Socialist Campaigner is the Alliance's monthly newsletter, reporting on its activities and initiatives around the country. Socialist Campaigner is one of many outcomes of the Socialist Alliance’s very successful Second National Conference in Melbourne on May 10-11. Full report here.
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Brian Webb and Dick Nichols, National Elections Working Group conveners
The Socialist Alliance is poised to launch the biggest socialist election campaign in decades in this year’s federal election.
This is the first federal election the Alliance will contest since we won electoral registration after standing in the 2001 federal poll. We will be contesting Senate seats in six states and territories and at least 30 seats in the House of Representatives.
Once again the value of the unity achieved in the Socialist Alliance is confirmed. The socialist movement in Australia has been able to put together the biggest election campaign for socialism since the days of the old Communist Party of Australia.
Recent state and local polls confirm that our socialist message enjoys a distinct base of support in Australian politics. In 2003, Alliance candidate Maurice Sibelle won 6.1% in the Sunshine City Council poll in Melbourne, while in the recent Queensland state elections Alliance candidate Adrian Skerritt won 3.1% in the outer Brisbane seat of Inala.
These results reflect the solid work the Socialist Alliance has been doing beyond electoral politics - mainly in the anti-war and trade union movements.
The main weapon of the Alliance campaign is our Manifesto 2004 - another Australia is possible. In it eight of our candidates spell out a socialist approach in the main areas of concern to Australian working people - war, jobs, education, health, refugees, environment and democratic rights.
Manifesto 2004 will hit the stalls in March, and is designed to help all Socialist Alliance members put across a clear and concrete socialist approach in what promises to be an election dominated by arguments about what is possible and responsible.
After the first few weeks of federal parliament for the year, the basic shape of this election is already clear. On the one side, Howard, Costello and Abbott endlessly grilling Latham for explanations as to exactly how any ALP policies are going to be funded while offering some tax cuts and maintaining a budget surplus. On the other, Latham giving voice to everyone’s anger and frustration with the lying, criminal Howard government - but silent and evasive on concrete proposals. This, combined with the pretence that there’s a huge gap between Labor and the Coalition on issues like border protection and the Australia-US alliance.
Manifesto 2004 presents the detail of a socialist alternative to Labor and Coalition variants of free market policies.
It shows how alternative people-centred policies can be made to work in the areas of life that are vital to working people. It explains how the key to gains in jobs, welfare and the environment lies in the expansion of a democratically run public sector.
It also shows how unfair tax policy can be changed to fund health, education, welfare and recovery of the environment. And it links our different sorts of policies to a different sort of politics - activist, fighting, involving.
Manifesto 2004 will also help us in our discussions with Greens and Labor supporters. Sure, all of us want to replace the criminal and vicious Howard government. But how can we make sure that any future Latham administration isn’t just a replica of Hawke and Keating? And what approach to policy is needed to enshrine the four Green principles - peace, democracy, environmental sustainability and social justice - as social reality?
Along with Manifesto 2004 goes a plan to further develop the Alliance’s platform and policies. All members and supporters will soon be able to have their say in this process through our web page (www.socialist-alliance.org), as well as through the Alliance’s policy-specific e-groups.
All of us should get involved in this process. The Socialist Alliance national office will soon be putting all existing policy and policy drafts up on the web site, making it as easy as possible for members to makes comments and contributions.
The platforms produced as a result will be published in policy statements in the months leading up to the election, beginning with more detailed policies in health, education, international relations, refugees, democratic rights, industrial relations and workers’ rights, welfare and environment.
Our Charter for Women’s Rights will be the first policy statement to hit the streets, out on March 1.
Naturally enough, the Alliance is also producing the usual paraphernalia of elections - leaflets, posters, badges and stickers. Alliance branches have already received the first consignment of one of these important weapons - our attention-grabbing "Medicare not Warfare" and "For the Millions, not the Millionaires" corflute placards.
The first of our poster series - based on the work of cartoonist Heinrich Hinze who has kindly made his splendid cartoons available to the Alliance - will be out in two to three weeks.
Let’s use all this material to make the Socialist Alliance election campaign stand out from the rest - for its boldness, activity and inventiveness. Through our street theatre, stunts, special presentations and challenges to others to debate, we have an invaluable opportunity to further expose the criminal nature of the Howard government, while dramatising the positive alternative that no other party is presenting.