A petition to disaffiliate the Socialist Alternative from the student union will be tabled at the next Clubs and Societies Committee meeting, following allegations of harassment on campus. The petition says that the motion to disaffiliate is because the Socialist Alternative club has broken the Clubs and Societies regulations, It cites the regulations in that “verbal harassment and intimidatory behaviour based on political belief constitutes the promotion of violence on discriminatory grounds.”

It is believed that two separate incidents have been reported toUnion House security involving Socialist Alternative members.

The petition means that the Socialist Alternative have the opportunity to attend the meeting and argue to stay affiliated with the Union.

The Socialist Alternative has also had its bank account frozen in an unrelated move, when the University of Melbourne branch and the RMIT branch were found to be using a shared bank account. The bank account was frozen by the RMIT University Student Union’ (RUSU) Clubs and Societies Officer Jacqueline Out, after she discovered that it was shared by both branches. Ms Out told Farrago that “there’s nothing to suggest anything sinister has gone on,” and that the bank account was frozen to allow for further investigations. Ms Out believes that the shared bank account has existed for a few years and that the “current crop of executives (at the clubs) weren’t really aware of what was going on.”

The Melbourne University branch of the Socialist Alternative were contacted for comment but failed to respond to Farrago before deadline.