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New Evidence: Allegations of Brodie's Clubs Committee Corruption, Analysis on Activate's Backflip - The Strainer Investigates



More information has been leaked to us since our first article on Friday, helping us piece together Zerui's claims of union money being used to get the political support of the Adelaide University Chinese Students Association (AUCSA).

The Clubs Committee is a body run by the union, with two members elected by the presidents of each club affiliated with the AUU every year. The clubs administrator serves as the other committee member with voting powers, as does the AUU board president. A clubs chair is chosen from the board of directors, bringing the committee to five members that meet each month to decide funding for clubs.

According to Zerui, money was promised to AUCSA prior to the meeting in-exchange for guaranteed support for the upcoming student elections. At the meeting itself, the funding measure was moved in bloc. 



We've redacted some of the names to protect the privacy of those not involved in the matter.



As is demonstrated in this screenshot from the 3rd of July 2017 minutes, Scott did not declare a conflict of interest on this motion. We can confirm from the minutes that Jennifer Li, the clubs committee chair for the year and a member of AUCSA, did excuse herself from voting on this motion in accordance with union policy.

Two witnesses in attendance at the alleged meeting where Scott allegedly promised funding for political support have come forward publicly supporting Zerui's claims - Progress board members Siqi Yan, another anonymous Chinese student*. The other two, former Progress board president Jennifer Li and current AUCSA president Xinwei Wang, haven't supported Zerui's claim at this stage.

We can confirm that if a deal was done, AUCSA lived up to its end with this Mandarin language club promotional site for Progress candidates - a type of advertising that's not allowed by the AUU during elections.

We've been told Jennifer Li is unable to communicate with anyone at this time, largely due to a steep decline in her mental health since her resignation that has, according to one source, 'left her bed ridden'. 


We have reached out to Xinwei for his side of the story, and will update this article as that statement as we go.

So far we haven't gotten anything from Brodie on the matter, other than communication through text messages protesting the use of private direct messages in our article. 

Our response to this alleged breach of privacy has been simple - it's evidence of official wrong doing + he's a public figure = the dm's are in the student interest. 

He also stated that the anonymous person or persons who leaked the dm's, if they are or were a board member, have to come forward to discuss the matter (we guess everyone learns about journalism in their own special way...).


In regards to the other committee member who moved the motion at the meeting, Patrick Imaysay, he has told The Strainer that though he had suspicions there may have been a conflict of interest involved, he trusted Scott was honest about not having one at the time of voting.

This was confirmed for him when Scott excused himself during deliberations of funding for the Japanese Language and Cultural Society and matters involving the Young Greens club, both of which Scott had direct involvement with in the past. He acted in good faith in those instances, and Imaysay had no reason to suspect otherwise during the particular meeting AUCSA funding was granted.



We leave it for students to make up their own minds about the likelihood of corruption we've presented with this information. But the page admin MC has something to say about the internal board election taking place tonight to pick a new president in light of the circumstances.


A Little Analysis about Tonight's AUU Board Election


On Dit editor Ethan Penglase was way more strident than us in calling out Progress for wrong doing, in a rather problematic opinion piece last week about Jennifer's resignation.

There are a lot of issues with how it initially represented Jennifer as a Chinese student in the role. The biased language it uses in the way it presents her and Oscar is pretty evident.

He's also since repeatedly taken down and deleted the counter argument written by the other editor, Nuer Deng, about her own take on the circumstances involved in Jennifer's resignation.

The reasons involved are pretty suspicious from what I understand from Nuer - like alleged grammatical errors despite multiple proof readings (you usually re-edit an online article for that, not take it down), the need to substantiate actual racism occurring by board members when it was made evident to her during interactions etc.

Nonetheless its clear his main criticisms stand up to scrutiny. Progress has evidently done the wrong things in the past under Brodie's leadership, and more recently with Oscar's premature attempts to take the presidency.

What he has not thought relevant to talk about in any coverage on the issue, along with declaring his own biases and involvement with factions on campus traditionally opposed to Progress, is Brodie Scott's very recent relationship with the Labor Left faction Activate.

You might remember Brodie being the subject of critical reporting by Activate aligned editors last year around the casual vacancy issue, the Whitlam club closure he instigated and his decision for the union to stay neutral on the issue of Same Sex Marriage. Whatever merit it had, the last one was an issue a lot of students cared about.

 He was criticised consistently on the board by Activate members and by SRC members belonging to Activate, especially the Queer Officer in the edition that omitted Brodie's presidential column from print as a protest.

Despite all of that, he worked with Activate to pull quorum at the meeting where Oscar initiated the premature election. Multiple sources have confirmed he has done a deal to vote for the Activate pick for president, in exchange for either Activate protecting his Vice Presidency and position on the board, or potential support for a political comeback at some point in the year.

I'll put aside all cynacism for a second and ask a question; why is Activate potentially doing a deal - or even choosing to benefit politically - from not only someone who has breached their elected duties in particular and has strong allegations of corruption leveled against them, but also someone who has been responsible for so much damage to them in the past?

Really they shouldn't be at all, and it wouldn't be worth it for them in the long term or in the interests of students. As rich as this is coming from a member of Progress that has benefited from what Brodie did - Activate should have more integrity and not treat students in the same way he has.


MC is a member of Progress and a current Student Radio Director who runs The Strainer page. Feel free to read the other post, Everything Wrong with McStrainer 2017 in too many dot points (Stones and Glass Houses, lmao), for the background of MC's past relationship to Brodie Scott, Progress, Activate and some shit he isn't proud of. Make sure to Like the Facebook page, and think for yourselves... or just the last one

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