Lot's Wife Edition 1 2016
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OPINION<br />
by Stephen Encisco<br />
Over the summer break - traditionally the<br />
time when universities do things that they<br />
don’t want you to notice - the Monash Student<br />
Association started making one of the most dramatic<br />
restructures it has ever seen.<br />
This restructure is expected to make<br />
redundant the most important staffing role within<br />
the organisation: the Finance Manager. This position<br />
provides expert analysis and advice in all financial<br />
matters. They ensure the financial accountability<br />
of elected representatives of the union. They try<br />
to prevent financial mismanagement. They sign all<br />
cheques. This role was always intended to be a thorn<br />
in the side of student politicians who have little<br />
financial literacy, but are in charge of multi-million<br />
dollar budgets. It is the only position expected to be<br />
made redundant.<br />
It is worth considering an unlikely, but not<br />
inconceivable scenario (it happened at Melbourne<br />
Uni in 2004): a right wing faction gets elected to a<br />
union and they decide to invest in property in order<br />
that the union may cash in on international students.<br />
But remember these are financially illiterate<br />
students, and the deal is a terrible one which would<br />
bankrupt the union. Everyone seems to know this,<br />
except the executive who thinks it’s a grand idea.<br />
This is what happens: all hell breaks loose,<br />
and the union gets liquidated.<br />
The MSA has attempted to circumvent<br />
corruption by having a highly competent Finance<br />
Manager, who is a member of CPA Australia, and<br />
is able to provide highly technical and professional<br />
financial advice. Remember as well, the position<br />
countersigns all cheques.<br />
There is no other staff member - whether that<br />
is Finance office staff, the Executive Officer, or the<br />
proposed General Services Manager role - who has<br />
the financial knowledge or analytical skills to replace<br />
the current Finance Manager.<br />
Why would the current administration want<br />
to knife someone who has dedicated over twenty<br />
years to ensuring the MSA can be the best it can be?<br />
At best, it is a very strange situation, and it is little<br />
wonder that union membership among MSA staff<br />
has spiked in recent months.<br />
This has brought up bad memories for<br />
Wholefoods, who still remember the effects<br />
of imposed restructuring. By 2012, the GO!<br />
administration of the MSA had spent a number of<br />
years aggressively attacking Wholefoods - the home<br />
of their political rivals - to the point of near collapse.<br />
They hired incompetent managers who banned<br />
volunteers, banned the Wholefoods Collective that<br />
had managed the restaurant since 1977, and ran<br />
the restaurant to losses of nearly $100,000. Under<br />
these restructures, this could be happening again.<br />
Since the Finance Manager – with a long-term<br />
institutional memory, and respect for the Collective<br />
- began providing accurate analysis of Wholefoods’<br />
finances, Wholefoods has been rebuilt into a<br />
financially and culturally strong community. Though<br />
rocky at times, the relationship with the MSA was<br />
rebuilding.<br />
This restructure is the kind of thing that<br />
students can quickly lose faith in student unions<br />
for. It is also the kind of thing that gives rightwing<br />
governments, with petty grudges against<br />
student unions, the excuse to bring in anti-student<br />
organisation legislation.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> | 13
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