Students Air Concerns About SASS AGM

Ellie Stephenson reports on SASS’ latest controversy.

Students have posed questions about last week’s SASS AGM, calling it undemocratic and complaining that the election’s eligibility requirements unfairly locked out students. This controversy comes after a meeting dominated by students supported by Unity (Labor Right) and the Moderate Liberals, the factions which have controlled the Society in 2020. Incoming SASS President Nicole Baxter refuted these accusations, arguing that the Executive were trying to avoid political stacking of the Executive.

Students from Switchroots, including SRC President Liam Donohoe, USU Board Director Prudence Wilkins-Wheat and Switch member Jayfel Tulabing-Lee, outlined a number of concerns about the meeting: that the eligibility requirements were overly restrictive and locked out first year students; and that it was administered incompetently and silenced discussion.

To be considered eligible to vote, students had to be a current USyd student and USU member, a registered member of SASS, and have attended at least one ticketed SASS event. The event had to be an only-SASS event, as opposed to intersociety events. Playing for the Society in Interfaculty Sport was considered an eligible event. Students enrolled in a FASS degree are automatically registered members of SASS. 

There were five events which gave students voting rights: last year’s SASS Ball, the 2020 SASS Welcome to Uni Party, the 2020 SASS camp, the recent General Meeting and this year’s Interfaculty Sport First Years Gala. Students argued that the majority of these events occurred in the first half of the year, locking out students affected by the COVID-19 travel ban. They also suggested that the criteria for which events counted towards eligibility were inconsistent: the interpretation of what counts as ticketed was quite loose, including events which simply required registration, however there were other events this year where attendance could be formally tracked and which required students to register. That the September General Meeting counted towards attendance was decided after that meeting in accordance with a recommendation from USU C&S.

Incoming SASS President Nicole Baxter, who was elected unopposed at the meeting, hit back against these criticisms. She told Pulp that the measures were “put in place to prevent people from signing up as a member of the society at the last minute and gaining voting rights solely for the purpose of gaining voting rights”.

She argued that 836 people were “potentially eligible to vote” as a result of either being ordinary members who attended an eligible event (a total of 348 members) or students who had attended an eligible event and could have received voting rights if they were Arts students or had signed up to the Society prior to the announcement of a General Meeting (488 students). She pointed out that “our website listed these conditions for the entire year in very clear terms”. 

While it is true that the 488 students could potentially have sought voting rights, it is not clear how many of that group would have actually been eligible: it is plausible that some of these students attended Arts Ball last year but are no longer USyd students or USU members. 

Baxter defended the criteria for eligibility, saying it was designed to prevent people from “lying about event attendance… or voting if they didn’t truly engage with the society”. She added “the core goal of these measures is to uphold the idea that if someone would only ever consider attending a SASS event in order to get voting rights, they should not have voting rights”, and ruled out reforms to voter eligibility during her term as President. 

Baxter also compared SASS’ eligibility requirements to those of other societies, including SciSoc, which requires “the attendance of 4 society events and the payment of a $5 fee in order to vote or run” and SUBS which limits voting to students enrolled in a Business degree. 

Apart from concerns about eligibility, there were some aspects of the AGM that were unusual. The Returning Officer, Irene Ma, and Deputy Returning Officer, Casper Lu, appeared at some points to be taking instructions from current SASS President Nick Rigby. Additionally, Ma repeatedly forgot to hold votes of confidence for the unopposed candidates and had to be pressed by USU Board Director Prudence Wilkins-Wheat to allow members to ask the candidates questions. 

When it was pointed out that the meeting was running past its constitutionally defined 9pm finish, Ma determined it could be extended because, if appealed, the USU Board would be flexible with the application of the Constitution. This rather ad hoc decision-making - which conflates Ma’s roles as USU President and SASS Returning Officer as well as assuming the eventual result of a Board vote - created consternation from some students during the AGM. Current SRC President Liam Donohoe, a member of Grassroots, complained - to some commotion on the AGM Zoom - that the decision to be flexible with the SASS Constitution was inconsistent and unfair. 

The complaints this year come after a number of fraught SASS elections: at last year’s election, a coalition of Unity and the Moderate Liberals beat out non-aligned students, who accused the factions of stacking. In both 2018 and 2017, the Society’s Executive results were annulled by the USU after accusations of mismanagement in the SASS AGMs.