Lisa Macdonald became active in socialist politics in the early 1980s, principally through the feminist movement in Canberra where she helped establish in the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre and women's shelter. Lisa's commitment to women's liberation led her to activity in solidarity with the revolutions in Nicaragua and Cuba, in which women played a leading role. She joined the Democratic Socialist Party in 1982, was a journalist and editor of Green Left Weekly for five years, and is currently a Sydney district organiser for the DSP.
Lisa, who lives in Auburn, is a founding member of the Free the Refugees Campaign group in Sydney's western suburbs and has been centrally involved in organising many local, city-wide and national rallies and public meetings around refugee rights.
She is a member of Sydney's Western Suburbs branch of Socialist Alliance and was its candidate for the federal seat of Reid in 2001.
John Morris is a secondary school teacher and a member of the Marrickville branch of Socialist Alliance.
He is a member of the Central Council of the NSW Teachers Federation and is the media officer for the Canterbury-Bankstown branch of the union. John was actively involved in the local campaigns to save public schools in Sydney from closure.
Raul Bassi was born in Argentina in 1946. He emigrated to Australia in 1983 and became an Australian citizen in 1991. From his first significant political demonstration, against the US invasion of Santo Domingo in 1965, he embraced socialism, anti-imperialism and the struggle for working-class and human rights.
Raul was a student leader during the 1966-69 Argentinian dictatorship. Afterwards he became a union organiser in Cordoba, helping to organise demonstrations that ended with the military government's defeat in 1973. That year he became a member of the Socialist Workers Party and a candidate for the Worker Front in Argentina in the first democratic elections after the coup.
Raul was active against the Vietnam War, the Pinochet coup in Chile and the Uruguay dictatorship. From 1976 to 1982, the tragic period in Argentina known as the "Dirty War", Raul was active in the trade union front fighting for democracy and human rights against "desparecidos" who killed daily. After 1994, he fought against the reactionary Peronist government.
When he migrated to Australia, Raul became involved in left Labor Party campaigns, and in environmental and anti-discrimination issues. He fought against the GST and Howard's industrial relations laws. As a member of the Transport Workers Union, he participated in actions opposing Bob Carr's changes to workers' compensation laws.
Raul has been involved in various organisations in solidarity with Latin America, particularly Cuba and Argentina. He is a member of the Committee in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean. Raul has participated in demonstrations in support of refugee rights, against discrimination and against war in Iraq and is a member of the Canterbury-Bankstown branch of Socialist Alliance.
Angela Budai, born
in 1976, is a founding member of the Northside branch of Socialist Alliance
in Sydney. She has an economics degree from the University of Sydney
and works as an organiser with the Finance Sector Union. Angela has
been involved in campaigns in a number of the big
banks and has helped organize a number of national and local stop-work
meetings and strikes.
She is active in the local Network Opposing War and a founding member of the Northside No War group. She has been involved in the May Day rallies and spoken at numerous public meetings in the northern suburbs against the war and the WTO.
Angela is a member of Sydney's Jewish community, in which she has been actively involved as a teacher and social activist. She has been involved with the highly marginalized group Jews for a Just Peace and she is campaigning for an end to the Israeli occupation.
Jamal Darwand was born in Kurdistan, Iran, in 1970. He grew up in a remote village during the periods of the Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war.
Jamal become involved with politics, through the Communist Party of Iran, when he was about 14, delivering banned, non-Islamic propaganda. He fled Iran when his activities were discovered, as his life was at risk.
For the next five years he lived with the exiled Communist Party of Iran in northern Iraq. He continued to learn and fight for the cause. In 1991, Jamal went to Turkey and claimed political refugee status. A combination of events, including the Gulf War, had made Iraq unsafe. In Turkey, Jamal continued to campaign for worker, refugee and human rights.
In 1992, Jamal arrived in Australia. Since then he has devoted most of his time and energy to study, learning English and completing a BA in Social Science. However, he has remained politically active in a variety of areas, such as the Worker Communist Party of Iran, the Free the Refugees Campaign, the MUA/Patrick's dispute and May Day rallies.
Jamal, who is a member of the Sydney Central branch, joined the Socialist Alliance because he wanted to be part of a wide and unified left movement and to give a voice to non-Muslim Australians of Middle-Eastern background.
Jamal is currently working in the disability field. He says, "I am proud to be a communist. I am a revolutionary and I will remain a revolutionary as long as I live."
Naomi Arrowsmith is a state organiser with the Community and Public Sector Union. She was previously Secretary of the Port Kembla branch of the ALP, but resigned during the 2001 federal election campaign to throw her weight behind the Socialist Alliance.
Naomi was previously an organiser with the Miscellanous Workers Union, organising hairdressers, and was secretary of the South Coast May Day Committee for a number of years. She lives in Port Kembla and is a long-time supporter of the peace movement. Naomi is a member of the Illawarra branch of Socialist Alliance.
Darcy Byrne is a youth worker in inner-city Sydney. He is a coordinator of the BalmainYouth Organisation and works with young people around issues of public housing, homelessness and community education.
Darcy is an active supporter of the movement against the war on Iraq, and for human rights.
Michael Schembri, 42, has been active in the socialist movement for more than two decades, starting with Labour Youth and then the Communist Party in Malta. He has been a supporter of the Palestinian struggle for national liberation since his teens.
Michael left Malta for Sydney in 1986. His first political involvement in Sydney was with the Migrant Committee for Aboriginal Rights (19887-89), and he has been consistent anti-racist activist since.
Michael came out between 1988 and 1989, and immediately became a gay liberation activist, with the left-wing Gay Solidarity Group, the Sydney Gaywaves radio collective and Gays Against Racism. He remains a very active member of Gaywaves.
Michael is a member of Socialist Democracy which supports the Fourth International. He is a member of Sydney's Eastern Suburbs branch of Socialist Alliance.
Karol Florek is an 18-year-old Arts student at Sydney University. He arrived in Australia from Poland in 1990, and last year completed high school at Fort Street High School in Sydney's inner west.
As a young but committed socialist, Karol has been involved in organising the recent anti-corporate, peace and refugee solidarity movements. In 2002, he founded Fortians for Refugees, a student refugee-rights action group at Fort Street High, which has inspired the formation of more such high-school groups.
Karol, the youngest candidate on the Socialist Alliance's ticket for the NSW election, feels strongly about, and will speak out and campaign around, issues that affect young peoplein particular. He is an active member of the socialist youth organisation Resistance, and of the Sydney Central branch of Socialist Alliance.
Pip Hinman joined the socialist movement in the early 1980s inspired by the successful Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in 1979. Since then, Pip has been active in a range of campaigns including for women's rights, environmental sustainability, solidarity with the democratic struggles in the Asia-Pacific region and against the US-led "war on terrorism".
Pip has been an editor of Green Left Weekly and has also produced solidarity magazines highlighting the struggles for justice in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific. She is currently the national coordinator of Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (formerly Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor). ASIET played a key role in mobilising support for the Australian government to intervene to stop the carnage in East Timor following the 1999 referendum on independence. Together with 20 other Australians, Pip and her 4-year old daughter were arrested in Jakarta while attending a labor rights conference in 2001.
Pip stood for Socialist Alliance in the Senate at the last federal election. She is currently active in the movement against the war on Iraq, and helped to organise the 25,000-strong rally in Sydney last November. She is a member of the Marrickville branch of Socialist Alliance.
Kieran Latty is a 22-year-old student at Sydney University. He has been a student for the last four years and knows the hardships facing university students, from attacks on higher education to student poverty.
Kieran has been active in campaigns to defend funding for higher education, and in opposition to the proposed "Nelson Review" of higher education, the war on Afghanistan and the threat of war in Iraq. He has also been a supporter of striking workers across NSW, and was a founding member of Sydney University Refugee Action Coalition.
In 2001, Kieran was heavily involved in the workers' compensation dispute, building support for workers' rights at Sydney University, as well as at building sites and other workplaces across Sydney.
Kieran lives in Redfern and is a member of the Sydney Central branch of Socialist Alliance. He is familiar with the problems of poor public housing, poverty, racism and unemployment, and is committed to campaigning for cheap student housing and free public transport, as well as for workers' rights and job creation.
Margaret Perrott, who became politically active in 1984, is a well-known activist in the Illawarra, where she has been centrally involved in most local peace, women's rights and anti-racism campaigns. She is currently president of the South Coast May Day Committee and is active in the Network Opposing War and Racism and the Wollongong Hiroshima Day Committee.
Margaret is president of the People's Medical Centre Co-op in Wollongong and a member of the Doctors Reform Society. She was involved in the Illawarra Residents Against Toxic Environments campaign, and more recently the Save Sandon Point environment campaign.
Margaret is a member of the editorial board of Broad Left, a local monthly newsletter, and has been a consistent activist in the Reclaim the Night and International Women's Day committees. She is a member of the Illawarra branch of Socialist Alliance and was its candidate for the federal seat of Throsby in 2001.
Kylie Witt, 32, has been actively campaigning in the inner west and Marrickville area for several years. In Marrickville for Refugees, she worked alongside other groups and organisations such as Labor for Refugees Inner West, organising local protests and public meetings to counter the Liberals' racist scapegoating of refugees.
Kylie is an activist with the Marrickville Peace Group, a broad based grassroots community group against the war in Iraq. She has also worked within SPANNR, the group campaigning against a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, the nuclear industry and war.
Kylie, a speech pathologist, is a member of the Health and Research Employees Association and has organised workmates to be members of their union. She is a member of the Marrickville branch of Socialist Alliance.
John Percy has been a socialist since he was radicalised in 1965 during the tumultuous movement against the Vietnam War. Since then he's been a tireless campaigner against war and for workers and the oppressed in Australia, and people around the world fighting for their freedom - from Vietnam to Nicaragua, from Indonesia and East Timor to Palestine.
John was a founder
of the socialist youth organisation Resistance in 1967, and a founder
of the Democratic Socialist Party in 1972. At several periods he edited
the newspaper Direct Action, the
precursor to Green Left Weekly. He is currently national secretary of
the DSP, taking responsibility for building stronger collaboration and
links with socialist groups around the world, especially in the Asian
region, and trying to help the renewal and regroupment of the socialist
movement.
John has stood as a socialist candidate in federal, state and municipal elections, receiving a vote of 13% for Leichhardt Council in 1977. He is a member of the Sydney Central branch of the Socialist Alliance.
Ashisha Cunningham is a 28-year-old linguistics student at Sydney University. She is active in the Sydney University Students Against War group and around education issues. Ashisha helped organise the Education Bloc at the anti-WTO protests in Sydney last year.
Geoff Payne, 50, worked in Newcastle's BHP steelworks from 1979 until they closed in 1999. He was a delegate in the riggers' shop for many of those years.
Geoff has been a socialist for more than two decades. He is currently a full-time student at Newcastle University and is active in the No War Collective in Newcastle.
Osama Yousif, 35, was born in Sudan. He arrived in Australia as a United Nations-sponsored political refugee in June 2000, and became an Australian citizen last December.
Osama became a political activist in 1985, as a high school, then university student organiser for the Sudanese Communist Party. He was imprisoned and tortured in Sudan before fleeing, via Eqypt, with the help of his family.
Since arriving in Australia, Osama has lived in Brisbane and Sydney and is currently studying full-time to get his accountancy qualification recognised in Australia. He supports himself with part-time work. Since arriving in Sydney, Osama has been active in the western suburbs branch of the Free the Refugees Campaign, helping to organise protests and public meetings, and regularly visiting asylum seekers locked up in Villawood Detention Centre. He is a member of Sydney's Western Suburbs branch of Socialist Alliance.
Angela Luvera, 26, is completing a diploma of education at Macquarie University. Over the last five years she has been active in a variety of campaigns, including to decriminalise abortion and against attempts to limit IVF access, against the US war on Afghanistan and in solidarity with East Timor's struggle for independence.
Angela has been centrally involved in building solidarity with the Indonesian people's struggle for democracy and participated in an "exposure tour" to Indonesia in 1999. While living in Brisbane in 2000, she helped organise a contingent to participate in the "S11" protest against the World Economic Forum meeting in Melbourne.
Angela, a committed feminist, has been involved in organising International Women's Day marches in Perth, Wollongong, Brisbane and Sydney. She currently helping to organise the Network of Women Students Australia conference to be held at Macquarie University later this year.
Angela stood as a candidate for the Democratic Socialists in the last NSW election, and is a member of the Western Suburbs branch of Socialist Alliance in Sydney.
Kim Bullimore, 37, is a long-time activist in the Indigenous rights and women's liberation movements. She was a founding member of the Indigenous Student Network and, in May 2000, achieved nationwide publicity when she unfurled a banner declaring "No reconciliation without justice" in the front row during John Howard's speech to the televised "Corroboree 2000" reconciliation ceremony in the Opera House.
Kim was a founding member of the A.C.T. Jabiluka Action Group, which campaigned for the closure of the uranium mine on Aboriginal land at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory, and has been an activist in the International Women's Day Collective in Sydney for a number of years. She teaches Media and Communication Studies at Macquarie University, is a member of the National Tertiary Education Union, and is active in Canterbury-Bankstown branch of the Socialist Alliance.
Steve O'Brien works for TAFE as a librarian. He is a workplace delegate, a Newcastle Trades Hall Council delegate and a State Council member for his union, the Public Service Association. His workplace concerns include parental leave and pay equity.
Before retraining as a librarian, Steve worked at the Newcastle steelworks for 11 years and was a union delegate and secretary of the Ironworkers Rank and File Committee. Steve also worked in Latin America and East Timor for five years as a volunteer development worker. He is a fluent Spanish speaker and is active in social justice issues such as no war, refugee rights and Third World solidarity. As a resident's group secretary and committee of management member, he has been involved in campaigns against inappropriate coastal development in Newcastle East. Steve is a member of the Newcastle Socialist Alliance branch.
Jim Knight, born in 1923, has been an activist since 1946, in the peace, anti-nuclear and trade union movements in particular. Jim commenced work as a trainee carpenter at 14, joined the army at 18, then joined the Carpenters Union in 1946, in which he became a job steward and delegate on large building jobs. He is a former member of the Communist Party, which he joined in 1949.
In 1950, Jim was the full-time secretary of the Victorian Peace Council. In the early 1950s, he became a member of the Management Committee of the Building Workers Industrial Union Victoria and held that position for 11 years.
He moved to Grafton in 1982 and during the 1980s was president of Grafton People for Peace. This group was resurrected in 1995 to organise rallies against French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
In 1988-89, the biggest pulp and paper mill in the southern hemisphere was proposed to be built on the Clarence River. Public gatherings of up to 8000 people defeated this proposal and gave rise to the Clarence Environment Centre. Jim became, and still is, the president of that thriving environment centre.
Jim became the founding
president of the Lower Clarence Landcare Coordinating Committee
in 1996-97. He lives at Kangaroo Creek and is a member of the Lismore
branch of Socialist Alliance.