The question that any student journalist seeks to answer is “what happens at the NUS National Conference (or Natcon)?” This year, at least on its first day, nothing happened at Natcon. This is not normally the case.
The conference usually starts late and there is usually some item of policy or action to report. Alas: no. In an unexpected shakeup, the conference did not start at all. The standing orders unadopted. The policy book – the reason any of these hacks are in Ballarat in the first place – entirely undiscussed.
That’s not to say that absolutely nothing happened. Because although the formal proceedings never began, the conference’s archetypal pointless drama was delivered in spades.
Quorum purged
Editor’s Note: The exact mechanics of this are too complex to be conveniently summarised.
For those who are unaware of association meeting rules, a quorum is the minimum number of people who must attend a meeting in order for it to be valid.
At NUS conferences, the quorum is the number of delegates who between them control half-plus-one of the votes (each delegate has a different number of votes based on which student union they represent). “Pulling quorum” – refusing to attend a meeting so that it fails to meet quorum and cannot proceed – is a common tactic amongst hacks at the NUS to force negotiations on controversial decisions, as is the dreaded “campus count” that can be used to check if there is quorum.
As columnist Blair Doran mentioned in their guide yesterday, deals made before the conference by the union’s various (and mostly Labor-aligned) factions agreed to exclude or “lock out” left-wing faction Socialist Alternative (SAlt) from the union’s various executive positions. In response, SAlt’s delegates did not accredit (sign in) and so did not count towards the conference’s quorum.
While Student Unity normally has a majority on the floor (but see below), when it comes to electing the union’s executives and paid officers, the positions are usually divvied up amongst the factions roughly in proportion to the number of conference votes they have between them in complex deals.
This, on its own, would not have been enough to block the conference as happened here as there ought to still have been a quorum from the roughly 70% of the delegates remaining. But SAlt would not be the only faction to leave.
At the 2024 conference, and earlier this year, National Labor Students (NLS) suffered several devastating splits. This year, it was Student Unity’s turn. A group of Unity delegates from Victoria, also pulled out over internal disagreements with the faction’s New South Wales branch. It was this withdrawal that was enough to “pull quorum”.
NSW Student Unity to be “purged”: Victorians say
The Victorian branch of Student Unity’s disagreements with NSW were circulated to student media in a “Formal Notice” accusing the Unity delegates from NSW, including the faction’s national convenor (who is also union’s general secretary) Aidan O’Rourke, of three political misdeeds.
First, by “proxying” (that is, giving) Unity votes to members of factions other than Student Unity.
Second by "interfering" with matters internal to other state branches of Student Unity.
Thirdly, by taking “obstructive” political action such as by entering political agreements without the consent of the broader faction.
The plan of action proposed in the notice included replacing O’Rourke with a new factional convenor and “purging” Student Unity of its New South Welsh delegation. The faction also repudiated any political agreements entered into by NSW until ratified by an internal vote of the new NSW-less national caucus.
For all the talk of “long-standing convention” in the notice, is it really the Unity way to do things so publicly? What would Richo make of this!?
The criticism of NSW SU was also coming from inside the house with one source telling of an internal power struggle within the NSW Student Unity branch over its pending new leadership. The source says that they expect that, unless overnight negotiations change matters, they expect that a “leftist” will be elevated to the role of branch convenor.
What exactly this means in a centrist Student Unity context remains to be seen. Whoever wins, leftist or otherwise, is likely to be elected as the president of the NSW state branch of the NUS.
Censorship to be purged?
A consequence of the fact that Natcon hadn’t formally started was that the union’s draconian and self-serving rules against filming or recording conference proceedings were not voted on. These rules are usually unanimously adopted by all the factions, presumably because behaviour at these conferences is often highly embarrassing.
This meant the chaos of Natcon could, for once, formally be photographed and filmed for all to see. Will it last? Who knows.
SAlt member Holly Medlyn from RMIT University told (on camera, no less) that she would prefer the conference be filmed.
Medlyn doubled down when asked if they believed SAlt would support filming and recording, telling , “I do think there should be footage, absolutely.”
We, of course, agree.
More to come from our reporters (the ones who are actually there in Ballarat) tomorrow.
Disclosure: Joseph Mann is a member of the Australian Labor Party and served as Assistant Secretary of ACT Young Labor from 2019 to 2021. He is not a member of the party’s student factions.
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