The UTS Students’ Association has unveiled a bold new student service: spending student money to fight a student.
This Wednesday, the UTSSA will vote on approving up to $40,000 for external legal counsel in a Fair Work matter brought against the Association by a student .
Forty thousand dollars.
Not for food relief programmes. Not for student collectives. Not for student media. Not for advocacy services.
Not for anything students can actually access.
For lawyers.
The issue is not whether the UTSSA has the right to defend itself. Every organisation does. Rather, the issue is whether a student association that is funded through compulsory student fees should be allowed to treat $40,000 in legal bills as just another expense. A bill and case of this proportion is certainly anything but business as usual. It is a choice.
In 2026, full-time UTS students will pay $373 a year in SSAF. We do not pay this as an act of generosity. We pay it because it is compulsory.
$40,000 is roughly equivalent to the full annual SSAF contributions of more than 100 full-time students. So the next time someone tells you SSAF is about student life, student welfare, free food, advocacy, collectives or independent student media, remember that it may also apparently be used to pay external lawyers in a dispute involving the Association itself.
Inspiring stuff.
The UTSSA regularly preaches about SSAF, and its members have even campaigned on the importance of student-controlled money. It argues that students deserve better services, better support, better funding and better representation.
Great! This I’m sure we can all agree on.
Which is exactly the reason we, as students, must ask why $40,000 could now be spent on legal representation against a student instead of student support.
Because $40,000 is not an abstract number.
It could fund thousands of free breakfasts, stock food relief programmes, and support students in crisis. It could fund emergency assistance. It could expand advocacy. It could pay student journalists. It could print student media. It could be used for almost anything more visibly connected to student welfare than a legal fight.
For comparison, UTSSA financial material records Vertigo printing expenses at $32,725 and Vertigo stipends at $40,960. So, yes: the proposed legal cap is more than an entire year of Vertigo printing, and almost equal to a year of Vertigo stipends.
Read that again.
A student publication can be told to justify its printing costs, contributors can wait for support, students can be told budgets are tight, services can be stretched, and yet when the Association itself is challenged, suddenly there may be up to $40,000 available for lawyers. Very interesting how money appears when power needs defending.
The Fair Work matter concerns an application for an order to stop bullying at work. The application names UTSSA President Neeve Ann Nagle and General Secretary Salma Elmubasher as persons alleged to have engaged in bullying conduct. These are allegations, not findings. Fair Work has not yet made a final determination. But that does not make the spending decision unimportant. If anything, it makes scrutiny even more urgent and necessary.
When a student-funded organisation is responding to a student’s bullying application, students deserve more than a “trust us.” They deserve to know why the substantial accompanying financial cost is necessary, what alternatives were explored, and whether their money is being used in the most responsible way possible.
Was there any attempt to resolve the dispute before escalating to costly legal representation?
Will student services continue to lose funding because of this expense? After all, Vertigo has already experienced several blows to its budget this year.
The UTSSA’s own governing documents state that the Association exists to advance student interests, represent students, support student organisations, and provide student services. Its rules also allow matters to be referred to an external mediator or community legal centre.
So where is the motion for mediation?
Where is the motion for an independent review?
Where is the motion for conflict-of-interest safeguards?
Where is the motion guaranteeing that not one dollar will be taken from student-facing services, Vertigo, free food programmes, collectives, and advocacy and welfare services in order to cover this large legal bill?
Instead, the only motion students are receiving is a legal spending cap.
How convenient.
This is the same Association that asks us to trust it with SSAF. The very same that criticises university management over student money, and emphasises that we students must control these funds. But student control goes beyond elected representatives voting behind closed doors. We, the students, must know what is happening with our money before it is spent. Councillors must be answerable for the decisions they make, and not hide behind process; especially when the amount on the table could significantly fund services that benefit students.
Let’s call this what it is: a political decision.
This is not party-political in the cheap slogan sense. Rather, it is political in the sense of power, priorities and whose interests are protected when things get uncomfortable.
Because when students need funding, the conversation is always about scarcity. There is never enough money. Not enough for printing. Not enough for services. Not enough for food. Not enough for support. Not enough for everything students are constantly told to be patient about.
But when the Association needs legal defence, there’s no hesitation in proposing up to $40,000.
Every councillor voting on this motion should be prepared to explain their decision clearly.
Why $40,000?
Why external legal counsel?
Why not mediation first?
Why not an independent review?
Why should compulsory student fees be used this way?
What student services will be protected?
What conflicts of interest have been declared?
What happens if the legal costs increase?
And why should students believe this is about protecting the Association, rather than protecting the people currently running it?
That last question matters.
A student association is not supposed to behave like the institutions it claims to challenge. It should not demand transparency from the university while offering students vague justifications for its own spending. It should not campaign on welfare while placing a legal bill beside food relief and student support in the same budget universe. It should not call itself student-centred while spending tens of thousands responding to a student’s complaint.
This motion should not pass without serious scrutiny.
At a minimum, councillors should amend it to require a full breakdown of projected legal costs, confirmation of the funding source, disclosure of whether mediation or external review was offered, conflict-of-interest safeguards, and a written guarantee that no student service, Vertigo event, food programmes, advocacy service, collective, campaign or welfare initiative will be cut to absorb the cost.
If the UTSSA believes this spending is necessary, it should have no problem explaining that publicly.
If it cannot explain it, then we must ask why.
Because this is not just about a legal invoice. A student-funded organisation must decide between accountability and self-protection. Its actions will set a landmark precedent for our student body, for better or for worse.
It is about whether student money is used to support students, or to defend the Association from students.
It is about whether elected representatives remember who they are supposed to represent.
Students pay SSAF believing it will improve student life.
This Wednesday, councillors may decide that up to $40,000 of it should go to lawyers instead.
Students deserve to know why.
And every councillor who votes yes should be ready to own that decision.
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