that you are aware of this in the material”. It is still unclear what this is talking about.
It states that “This is a breach of multiple sections of Regulation 511”. It is still unclear which sections and how they were breached.
It states that “You have been sanctioned for this material before in this election […] and continued to distribute it.” This is untrue as the initial material was amended in an attempt to fix the earlier alleged breach, and it was different amended material that I had later distributed.
It states that I was suspended “for 24 hours from the close of polls today [Wednesday]”. It was unclear what time this was because “close of polls” did not exist on Wednesday, but I later confirmed that I was banned from 4pm.
I saw the returning officer’s 2:40pm and 5:23pm emails around 6pm, when I finished class. At 10:10pm I emailed a reply trying to clarify the basic information.
In a 9:23am Thursday call, the returning officer declined to answer my questions about what the legal advice was about and what I allegedly breached until after the end of the election because he did not have enough time. I managed after a second call to confirm the timing of my campaigning ban.
The main effect of the second campaigning ban was that in respecting the ban on anything to do with the election on social media, my regular election coverage suffered.
I appealed against the returning officer’s decision at 9:43am Thursday, mainly hoping to get the basic information that I was looking for. The next update that I got regarding my appeal was at 3:57pm Friday, in which the electoral tribunal dismissed my appeal without a hearing or any useful information.
Post-election
Campaigning ended at 4pm Thursday and polling closed at 5pm.
Provisional results arrived 9:23pm, much later than normal. Apparently the returning officer originally had not planned to send provisional results on the night at all.
Change easily defeated Party in the MSA, which although their best result to date won a lower proportion of the votes than I was expecting before the elections and than they perhaps hoped for as the sole opposition. It is clear that vote share in MSA elections is strongly correlated with campaigning presence especially soliciting votes in-person. Surprisingly, despite requiring a vote below the line and not asking anybody to vote for me, the vote share that I got compared to Change and Party in the MSA was also roughly proportional to the relative on-campus campaign strength as measured in person-hours.
A Change leader suggested that their ticket overperformed given Change’s “baggage”, particularly the misogyny article. I disagree - for the voting population this baggage was irrelevant since most people outside the stupol bubble do not know about it. Since election success depends almost entirely on how many people your volunteers talk to in person during election week, such controversies are only relevant as far as they impact the dedication of campaigning volunteers. Change leaders did a good job justifying any controversies internally to their volunteer team. It would be wise to treat it not as baggage but to prompt a real shift to make sure that the student union works safely and productively for students.
At 3:57pm Friday, I received the results of my electoral tribunal appeals, both dismissed without a hearing. As of a week later, I have not heard back from the returning officer regarding the information that he said he would only answer after the election was over.
The following questions are still unclear:
- Who were my complainants? We would expect to find out in the election report, but there is no real guarantee that this will be available soon.
- What was Breach 5?
- How was it allegedly dishonest conduct (a serious breach) to link to my website and another person’s Instagram post which did not contain my authorisation?
- What was supposed to be misleading and deceptive about my amended material?
- What is “The MSA has received legal advice that the article referred to could be misleading and defamatory towards participants in the election” talking about? What legal advice is this referring to? When was the legal advice received? What is the article referred to, that was the subject of the legal advice referenced?
- What “multiple sections of Regulation 511” was I supposed to have breached and how?
These are besides the many basic questions that it took multiple follow-up emails and calls to clarify.
Thank you to my campaign team - posterers, resource managers, legal advisor, pamphleters and paper plane engineers - who volunteered extensive time and effort to engage student voters with democracy, help them to make an informed vote and promote safety in student politics.
Thank you to my 81 (2%) loyal voters across ticket lines. That is 81 more than I campaigned for, solicited votes in-person from or expected. The Lot’s Wife Editor election had more voters than any other two-ticket election, demonstrating that students care about independent media.
Please get in touch if you are interested in the cause.
Authorised by Nhan.
Photograph by Sophie.