MUSA education officer voted out by students, and more AGM shit!
MUSA’s recent Annual General Meeting (AGM) saw the removal of their education officer, Alex Johnston, after a majority vote of no-confidence, with only three students against the proposal out of an estimated seventy in the room.
Paris Tait, kaiāwhina for Māori student association Manawatahi, proposed the vote, citing the in-fighting shown at the last exec meeting as her reason behind the move. “I don’t understand what your role is, you haven’t backed up what you’ve done so far,” she told Alex, alleging a lack of cohesion between him and his team. Alex refused to resign at the meeting, despite a vote of no confidence meaning that he is ineligible to run at the next election. He was then, well, voted out. Ouch.
Alex told Massive he was “completely devastated at the motion that came right out of the blue, without any warning or chance to improve my behaviour like you would in any other work place.” He claims that the motion itself is reflective of a larger systemic issue in MUSA, Massey and the community at large. “The way the motion was raised against me as education officer and me alone seemed rather unfair. I believe that given the chance myself along with the board could have worked together to move forward with much improved communication not only with Manawatahi and the Māori students on campus but also with the MUSA operations staff and each other,” he said.
Allegations of disengagement between Manawatahi and Alex were repeatedly highlighted in the meeting, with Paris claiming “We were fighting for our voice to be heard, even though you were meant to be representing us.” Alex said he was aware that there was “a hell of a lot improvement” that needed to be done, and that he understood where the criticism was coming from, but pleaded for “just a little bit more time…to do some real good.”
Another point of contention was the extent of how much Alex knew about the merger, coming hot off of his outburst at the last meeting insisting that he hadn’t been informed. At the AGM, he said he was behind on the merger as he had been away on bereavement leave. This was met with general sympathy but one student in the crowd told Alex, “I’m sorry for your loss, [but] if it’s affecting you this much, maybe you shouldn’t be in this role.”
Alex later told Massive that the SLA proposal, which he did take minutes for, and the organisational merger “were very separate and distinct proposals,” suggesting that the latter is what he was uninformed about. He said, "All of the single SLA/merge stuff was handled between the presidents last year and while the musa board did go over it way back in its infancy, I and the rest of the board 2020 didn't really have anything to do with it apart from what I've mentioned” and that he was “waiting patiently to see what came of it.”
These issues were enough to persuade students to vote Alex out, despite some defence from Callum Goacher, education officer in 2018 and 2019, to move criticism “into a proposed restructure of the role rather than targeting a specific member.” With Alex gone, all eyes are on a by-election to replace the position. Ah, the cyclical nature of student politics.
President of MUSA, Fatima Imran, told Massive, “It was a tense time but students showed great maturity in quite an emotional and uncomfortable situation.” She noted the importance of student-led accountability, and added “myself and the exec, our thoughts go out to Alex and we wish him the best with the rest of his University career.”
Alex said he still intends to keep working with Massey staff boards and committees as a regular student rep, but admitted “it's safe to say I'm pretty burnt out on student politics for a long while.” As he ultimately summarised to Massive: “Fun MUSA with pizza, ginger beer and gigs got really damned mean all of a sudden.”
Okay! Now for other notable things from the meeting, summed up in fun bullet points! (I’m technically on holiday leave, okay. Give a girl a break)
Instead of the president, Michael Salmon (the former 2019 president) chaired the meeting to be “an impartial chair”. Honestly, this was kinda weird, especially since he then…continued to not be impartial, frequently defending Fatima and MUSA against questions. The whole thing seemed like just a diversion tactic away from some of the constitutional breach questions, and you know what? It kinda worked. I, too, was initially diverted by Michael’s man-bun. MUSA: 1, Massive: 0.
The constitutional-ness (is that a word?) of the meeting was still called into question, however. The AGM was switched from a Wednesday to a Thursday with only 6 days notice, not the 7 which is constitutionally required. But, to disband the AGM and move the meeting back would require moving it into mid year break, which ALSO apparently violate the constitution! What doesn’t violate the constitution these days??? Haha, just a little joke.
That aside, criticism about constitutional-ness was only really voiced by students in the last 2/3rds of the meeting. Initially, Chair Michael moved to have this vote carried out AFTER the vote of no confidence on Alex, which is big himbo energy from him. If that actually happened, it means Alex could have been kicked out, then the meeting declared unconstitutional, and then he’s just kinda back…but in a sad way. Thankfully the chair “changed” his mind (Massive pulled him aside lol), and the vote was carried before Alex’s things. The motion to make this meeting constitutional was then carried (in my opinion, it was just because people were eager to vote on the Alex issue. The Alex debacle? Which sounds better?). If this vote had been conducted at the start of the meeting, it could have been a different tale.
Another motion was passed: that all executive roles be reassessed in MUSA, with Manawatahi’s involvement in the restructure, and clear definitions of what those roles are. This is nice-sounding, but it’s still deeply unclear as to what this actually looks like, since it was kind of a random motion crafted on-the-spot by the crowd and the chair. Hopefully it will help with MUSA’s engagement with Manawatahi, especially given recent and historical criticism, but it’s up to MUSA to actually do the work here.
There’s apparently no process for a vote of no-confidence within the constitution, which lead to the chair “just vibing it.” Whilst I LOVE vibing, this did seem lazy at best, harmful at worst. Especially since Massive (and the Manawatū Standard! Love them hehe) had to tell the chair basically how to do his job, like that Alex should be sent out of the room for the vote. With all that, the chair didn’t even count the number of student votes. I HATE knowing more about how to conduct student meetings than an actual former president. That’s not good for my brand. Dating is hard enough as it is.
Students for a Democratic University claimed that Fatima’s response to the second open letter “dodged most of the questions”. Fatima hit back at this, asking “what part? On my end and my exec part we felt like we answered everything. What part did I dodge?” Big oooooh from the crowd (or maybe this was just in my mind. It was a long day. I drove up at 6am to go to a fucking AGM but that’s not gonna be in the news, is it.) Which brings us to….the General Manager shit-show!
The Craig question (the Craig conundrum maybe??), referring to the abrupt departure of the General Manager, still lingered at the meeting, despite weeks of back-and-forth open letters. One student asked, "You only make someone redundant if the job is no longer needed. So why is a general Manager no longer needed?", with many stating that a company MUST be going through a restructure process. Which, as Fatima confirmed, MUSA is not currently going through a restructure process. It may do, in the future, if the association merger goes ahead, but there’s no guarantee. The position also still exists, so that wasn’t made redundant, despite Craig taking a “voluntary redundancy.” The exec are staying tightlipped, but students think they’ve played hard and loose with the definition of redundancy. As Leola, from SDU, says, “it’s being dressed up as a resignation, in our opinion.” Another student said they understand the confidential nature of the issue, but doesn’t think MUSA’s answers “are good enough.” All in all, students aren’t giving up the scent of this story, so stay tuned!