Some branches have already pre-selected local House of Rep candidates, and a number of states will be pre-selecting Senate tickets before the end of the year (stay tuned for a full list in the next issue of Socialist Campaigner).
Meanwhile, discussion is flourishing across the Alliance membership about what sort of campaign we can and should run. What are the main aims of the campaign? What are the key issues to focus on? How do we link the issues together, and to socialist solutions? What campaigning methods work best for us? What types of propaganda will be most useful? How can we use the election campaign to get more detailed SA policy positions finalised?
In some states, the federal election will probably now fall after state and/or local government elections, posing the question for many branches of how SA can use these as springboards for a more effective federal campaign. As new Socialist Alliance branches continue to form and existing branches grow stronger, local government election campaigns are looking increasingly attractive - and worthwhile - avenues for raising the socialist flag.
In late September, a SA national executive discussion about the federal elections produced some initial concrete ideas about campaign slogans, demands and materials. The NE agreed that to run a serious campaign we needed to establish a national election campaign steering committee to work on those ideas, and come up with more, and to coordinate the Alliance’s election work nationwide.
The steering committee, which will report regularly to the national executive, will liaise with local branches and state committees, produce election campaign materials, facilitate the development of policy, and so on.
Any Alliance member who would like to join the steering committee, or has some ideas about the election campaign that they’d like to feed in, can get in touch with the committee co-conveners, Brian Webb and Dick Nichols, by emailing ne@socialist-alliance.org.