Alliance Voices

Cease the attacks on Brisbane's Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy

2012-05-22T20:26:00.000+10:00

Socialist Alliance Brisbane released the statement below on May 18, 2012

* * *

The Socialist Alliance expresses its full support and solidarity with the Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy in Musgrave Park, South Brisbane, and strongly condemns the actions of police and the Brisbane City Council in forcibly evicting the Aboriginal community members at the embassy on May 16.

The use of more than 200 police to stage a dawn raid on the peaceful embassy is a return to the police state tactics of the Joh Bejlke-Petersen regime in Queensland 30 years ago.

This heavy handed show of force also appears to be a clear signal by Liberal National Party (LNP) Mayor Graham Quirk and Premier Campbell Newman of their intentions to crack down on peaceful protest in this new era of LNP political dominance in Queensland.

This attack on democratic rights is a warning to all those campaigning for social justice, union rights and environmental protection that the new state government is set to use all the forces of the state machine against legitimate dissent.

Musgrave Park has been a tribal camping area and sacred site for the Jagera people for centuries, well before the British colonial invasion of Australia in 1788. It has also been a recognised gathering place for Aboriginal people in Brisbane for decades.

Moreover, the Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy was established there two months ago as part of the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra in 1972. The Musgrave Park Embassy has become a meeting place for Murris in Brisbane and a symbol of the Black struggle for rights and sovereignty throughout Queensland.

The ostensible reason for the eviction this week was the Greek Paniyiri Festival, which has been held annually in Musgrave Park for 26 years. There have always been good relations between West End's Greek community and the local Aboriginal people in the past, and undoubtedly a compromise solution for co-existence between Paniyiri and the Aboriginal Embassy could have been found. Instead, the Brisbane City Council and the state government chose to use massive force against the peaceful embassy residents and supporters.

The Aboriginal Embassy has now moved, at least temporarily, to an area at the top of Musgrave Park near the Jagera Hall, with council agreement. Talks between Embassy representatives and the council are due for May 22.

The Socialist Alliance calls on the council to immediately end all repression of the Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy, and the dropping of all charges against supporters of the embassy imposed during the eviction on May 16.

We call on the council and the state government to make an agreement with Embassy representatives to allow them to return to the original site in Musgrave Park, and to permit the sacred flame to burn again in its original place in the park.

Solidarity with the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy is a declaration of support for Aboriginal rights and empowerment throughout the country.

Always was, always will be: Aboriginal land.

Defend the right to strike! (sign on statement)

2012-05-22T20:24:00.000+10:00

Please sign on to this statement to support the campaign for the right to strike.

You can email your name,contact details, organisation and trade union position (if any) to Susan Price at pricesusan9@gmail.com

Australian law has never provided for the unrestricted right to strike.

The first Australian industrial law, the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1904, penalised Australian striking workers with fines and jail sentences.

Before that, Australian workers had to comply with the British Master and Servants Act of 1837, which meant that a worker could face jail if they were absent from work for an hour without permission!

Successive Australian governments, both Liberal and ALP, have sought to restrict the right to strike, in contravention of International Labour Organisation (ILO) principles:

In 1977, Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser introduced amendments to the Trade Practices Act -- now known as the Competition and Consumer Act. These amendments outlawed solidarity strikes and secondary boycotts.
In the 1980s, under the Hawke ALP government, during the period known as the Accord years, a tripartite agreement between the Hawke Labor government, the ACTU and Australian business, resulted in a decline in union power and organisation, which paved the way for further attacks on workers under the Keating government which followed it. Between 1981 and 1992, the level of unionisation in the workforce fell from 51% to 39.6%. By 1992 the number of work days lost to strikes had dropped to its lowest level in 30 years.
The Enterprise Bargaining system introduced by Paul Keating's ALP government in 1993 introduced a limited right to “protected industrial action” and lifted restrictions on industrial action by public servants. But solidarity strikes and secondary boycotts remained outlawed.
In 1996, the Howard Coalition government introduced the Workplace Relations Act, which put new legal and administrative restrictions on protected industrial action.
The current ALP government's misnamed Fair Work Act retains the restrictions on the right to strike and the new Competition and Consumer Act maintains laws against solidarity strikes and secondary boycotts.

The ILO Convention No. 87, Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, was adopted in 1948 and ratified by Australia in 1973. It gives recognition to the right of trade unions, as organisations of workers set up to further and defend their occupational interests, and to formulate their programs and organise their activities. In 1952, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association declared strike action to be a right and recognised the right to strike to be one of the principal means by which workers and their unions promote and defend their economic and social interests.

But while laws restrict the right of workers to withdraw their labour, employers such as Qantas, Schweppes, Toyota and Sigma can lock out workers or cut jobs with impunity.

The right to withdraw our labour is fundamental to defend wages and conditions. And as the global economic and environmental crises worsen, it will also be necessary to defend jobs against industry closures, and to ensure a just transition to ecologically safe industries.

As the employer class seeks to make workers pay for their crisis by cutting the social wage and attacking living standards, the right to strike will be essential to defending our social services and welfare, public health care, education and housing and to fight off further privatisation.

The lesson of the 1969 Clarrie O'Shea dispute is that a concerted, organised campaign to defy the laws and penal powers of the day can win.

Please sign on to support the campaign for the right to strike. You can email your name,contact details, organisation and trade union position (if any) to Susan Price at pricesusan9@gmail.com

Letter of protest against torture of Baba Jan, 'prisoner of climate change' in Pakistan

2012-05-22T20:12:00.001+10:00

May 3, 2012
To:
His Excellency Mr Abdul Malik Abdullah
High Commissioner for Pakistan
4 Timbarra Crescent, O'Malley
ACT 2606

parepcanberra@internode.on.net
Cc: Mr Azam Mohammed
Consul General for Pakistan
Level 7, 32 Martin Place,
Sydney 2000
parepsydne@comcen.com.au

Dear Sir,

We have been informed by the Labour Party of Pakistan that Baba Jan, Waqar and other activists in Gilgit district jail were severely beaten and tortured by dozens of Rangers, Police and Frontier Constabulary in the early morning of April 28, 2012.

We are especially concerned for the fate of Baba Jan, who was taken from the Gilgit district jail by security personnel and transported to a place unknown.

We strongly protest against this violence and object to the prison authorities' ban on visitors to these political activists. It would seem that the responsible authorities have failed in their duty to maintain safe custody of these persons. This kind of treatment of political activists should not be acceptable in a democratic Pakistan.

We are writing to request that that you pass on to your government our urgent request that Baba Jan, Waqar and all other activists be released from custody immediately and that the ban by Gilgit district jail authorities on vistors to these activists be lifted. Further, we ask you to please determine and advise us of the location of Baba Jan and any others taken from Gilgit district jail?

The Gilgit district jail authorities should publicly indicate the health status of each of Baba Jan, Waqar and the other activists - their families are also very worried. They are considered to be in dire need of medical assistance - something the authorities should facilitate. We request that they are immediately released and, if necessary, be promptly transferred to hospital.

We are extremely anxious for the safety of the above persons, and wish to have information as to their legal and health status as soon as possible.

We look forward to hearing from you soon about this matter as we are having emergency discussions with concerned prominent individuals, Members of Parliament in Australia, media and human rights organisations about future action on this case. Further, our European office is briefing organisations and MPS in that region about this concern.

There is a very broad layer of people around the world who are concerned about the fate of Baba Jan and his fellow activists because they are seen as political casualties of the deepening global climate change crisis. They are imprisoned for their roles in the campaign by poor local residents who were demanding compensation for the devastating landslide and flood in the Hunza Valley in 2010.

International flood relief campaigns for Pakistan have also increased public awareness of the situation. The success of future emergency appeals could be compromised if there were serious concerns that the victims of flooding and their advocates are being mistreated by Pakistani officials at any level of government.

For all the abovementioned reasons, it would be a good idea for the Government of Pakistan to act most promptly on this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Boyle

National Co-Convenor

Socialist Alliance (Australia)

For background information see:

May Day greetings from the Socialist Alliance

2012-05-22T20:10:00.000+10:00

Dear comrades and friends,

The Socialist Alliance in Australia sends warm comradely greetings for May Day 2012.

May Day this year takes place in tumultuous conditions: the multiple crises confronting global capitalism are deepening, while mass resistance to its brutal rule grows. Taken all together, the people's uprisings across the Arab world, the mass demonstrations and strikes occurring in Europe, the Occupy actions in the United States and the ongoing efforts of Latin American revolutionaries to construct socialism of the 21st century pose a huge challenge to the capitalist system.

The capitalist class is desperately striving to force working people and the entire Third World to pay for the worldwide economic, social and ecological crises it has created, but the momentum towards change and the creation of a system that puts the needs of people and the environment before private profit cannot be easily stopped.

In Australia, the federal Labor Party government is itself in crisis, plagued by corruption and a growing backlash to its neoliberal economic policies and regressive social policies, which are benefitting the big corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the most disadvantaged. In Australia today, the disparities between rich and poor are widening at a rapid pace: for example, while more than 600,000 (official) unemployed people live on less than $35 a day, Australia's Labor prime minister has just received a $2,192 a week pay rise.

Labor's “Fair Work” laws continue to be used to undermine trade union action and workers' rights, and the federal budget to be introduced this month will impose big spending cuts in public services. Meanwhile, in their efforts to keep working people divided and weaken resistance to their attacks, the capitalist media and political parties are fueling racism, continuing the outrageous attacks on Australia's Indigenous people and imprisoning, vilifying and scapegoating so-called “illegal” refugees.

The Socialist Alliance is working hard in many national and local campaigns to defend and extend working people's rights, end Australia's involvement in imperialist wars, and to build solidarity with people's struggles in other parts of the world. Over the last few weeks, our members have been centrally involved in organising, alongside a wide range of other groups and activists, a successful National Climate Summit, a national week of protests for asylum seeker rights, protests against police brutality and racism, and, on May 1, a 5000-strong rally against coal seam gas mining that united farmers, environmentalists and left activists.

At the May Day rallies and marches to be held around Australia later this week, the Socialist Alliance will be focusing on the demand for the right to strike. This is part of a new Right to Strike campaign launched this year by left trade unionists, including Alliance members.

The unrestricted right to strike has never been guaranteed under Australian law, and all Australian governments have sought to restrict it further. But as the global economic and environmental crises worsen, and as capital tries to force workers to pay for the crises by cutting the social wage and attacking living standards, the right to strike will be essential to defending our social services, and public health care, education and housing, and to fight off further privatisation. It will also be essential to ensuring a just transition to ecologically safe industries where workers' rights are protected.

The Right to Strike campaign will be holding a national planning workshop in Sydney during the ACTU Congress in May, the outcomes of which will be reported in Green Left Weekly.

At this year's May Day actions, the Socialist Alliance will also be distributing our new draft document Towards a Socialist Australia. This document was prompted by our assessment that, along with the need for all socialists to immerse themselves in the new wave of popular anti-capitalist struggles that have erupted, it is equally important that socialists take full advantage of the fact that the global capitalist economic and environmental crises have opened up a big public discussion about alternatives to capitalism to win many more people to socialist ideas and organisations.

The document aims to promote a wide discussion about socialism in the 21st century, and the Socialist Alliance is inviting other socialist and progressive groups and individuals to make their input over the next eight months, before a final draft of the document is voted on at our next national conference in January 2013. The document is available at: http://socialist-australia.blogspot.com.au/

The collaboration of socialists and other progressive activists and organisations within and between all countries is an ever more necessary response to the many crimes - and crises - of capitalist globalisation. Such cooperation and solidarity will be essential to make progress towards a society based on collective ownership, participatory democracy, social justice and ecological sustainability, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with your organisation to that end.

Long live international working class solidarity!

Long live May Day!

Yours in solidarity and struggle,

Susan Price and Peter Boyle

National Co-conveners

Socialist Alliance (Australia)

Marxist vacuums: the rise and rise of Socialist Alternative

2012-05-22T20:07:00.000+10:00

By Adam Baker, Brisbane

The state of the left in Australia in 2012 looks quite different to what it was at the turn of the century. In 2000, the socialist left comprised two large (for the standards of the left in an advanced capitalist country) parties or organisations, and perhaps half a dozen or more other smaller groups. The two largest were the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) and the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) alongside its youth organisation Resistance. These two organisations had a similar size in terms of active members. There was the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), Socialist Alternative, Workers Liberty, Workers Power, Freedom Socialist Party, the Spartacist League and no doubt some others that don’t immediately come to mind. But the dynamic was clear – the DSP and the ISO had the most active members on the ground involved in party building and movement work, while the others did the same, but necessarily on a smaller scale.

Fast forward to 2012. We now have the situation where Socialist Alternative (SAlt) has advanced in leaps and bounds to a position of unequalled dominance on the left, at least in terms of where it matters most – active members on the ground. SAlt has shot past all comers in the left in the last ten years. They publish a regular Marxist journal, organise annual “Marxism 20…” conferences in Melbourne which attract in the vicinity of 800 people each year and I would hazard a guess that they have around 350 regularly active members with a possible total membership of 400. (These are only guesses) From what I can tell, they dominate political life on most University campuses around the country, with the exception of perhaps Hobart and Adelaide, and perhaps Perth. They draw most of their considerable activist energy from their student base. SAlt have huge influence in the equal marriage rights campaign, and substantial influence in anti-war and refugee rights activism.

Compare this to our Socialist Alliance (SA). We have an active membership of perhaps 100, but we do have a large paper membership, extending to some 750 odd members. Sales of the newspaper Green Left Weekly probably exceed SAlt’s Magazine. We are involved in many campaigns, including trade union campaigns, against coal seam gas and global warming, anti-war and refugee rights to name only a few. But we do this with relatively few activists on the ground. SAlt, on the other hand, seem to have no difficulty in outmobilising us for rallies, meetings and party building activities, often by a ratio of 5 to 1. That is, where SAlt seem to have little difficulty in mobilising 25 activists for a standard demonstration; we in SA will stretch ourselves to mobilise 5 comrades. This is not to disparage our efforts, it is simply recognising the reality.

How has this situation come about? What factors have lead to the explosion of SAlt, while we in SA struggle to bring up the rear, alongside the other smaller left organisations? We seem to sit back and wonder about how SAlt are able to achieve these things. SAlt shouldn’t be able to be so successful, because they sometimes appear to have a very harsh and confrontational approach to the rest of the left. SAlt shouldn’t be so successful if they have a generally sectarian approach. SAlt shouldn’t be so successful if they don’t recognise the socialist achievements of countries such as Cuba or Vietnam or China or Venezuela. SAlt shouldn’t be so successful if they appear to abstain in general from environmental campaigns. So why are they out in front in terms of socialist politics in this country? We in SA need to make a sober assessment of this fact. In my view, the rise of SAlt over the last ten years, and particularly in the last five years, is a result of two main political developments.

The demise of the ISO

One of these is the implosion of the former ISO, and the other is the political direction of both the former DSP and, soon after, our SA. The ISO in the late nineties and early 2000s were a formidable outfit. Despite their sometimes over the top militant approach, and despite what most of us in SA would regard as a handicap of the theory of state capitalism, the ISO had activists on the ground in most major cities, a considerable campus base, and a number of older and more experienced leaders. Then, their UK sister or mother party, the UK Socialist Workers Party (SWP), took part in the initial Socialist Alliance project there. This led the former DSP to propose to the ISO a similar socialist alliance in Australia. The ISO agreed, and our SA was founded, initially alongside six or seven other socialist organisations. Our SA started with a bang, as it was able to include individuals who agreed with socialism but were not part of any of the founding affiliates.

Over time, however, the ISO’s participation in our SA caused them significant internal problems. I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of these problems, but it seems the ISO had difficulty in directing their members to work directly with other socialists, perhaps calling into question the need to build the ISO itself. Whatever the reason, the ISO suffered what appeared to be mass resignations and several splits, effectively withdrew from our SA around 2003 and I think formally withdrew around 2005. Those ISO members who remained formed Solidarity, which started off small, but is now rebuilding, I believe significantly in Sydney and Melbourne.

What was it that the ISO balked at? Did they hesitate to form a new socialist party with the rest of our SA? Were they concerned about the preservation of their interpretation of Marxism if they continued in SA? We can only guess the real reasons. But what we can say is that the largest beneficiary from the decline of the ISO, was SAlt itself. I remember Dick Nichols once referring to SAlt as the ISO’s political doppelganger. This was a most apt description. SAlt originated as a split from the ISO in 1995, the reasons for which I again can only speculate. I believe it had something to do with a major disagreement over how to approach campus work. Nevertheless, SAlt remained relatively small in terms of active members from its founding in 1995 until around 2005. Then it took off, eclipsing the remnants of the ISO to be found in Solidarity, as well as our SA and the rest of the left combined.

There is a certain constituency for Tony Cliff inspired, state capitalist politics in Australia. In my view this was proved by the success of the ISO in the 1990s, and now the success of SAlt for the last ten years. The ease with which one can build a socialist organisation if it has a black and white approach to the dialectically complex process of the transition from capitalism to socialism, is a contributing factor. Cuba, Vietnam, China? Nothing to do with socialism. Leadership of a trade union? All sell-outs. We need socialism “from below”, not the top down – leading to a certain dismissal of attempts to build a post capitalist state, or a fighting union under a capitalist system. This is not to write off their politics totally, as they are involved in as much honest activist work as anyone on the left. But the fact is there is a certain space for it, which appeals to some students, some workers and some academics. And once the ISO went into freefall, SAlt capitalised on this mini-vacuum almost immediately, and was able to continue to do so for several years. It’s dominance of the state capitalist influenced milieu has only been challenged in the last couple of years by the rebuilding of Solidarity in Sydney and Melbourne.

Our contribution to the vacuum

The more significant contribution to the rise of SAlt, in my view, has been the direction of our SA. Our direction, since the departure of the other socialist affiliates, and especially since the end of the DSP’s internal factional struggle with the comrades who became the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), has been one which positively embraces broader and broader progressive politics – whether or not this includes Marxism. In fact, adherence to Marxism in our SA is seen as somewhat of a hindrance to being politically broad, so it is not insisted on. Rather, it is an option that SA members can investigate if they wish. There are even some theoretical educational classes remaining in SA which members can seek out. But these classes effectively remain exercises in academic thought, as the theory cannot be applied in the context of our SA, as we are officially not a Marxist organisation.

As I have tried to demonstrate elsewhere, the relegation of Marxism to simply one of many political theories in practice means that we in SA downgrade its importance, and constantly search for non-Marxist, but generally progressive political theories to align ourselves with. This process needs to be elaborated more expansively in further discussion. But the essential point is that we in SA do not organise on a Marxist basis, and consequently we do not advertise or promote Marxism in the context of Australian politics. SAlt certainly do this - they openly campaign on the basis of being Marxists, supporting Marxism, promoting Marxism and practising Marxism at all times while participating in Australian politics. The Marxist vacuum created by our practical abstention from Marxism means that SAlt cash in time and time and time again. In my view, we will never be able to catch up to SAlt while we are not able to challenge their interpretation of Marxism head on. We only have one foot in the Marxist circle – until we have two, we will always be playing second fiddle to those who are openly Marxist.

An objection could be raised at this point to the contention. There are other parties and organisations who do campaign openly on the basis of being Marxists, but they have not been able to grow as exponentially as SAlt. After all, the RSP, CPA, Solidarity, Freedom Socialist Party, the Spartacist League and others all campaign with their interpretation of Marxism up front. Why haven’t they been able to expand, when SAlt has, if all you need to do is campaign openly for Marxist politics? The answer is that a vacuum first flows into the line of least resistance. Or, should we say, the hole of least resistance. Suppose that a bomb explodes in a passenger airliner mid-flight, and rips a two metre hole in the side of the aircraft. A vacuum is created, and air threatens to pull the passengers out into the atmosphere. The explosion has caused a small hole on the other side of the aircraft to the largest hole. A vacuum is created at this hole as well, but overall it is no match for the two metre wide hole. The vacuum effect is at its strongest at the largest hole.

A similar process seems to have taken place with regards to Marxist politics in Australia. We in SA have steadily exited the political space as far as open campaigning for Marxism goes. The next largest organisation that the Marxist mantle fell to was SAlt. This process began around 2005, just as the factional struggle broke out inside the former DSP, with the comrades that became the RSP. That factional struggle was a bitter, but necessary struggle. I now believe that the role I played in this struggle was not helpful, and may have even been incorrect overall. But while we in the former DSP had a factional fight, ironically over Marxism, we were largely disarmed, and this flowed through to SA. While we in the former DSP fought over what Marxism was and how to apply it, SAlt eagerly grasped the free kick we handed to it. They have used this to their benefit since that time, but the process is most marked now, since the dissolution of the former DSP into SA in January 2010. Since that time, there have been no Marxist currents operating within our SA, and SA as a whole has been explicit about not being a Marxist organisation. This move, perhaps unbeknownst to us, not only hands SAlt a free kick, it virtually awards them the entire game. SAlt can say, we are the Marxists in this patch – the next largest left org is not strong on Marxism, and the others may be Marxist but are too small to have an impact. This largely means that young workers or students, or those new to socialist politics who have a desire to radicalise around Marxist ideas, and who wish to join a substantially sized organisation, have only one choice – to join SAlt.

The Greens vortex

There is an additional factor, related to the Marxist card, which further boosts the stocks of SAlt. This is how to relate to the rise of the Greens over the last decade. Our SA has chosen to relate to the rise of the Greens by seeking to align ourselves with the progressive policies the Greens put forward. This has gone so far as SA adopting a policy which now states that SA “seeks the greatest possible political collaboration with the Greens”. Ostensibly, the aim of this policy is to try to influence the “left wing” Greens, perhaps joining some of them to SA, but overall hoping to influence the Greens to tack left. I don’t think this has been the effect. What this policy has done, and is doing in my view, is that in practice our SA helps boost the Greens politically, while simultaneously corroding our socialist positions, and dragging our politics in a centrist direction. A related effect is that we politically support capitalist parliaments, the entering of which is the main aim of the Greens. Unwittingly, we are drawn into the parliamentary vortex.

More essentially, our policy of seeking collaboration with the Greens in practice means that we are not able to sufficiently critique the Greens when they take conservative positions. When the Greens pass an austerity budget in Tasmania, as they are doing now – with the effect of closing some schools and running down hospitals, we in SA put forward our criticisms. But due to the fact that we are seeking to work closely with the Greens, the nature of our criticism is only in the sense of saying “The Greens should not have done this”. We in SA are not able to say why the Greens did this. Why did they help in the closing of schools? Ultimately the Greens serve capitalism and seek to extend its lifespan. We in SA can’t say this publicly, as it would jeopardise our chances of more political work with the Greens. So in turn we are not able to explain to the working class why ultimately we need to go much further than Greens politics, and in the direction of socialism, especially in an era of environmental and economic capitalist meltdown. Saying, “the Greens should not have done this” is not an adequate explanation of why the Greens turn their backs on the things that they say they stand for, and it does not help us nor the working masses understand what politics are most needed.

Now consider SAlt’s approach to the rise of the Greens. SAlt have no such policy or practice of seeking political collaboration with the Greens. SAlt offer a fairly precise critique of the class basis of the Greens politics. They characterise the Greens as one which represents the views and outlook of the quite comfortable middle classes. Even if the Greens represent the most politically progressive section of the middle classes, this still means they fall a long way short of being anti-capitalist.

Socialist Alternative’s Ben Hillier wrote a very useful piece for the inaugural edition of Marxist Left Review, titled “A Marxist Critique of the Australian Greens”, released a couple of years ago. In it, he lays out some evidence describing both the middle class ideological basis of the Greens, as well as some evidence indicating that much of the voting support for the Greens also emanates from the middle class. He writes:

“The middle class is particularly fragmented as it has several distinct relationships to the means of production. As such it is more accurate to talk of the middle classes: sections of the state bureaucracy, lawyers, doctors, middle/high-grade professionals, professors and senior academic staff, middle managers and small business owners. The middle classes shade into both the capitalist class at one end and the working class at the other. In the middle classes the interests of the two [other] classes are simultaneously mutually blunted. The middle classes therefore imagine themselves elevated above class antagonism generally”. (1)

The Greens generally, and most Greens supporters, therefore tend to share the Greens ahistorical non-class outlook. They tend to view themselves as above class struggle, as indeed the middle classes do not take a direct part in the class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class. The middle class lawyers, doctors, professionals, middle managers and so on, view their achievements as part of their own personal hard work. In a sense this is partially true, but their privileged positions exist via the existence of the two big classes involved in mass production – the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Hence they tend to believe that societal problems can be solved just by people being educated into thinking enlightened thoughts. So while the Greens do not openly declare themselves to be pro-capitalist, they certainly have more illusions in the capitalist system than even the bourgeoisie itself.

The Green’s illusions in the capitalist system tend to be reflected in its view towards bourgeois parliaments. The Greens are super serious in their orientation to these parliaments because they actually believe the system works. And for the educated middle classes, in general, the system does work – for them. The working class suffers terribly, but no matter. Even the openly pro-capitalist Labor and Liberal parties sometimes display their cynicism towards parliament, although not openly, as deep down they realise the system is a set up. Even the political comedy satirists The Chaser, recognise the middle class basis of the Greens. Their skit “Vote for the Greens – and relieve your middle class guilt” being a case in point.

The middle class are not opposed to capitalism per se, they just have a few issues with the manner in which capitalism is run. If capitalism can be run with a few of the rough edges knocked off, then the middle class don’t really have a beef with the system itself. Similarly, the Greens are not interested in seeing capitalism replaced – after all, if that was to occur their comfortable seats in parliament from where they can calmly do deals with other representatives of the capitalist class would not exist. If capitalism could operate while preserving the environment, humanely treating refugees, and saving the whales, the Greens could live with this situation quite easily. It is not in the material interests of the Greens to oppose capitalism. The middle class, and the Greens as a representative of this class, thus support the capitalist class in practice, even if they may protest loudly about its indiscretions at times.

Consider the advantages a SAlt like orientation to the Greens is for a socialist organisation. Each time the Greens “betray” the left (in reality they are only serving the interests of their core constituency), SAlt wins out, and we in SA lose out. Each time the Greens take a right wing position, SAlt can calmly explain the middle class origins and nature of the Greens, the Greens effective support for capitalism regardless of their complaints, and so on. However, we in SA have to solemnly shake our heads, as if we are apologising to our supporters for raising their hopes, only to have their hopes dashed. SAlt can rationally explain that what we actually need is socialism, guided by Marxism, and if you want to help build it – please join us. We in SA, on the other hand, can only say that we are disappointed that the Greens have done this, and we sincerely hope that it never happens again. We can say, join SA, and from there we can pressure the Greens to be more left wing. But even this is ineffective, as the Greens are not bound by any of our protestations, as there is no formal agreement between SA and the Greens. What tends to occur is that we in SA fervently wish for a formal alliance with the Greens, but the Greens, with their fear and hatred of communism simmering beneath the surface, have no intention of formally joining with the socialist movement. The dynamics seem to be clear – when the Greens take the wrong stance on the carbon tax, the Tasmanian budget, the war on Libya and numerous other issues, SAlt cash in, and we in SA are undermined. In these instances, SAlt can grow larger, whereas we in SA can, and often will, suffer further losses.

Have we been trapped?

I think there is a tendency for us in SA to scratch our head and wonder how and why it is that SAlt outnumber us on the ground by a ratio of around 5 to 1. This baffled me for some time. However, I think we can largely account for this trend by recognising this: SAlt are growing because we are helping them to grow. To reiterate, we in SA do this unintentionally via two practices. Firstly, the practice of essentially vacating the Marxist political space, such as it exists, in Australia today. This allows SAlt, as the largest openly identifying Marxist tendency, to almost entirely fill this vacuum. Secondly, we assist the growth of SAlt via our policy of seeking close political collaboration with the Greens. This associates us with the Greens to our detriment when the Greens take right wing positions. When this occurs, which is occurring with increasing frequency due to the crisis of capitalism and the Greens’ strong ties to the system, SAlt again are able to draw in a massive proportion of the socialist constituency in this country.

This trend occurs despite what we would assume to be SAlt’s idiosyncratic interpretation of Marxism. I am not an advocate for SAlt’s interpretation of Marxism, and I share the majority of my SA comrades’ views on SAlt as sometimes being confrontational, dismissive or sectarian towards us and other left parties. I agree that some of SAlt’s Marxism is distorted, particularly with relation to existing and former workers’ states. However, even a distorted Marxism such as the one practiced by SAlt is an advance on general social justice, environmental and human rights advocacy such as we tend to offer in SA. The Marxist constituency in Australia presently is not large, admittedly. Nevertheless, some radicalising workers and students do want to know what the “Marxists” – whoever they are – are saying. If we in SA are not able to step up to the plate and say that we are a Marxist party and here is our Marxist analysis, then these workers and students must go to SAlt. Some of the most politically aware workers and students may look further than SAlt if they are not satisfied with SAlt brand Marxism. But these highly politically aware workers and students are quite rare.

In my view, we in SA will continue to be caught in this trap as long as we remain on our present trajectory. In order to further prevent our direction causing considerable assistance to SAlt, we need to both drop our policy of “seeking the closest political collaboration with the Greens” and we need to form and build Marxist currents within SA. The RET is one such current, but we need to form, build and consolidate many more, hopefully to get to a stage where the dominant discussion and debate within SA is that between the various Marxist currents. If we can get to this stage, we will be on a level pegging with SAlt, and we will be able to offer a Marxism (or Marxisms) that can be a genuine challenge to SAlt’s Marxism. If there are better ways in which to challenge SAlt, I am very interested in hearing about them. But we must act now, otherwise SAlt’s Marxism will stand as “Marxism” in Australia, simply by virtue of their sheer size. We need to pinch a hole in the vacuum, and the sooner the better.

Hillier, B, et al, 2010, Marxist Left Review, Socialist Alternative, p.10.

Troops out of Afghanistan now!

2012-04-02T22:32:00.000+10:00

Make the Kandahar massacre a tipping point

Socialist Alliance statement March 13, 2012

The 1968 My Lai massacre of at least 500 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam was a turning point in the US war on Vietnam. Most of the victims of the US platoon outrage were women, children (including babies) and elderly people.

It wasn't until the following year when investigative journalist Seymour Herch broke the news of this until-then-hidden atrocity that it became one of the tipping points in finally ending the US-led war on the Vietnamese people.

Fast forward to the March 11, 2012 massacre in the Alkozai village of Panjwayi district in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan where at least 16 people - mainly women and children - were shot and burned in their beds by at least one US special forces soldier assigned to “village stability operation”.

News breaks faster these days - but will this massacre be the tipping point in the war on Afghanistan?

Majorities want the troops out but a massive confusion over the “war on terror” has helped contribute to an inertia - at least in this country. This has to be overcome if the widespread disgust and opposition is to be transformed into something more potent.

This latest massacre in Afghanistan is not an abberation: it continues from the near 11-year history of the US-NATO occupation in which no-one knows how many Afghans and Pakistanis have been killed.

Afghans want the troops to leave - a fact confirmed whenever polls are taken. When petitions, statements and protests are ignored, Afghans understandably resort to taking up arms against their army trainers, or joining a local militia.

How many more atrocities do the Afghan people have to suffer before the US-NATO withdraws?

Those who oppose this war have a responsibility to help make the March 11 Kandahar massacre a tipping point and demand the Gillard Labor government remove the Australian troops immediately.

Just as the My Lai massacre showed more than 40 years ago, shooting sprees by demoralised and crazed soldiers in Afghanistan reveal a deep disquiet within the occupying armies about the purpose and outcomes in this war that President George Bush once described as a “war without end”.

The views of the Afghan people - the unknown, unnamed victims of this senseless carnage - must be heard, respected and heeded. Getting the occupation forces out is the necessary first step. The second is war reparations from the West to assist in an Afghan-led reconstruction of their war-ravaged country.

This is the job that needs to be done - not “training” Afghan people to kill each other, not propping up a corrupt government, not maintaining massive military bases which double as torture centres, not terrorising a whole generation of youth, and not helping normalise fundamentalists and reactionaries as the people who can bring peace to Afghanistan.

Socialist Alliance says: No more excuses. No more deaths. The Australian government must pull the troops out now!

No more corporate tax cuts!

2012-04-02T22:31:00.000+10:00

Spend the money on public services and a real investment in a sustainable future instead

Socialist Alliance statement, March 15, 2012

Billions of dollars -- desperately needed for public health, education, transport, closing the shameful gap between Aborigines and non-Aborigines and a real response to the climate change crisis -- will be wasted if the Gillard Labor government hands out another 1% cut in the corporate tax rate.

Successive federal governments, beginning with Labor, reduced corporate tax rate from 49% (as it was until 1988) to a low 30%. Now another labor government wants to reduce it to 29%. On top of this the richest individuals have been given additional tax cuts.

The latest 1% cut will mean that the company tax has been reduced 20 percentage points over the last two and a half decades. The lastest 1% cut will cost the public an estimated $1.6 billion a year. Do the maths yourself and calculate how much has been handed over to the corporations. (It's hundreds of billion of dollars wasted over 25 years.)

But the greed of the corporate rich knows no bounds: 29% is not low enough for them, they are demanding a cut of the company tax rate to 25%!

For decades, Labor and Liberal governments have been robbing the public purse to make the super-rich even richer. No wonder the gap between rich and poor has widened!

It is time for this systematic class robbery to stop.

This is not just a justice issue. It is a matter of survival. New reports from Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO show that show greenhouse gases are at their highest level in modern history and that Australia's climate is warming at an alarming rate. We need urgent large-scale public investment in renewable energy and public transport to address the climate change emergency -- not more tax cuts and subsidies to corporate profits.

Socialist Alliance says there should be not be ANY MORE tax cuts for companies. Instead the company tax rate should immediately be returned back to 49%. In addition, the Gillard government should scrap the watered down mining super-profits tax it agreed with the biggest mining companies and come up with a serious tax on the outrageous profits the mining companes are making.

If the mining companies don't accept this they should be nationalised.

SA and ideology

2012-04-02T22:29:00.000+10:00

By Adam Baker, Brisbane

What is ideology? Is ideology a good or a bad thing? What attitude should socialists take towards ideology? Should socialists engage with ideology, take part in an ideological struggle, or abstain from it?

The Oxford Compact Dictionary describes ideology as follows:

“1. Scheme of ideas at basis of political etc. theory or system. 2. Characteristic thinking of class etc.” (1)

Even a dictionary put together by those who are consciously or unconsciously in the pay of the capitalist class recognise the class nature of ideology. Ideology is a system of ideas which ultimately defends the interests of a particular class.

A Marxist Glossary and Philosophical dictionary describes the class nature of ideology in more precise terms:

“The ideas and outlooks - economic theory, politics, law, ethics, religion, art, philosophy etc - expressing the interests of a class. In modern society, there are only two basic ideologies - the capitalist and the working class; a viewpoint that professes to be “neutral” or “above classes” objectively expresses in the last analysis the ideology i.e. the interests, of the capitalists. Hence the vital significance of the ideological struggle - which also has to be fought within Communism against bourgeois ideas and outlooks which inevitably penetrate its ranks” (2)

As socialists we cannot deny ideological struggle, as we engage in it each and every day. One could argue that almost the entire struggle for socialism is an ideological struggle. It is a struggle for the interests of the working class as opposed to that of the capitalist class. As socialists then we don't say that all ideology is inherently bad - for we are struggling for our ideology to become dominant, in order for the working class to liberate itself from capitalism. Any attempt to deny the ideological struggle, or claim that socialists are non-ideological, is thus not only not socialist - in practice it actively assists the capitalist class. Just as any article written in any newspaper about an imperialist war either supports the war or is opposed to it, so too any political activity which expressly denies it is ideological automatically cedes power to the class which holds power.

Socialists are not just activists who take part in social movements. Socialists have a task which has been placed on their shoulders by the progressive movement of history. This is the task of preparing the proletariat, the lowest social class, for the task of overthrowing capitalism via revolution, constituting itself as the ruling class, and establishing the conditions for the eventual withering away of the state and all social classes. Perhaps the key aspect of this gargantuan task is the forging together of a party of the proletariat, to lead the toiling masses in the long struggle for emancipation. And not just any party.

The scientific and theoretical basis for socialism is Marxism, and the best practical exponent of Marxism in history thus far was Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia in the years leading up to 1917. So Leninism is connected to Marxism by a thousand threads. The cardinal aspect of the party that Leninism added to Marxism was the concept of a vanguard party. This vanguard can be interpreted in a number of ways, but the fact remains that the vanguard party, and a Marxist vanguard party, is part and parcel of the entire body of Marxist theory. Thus all socialists are joined to Marxism and Leninism and the concept of a vanguard party, whether or not this is recognised by those who join the ranks of the socialists. And the vanguard party plays a critical role in the ideological struggle of the working class. I think all socialists can agree with these basic tenets, even if there are disagreements about how to apply them.

How well equipped is the Socialist Alliance (SA) then, to engage in the ideological struggle? Does SA attempt to actively win its members, and the working class in general, to the clearly defined ideology that is necessary for the working class to take state power? Does it attempt to win its members, and the broader working class, to the concept of the need to assemble a Marxist vanguard party? Does it attempt to construct Marxist cadre, who are the most schooled in socialist ideology?

It seems we have to say that unfortunately, SA is currently not well equipped and dangerously underprepared for the ideological struggle for socialism. This is no fault of any SA member, many of whom are devoting limitless hours to building the struggle for socialism. Rather, it is the current structure of SA which does not allow SA to sufficiently engage and win ideological battles. The current structure of SA is one which is a broad non-Marxist coalition, with no Marxist currents operating within (putting aside the RET for the sake of argument). SA openly declares it is not a Marxist party. If we are not a Marxist party, and there are no Marxist currents operating within the broad party, where then do we obtain our Marxism? How can we claim to be practising Marxism when we are building a party where Marxism is an opt-in, opt-out basis? SA members have a right to learn about Marxism, but we are denied this right due to the structure of the broad coalition.

SA members are charged with an impossible task. We are to try to win people to socialism, but we have to do this without reference to Marxism. It is an ideological non-sequitur, yet SA members have to attempt the impossible in their day to day work for SA. It is like trying to make a loaf of bread without any flour. To those we seek to join to SA who have objections to Marxism, we say we are not Marxists. To those we seek to join to SA who disagree with a vanguard party, we say we are not building a vanguard party. To those we seek to join to SA who believe that socialism is inherently environmentally destructive, we say we agree, and that is why we have “ecosocialism”. To those we seek to join to SA who are influenced by anarchism, we say we agree with anarchism on many issues. To those we seek to join to SA who are influenced by libertarianism, we say we agree with the freedom of the individual. And on and on it goes. At each point the structure of SA as a broad coalition which includes several different, and conflicting, ideologies presents a barrier to winning people to the single ideology of Marxism - the advance towards socialism via the construction of a revolutionary vanguard party.

The presence of conflicting ideologies also presents barriers in attempts to win people to essential elements of Marxist ideology, including Leninism. The keys are accommodation and adaption. SA attempts to be all things to all people at all times, hence it cannot hold to set ideas of ideology, politics, the vanguard party, economics, philosophy and so on. We need to be flexible, we are repeatedly told by the SA leadership. We certainly have been doing this, and the result is that now we are so flexible that SA's politics resembles kindergarten play-dough. Any member can mould and shape SA's politics into anything they feel like. If every member can have their own interpretation of what SA stands for, why have a political party at all? Isn't the purpose of a party a grouping of people who agree on a set amount of political postions? It's true that Lenin did try many different means of constructing a vanguard party under the conditions of Tsarist Russia. But what he would think of constructing a socialist party which accommodates to each and every kind of non-socialist ideology one can scarcely imagine.

SA leaders claim that we don't need to worry about the retention of Marxism, because there are Marxists operating within SA. This is like claiming that a take away deep fried pizza, saturated in oil and grease, is actually a healthy and nutritional meal due to the presence on the pizza of small vegetables. The vegetables can hardly deliver their unquestioned nutritional value due to the overwhelming presence of other unhealthy substances. The presentation of the pizza as a whole drowns out what decent nutritional value the vegetables in and of themselves can offer. In a similar fashion, the healthy Marxism that may exist within SA is often overpowered by the non-socialist ideologies within SA. This occurs not because non-socialist ideologies are more correct or more scientific than Marxism - this is an impossibility. It occurs due to the accommodation to non-socialist ideologies which follows as a corollary of building a broad non-Marxist party with zero Marxist currents within.

How does this accommodation to non-socialist ideologies play out in practice? A dramatic example was discovered at a recent Resistance forum on Marxism held in Brisbane, called “REVitalising REVolution”. Let me stress that in no way am I criticising any member of Resistance in relation to this forum. Several Resistance members toiled for many hours in building and preparation. The forum was successful in drawing in a reasonable number of new and younger people, who stayed for the entire day. The Resistance members should be heartily congratulated for their efforts. Despite this, the content of the forum contained graphic examples of the ideological decomposition we are now familiar with as it is passed down from the broad coalition politics of SA.

Part of the introductory blurb to the forum went like this: “Join us in a broad discussion looking at what Marxism has to offer us and what other radical movements have to offer Marxism”. I'm usually not one to nit-pick about exact word formulations, but this example is extremely concerning. It is a reflection of what seems to be SA's current view of Marxism - i.e. Marxism is a useful theory for some things, but it is not the only theory going around, and anyway it has some inherent flaws which need to corrected by other theories. This is preposterous. If SA believes that Marxism has inherent flaws, that it is not an adequate theory that socialists can use to assist and guide the working class in its struggle for socialism, that other non-Marxist theories on political change are superior to Marxism on some issues, then the claim that SA believes in Marxism is rather precarious, to say the least. At best, it is keeping an open mind on possible additions to the body of Marxism with advances in science. At worst, it is an anti-socialist position, which is indistinguishable from a common or garden variety bourgeois academic assault on Marxism.

One of the sessions included a discussion on Marxism and psychoanalysis. Freud, Fromm and Laccan were each presented as psychoanalysts who made important contributions to Marxism. The Frankfurt School was referenced, and lauded as if it was a school which somehow had been overlooked up until now by those struggling to build revolutionary movements. It should be noted that the SA branch leadership was split, with one SA branch leader arguing against wasting the precious time of activists attempting to learn from psychoanalysts, when we should be learning from real revolutionaries such as Che Guevara. In discussion, I made the point that while we may be able to learn something about psychology as it exists under capitalism from psychoanalysis, we certainly cannot learn about building Marxist parties, ideological struggle or preparing the working class for revolution from psychoanalysis. And since SA and Resistance is in the business of activism, we need to be learning from Marxists who have spent their lives building revolutions, building Marxist vanguard parties, practically and theoretically. It may seem therefore, that it is “narrow” to always come back to Lenin, Marx, Engels, Trotsky, James P Cannon and Co, but that is where our field of activity lies. If SA believes that this is a “narrow” approach to Marxism, then presumably SA must believe that Marxism and socialism itself is narrow.

The blame for this situation should not be laid at the feet of the unsuspecting Resistance activists, who are doing their level best in trying circumstances. Rather, the accountability should lay with the SA leadership, who it seems are unintentionally steering SA away from socialism. We then encounter situations on the ground level where SA and Resistance promotes the idea that anyone who has written about Marxism, or has written books criticising aspects of Marxism, are then regarded as bona fide Marxists. Hence, Freud, Fromm and Laccan all become Marxists from which SA and Resistance activists need to learn. Never mind the fact that none of them have ever joined a Marxist party, ever attempted to build a Marxist party, ever supported a revolution, and that they largely disagree with huge chunks of Marxism. The apparent theoretical discord only makes sense once we acknowledge that we are building SA as a non-Marxist party. For a non-Marxist party, naturally, it's theoretical and ideological underpinnings must be sought from non-Marxist theorists. Freud, Fromm and Laccan are about as non-Marxist as can be, but this in turn makes them ideal candidates for SA ideologists.

Granted, the comrades presenting this session were not arguing that Freud, Fromm and Laccan should replace Marx, Engels and Lenin whollus bollus. They were arguing though, that Marxism needs to learn from these leading lights of psychoanalysis. No matter how respectfully this is put forward, if we as socialists claim that Marxism “needs to learn” from distinctly non-Marxist or anti-Marxist theories, then that implies that we don't believe Marxism is adequate as a tool with which to understand the world. It seems then, that what SA really means when it says that “we don't have all the answers” is “we don't believe Marxism has all the answers”. This last statement could be made by the most liberal anti-Marxists on the planet. How then are we meant to conduct an ideological struggle for socialism, if we express serious doubts about Marxism?

The situation at the REVitalising REVolution then appeared to stray even further from Marxism, when it came to the session on party building. The session was billed as “The Party in the time of Occupy”. This is a fantastic way of putting the party building question, with a particularly contemporary reference. This should have been a perfect platform from which SA would put forward its case for the need to build a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party. But this is not at all what occurred. Instead, on the panel was Dave Eden. Dave is well known in Brisbane for being an anti-party, anti-ideology and anti-Lenin “Marxist”. Certainly Dave is well versed in some aspects of Marxist theory, especially around Marxist economics. Dave's anarcho-communist views are not even accepted by anarchists, and it seems he is not able to organise with them. The notion that one can be anti-party, anti-ideology and anti-Lenin and still be a Marxist should be seen as being impossible. However, this is what he claims and he is a part of the left movement in Brisbane, so there is no objection with him attending, or even being on the panel of a left unity discussion.

However, when Dave put forward his basic postulates that Leninist parties are useless, or worse than useless, and that ideology is a barrier to the construction of a worker's movement, the SA branch leadership at no point attempted to argue against these stridently anti-Marxist ideas. What the SA leadership did was to try to accommodate Dave's arguments at every step. When Dave claimed that the workers' movement should not struggle for any kind of ideology, the SA leadership agreed and said that we are not doing this. When Dave claimed that parties are an obstacle to the workers realising their own needs, the SA leadership appeased him by claiming we are not building a party which does this. At no point did the SA leadership attempt to defend Leninism against the most anti-Leninist attack imaginable. At each point the SA leadership attempted to mould its “Marxism” into the anti-Marxism of its critics. I was horrified, but again, it is a natural consequence of building a party which tries to be all things to everyone on the left, and hence all previously existing theories, ideologies and political views have to be turned inside out. A strategy where SA members do not attempt to hold the line on the most fundamental of Marxist principles, is a strategy that I struggle to categorise as Marxist. I am not pointing the finger at any individual SA leader. These SA leaders are simply carrying out what appears to be a mistaken line.

All who call themselves socialists need to win the working class and potential allies to an ideological position - that socialism is a historical necessity, that we need to do it ourselves, and that the most important step in this task is the creation of a Marxist vanguard party. If we in SA are not building a Marxist vanguard party, or preparing for one to be built, then we are ill-equipped for the ideological struggle that is a vital necessity for the proletariat in the time of what could be a terminal crisis of capitalism. If we in SA do not attempt to win people to Marxism, then our ideological struggle is finished before we even start. We in SA will not be able to win people to socialism if we stop short of winning them to Marxism, or if we accommodate and adapt to non-Marxist ideologies. Ultimately, there are only two ideologies - socialist and capitalist. SA must decide where it stands.

CONTENTS : ALLIANCE VOICES - VOLUME 12, NO 9 March 2012

2012-04-02T19:36:00.000+10:00

Thoughts on the Qld campaign

SA campaigns strongly in midst of ALP disaster

Resignation from the Red Eureka Tendency (RET)

International Women's Day: the struggle for equality remains

RET - possible misconceptions

Science and the broad party

Syria position statement by US Socialist Action

Union and community action needed to fight O'Farrell's IR attacks

Letter of solidarity to Labour Party Pakistan on the arrest of Ammar ali Jan and other activists

Updated Women's Charter

SA and liberalism: 20 points to consider

Jobless need a living wage not just a $50 rise to the dole

Thoughts on the Qld campaign

2012-03-30T14:18:00.000+10:00

By Liam Flenady, Brisbane

March 25 was, of course, a very dark day for Queensland.

The unprecedented swing to the Liberal-National Party is already showing that it will mean massive cuts to the public sector and brutal attacks on the unions.

It will mean increased environmental degradation and unnecessary and destructive development. It will mean the wholesale spreading of coal seam gas across the country, increase in coal production (Queensland is already the biggest exporter in the world) and the final annihilation of Gladstone Harbour.

It will mean further attacks on the unemployed, the homeless, the disabled. It will mean increasing the discourse of hate against Aboriginal people and other minorities.

I don't think Queensland people know what they are in for. They were rightly pissed off at Anna Bligh and the ALP hacks for selling off the state's assets and being too deeply in the pocket of big business - in short for betraying us (as we know is their nature). But because our system is structurally rigged for a completely pathetic two-party cycle of bourgeois parties - the LNP and the ALP - what they have got to replace Anna Bligh is worse.

The Socialist Alliance ran a solid campaign, which stood in absolute opposition to these bourgeois parties, in three electorates - South Brisbane, Sandgate and Dalrymple.

We made some good ground in each of them improving on our 2009 vote: from 1.3% to 1.6 in Sandgate; from 1.5% to 1.9 in the seat of South Brisbane, and gaining a foothold of 0.6% in the seat of Dalrymple - the heart of “Katter Country”- with ex-ALP candidate Jason Briskey.

These figures, while humble, represent a significant outcome given the context.

It seems as though there are already around a thousand people across this state who want to consider real alternatives. We need to turn that into hundreds of thousands and then millions.

But we're not deluded: the real struggle (re)starts now - it has always already begun.

It doesn't happen in parliament. Elections by themselves will never bring real change. Real change begins on the streets, it happens in the campaigns and social movements. It takes place in the fight back against capitalist austerity and political repression. It starts as a response to a terrible situation, but it continues because of an idea of the future, an idea of equality.

The idea must take place in reality, and only the people are capable of this. See you at the next rally, the next picket, the next Occupy.

[Liam Flenady was the Socialist Alliance candidate for South Brisbane.]

SA campaigns strongly in midst of ALP disaster

2012-03-30T14:15:00.000+10:00

By Jim McIlroy, Qld co-convenor

Socialist Alliance pushed ahead strongly with its campaign to put socialist politics before the Queensland electorate, as the ALP government faced annihilation in the state election held on March 24. Although everyone knew the government was unpopular, the sheer size of the LNP win took all commentators by surprise.

The political fall-out from the electoral disaster, which has left Labor with only seven or eight seats compared to the LNP's probable 78 in an 89 seat House of Assembly, after a record two-party swing of 15% away from the Bligh government, will be felt for many years to come - federally as well as on a state level. For a fuller overview of the Queensland election, see Green Left Weekly.

Meanwhile, SA held its own, and experienced a modest swing in its favour in the three seats it contested. In South Brisbane, with around 70% of the vote counted on Saturday night, our candidate Liam Flenady had gained 365 votes, or 2%. This compares with a final vote for Sam Watson, our candidate in the 2009 state election in the same seat of 275 votes, or 1.5%. The increase in 2012 is more notable given the strong personal support for Sam as a well-known leader of the Murri community in the area. (Which is not to say Liam didn't have a personal support base also: several musicians in particular stated their backing for Liam on the polling booths on election day!)

Mike Crook, running for the second time in the seat of Sandgate for SA, had 347 votes, or 1.53%, on Saturday night, compared to a final total of 361, or 1.3%, in 2009. The comparison is somewhat complicated by the fact that Mike was listed at the top of the ballot this time.

However, unlike in South Brisbane, SA did not have capacity to distribute how-to-vote cards on the day, relying mainly on corflutes with Mike's name and photo on A-frames around the key booths, together with a number of SA members and supporters spruiking support.

It should be noted that Socialist Alliance is not yet a registered party in Queensland, so our party name was not listed on the ballot paper beside the candidates' names. Registration in Queensland remains a major task for the future here.

In the north Queensland seat of Dalrymple, Jason Briskey, running for the first time as a candidate for SA, had received 110 votes, or 0.6%, at close of counting on March 24. While this figure is modest, Jason also did not have the resources to distribute how-to-vote cards on the day. He relied on travelling around booths in the area near Charters Towers, and talking to voters.

SA mobilised around 40 members and supporters to staff polling booths in Brisbane on election day, with around 60 being actively involved in the whole campaign, via letterboxing etc. This year, with the printing of corflutes with the SA logo and candidates' names on, we were also able to put signs in supporters' windows and front gardens for the first time in an election campaign here.

In South Brisbane, we staffed most of the booths, except for some of the smaller ones, on election day. A number of our poll workers report people stating their intention to vote for Liam, and many useful discussions were held about our policies and platform.

On a number of the booths, we had card tables with other literature, including the Climate Charter and Women's Rights Charter, which were distributed to interested electors. We sold more than 30 GLWs on the day.

We also received support for being the only party to provide a full preference list on our how to vote card. All other parties indicated on their main cards, Just Vote 1, and choose your own preferences if you wish.

It is important to maintain our defence of the full preference system, which is more democratic than optional preferential. That system results in practice in a first-past-the-post process, similar to Britain, which means winner takes all.

In the case of Queensland 2012, it has meant a much bigger parliamentary majority for the LNP, than its first preference vote would indicate, and many fewer seats for the ALP. Moreover, it is less favorable to smaller parties like the Greens and Socialist Alliance, as it influences voters to stick to a choice of the two mainstream parties.

Over the whole election period, we letterboxed almost all of the 10,000 campaign leaflets printed for each of Liam and Mike's campaigns, covering a majority of the residences in both electorates, over the course of a month. This included Saturday and Sunday mobilisations, with teams fanning out into the suburbs after campaign functions. Jason also distributed thousands of campaign leaflets in Dalrymple over the course of the election.

Campaign events included the official launch of Liam's campaign in South Brisbane, with around 40 people attending a rally in the main street of West End; the launch of Mike's campaign in Sandgate, with about 20 people attending; a BBQ for Liam in Orleigh Park, West End; a meet-the-candidates forum at the Activist Centre, sponsored by Green Left Weekly; and a number of campaign street stalls.

Our candidates called two protest rallies: the one on February 7 was outside the ANZ Bank Queensland head office in the Brisbane city and was called to condemn “Big bank greed”.

The second, the day before the election, was outside the Arrow Energy office in the city, and was called to protest the company's CSG exploration permits over Brisbane's western suburbs. It attracted a number of independent activists as well as members.

Our candidates issued a stream of media releases over the campaign:

initial campaign announcement “Qld needs radical change”;
against Big Bank rip-offs;
supporting the Qld mineworkers against BHP-Billiton;
promoting Murri and SA leader Sam Watson's launch of the South Brisbane campaign;
announcing Jason Briskey's candidature in Dalrymple;
“No new naval base for Brisbane”;
“Qld coal and CSG industries 'a cancer'”;
“Reverse the privatisation madness”;
“Coal industry wrecking Queensland's future”;
“Reject Katter party homophobia”;
“Socialist Alliance brings change to politics”;
endorsing the Brisbane Aboriginal Tent Embassy;
“Qld flood inquiry ignores real issues”;
“Bligh and Newman not to be trusted on coal and CSG”; and
“Campbell Newman's tunnel vision”.

Mike Crook received strong audience applause at a community-sponsored meet-the-candidates' forum in Sandgate. Our stall promoting Liam's campaign at the big public meeting of 1000 against CSG in the Brisbane Convention Centre was popular as well.

All three candidates gained useful media coverage in local newspapers in their electorates. They were also able to do some radio interviews about the SA campaign.

At the election night party on March 24, members and supporters watched the ALP rout on a big screen TV, but expressed a determination to fight back against the coming reactionary onslaught from an incoming Newman LNP government.

“Socialism has been demonised in recent decades“, Mike Crook told the audience. “But socialism is the only viable message of hope and a progressive future.

“Socialist Alliance will continue the struggle from tomorrow. The unions and the environment movement will need to mobilise to face the coming attacks.

“Tomorrow is the first day of the people's fight back in Queensland”, he said.