Authorisation for electoral content by V. Miley, Suite 1.07, 22-36 Mountain St, Ultimo, NSW, 2007. Whichever group rejects this new round of war propaganda against China and Russia (which we have seen before, over and over, targeted at lots of nations over the years) which only serves the violent expansionist plutocrats give them your spare dollarydoos, or at least your spare time. The Victorian Socialists is a democratic socialist party that was formed in 2018 out of an electoral alliance of various socialist parties, organisations, community groups and trade unionists. Moreover, the Labor Party is putrefied in Victoria. It is especially revealing that the group says nothing about the nuclear war danger. Socialist Alliance intends to run a full ticket in the Moreland Council elections in 2020 and will work hard to have Socialist Alliance Councillor Sue Bolton re-elected. Victorian Socialists, in particular, are the most zealous supporters of the trade union bureaucracy. VicSocs isn't really a democratic socialists party it's an alliance of different groups to get a socialist elected. At that time Socialist Alliance joined with Socialist Alternative and socialist Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly to recruit more than 500 people to secure electoral registration for state and federal elections. Which is more active? While Socialist Alliance is withdrawing from Victorian Socialists, we remain committed to building democratic alliances that will help fight for anti-capitalist change in the unions, the environment movement, the campaigns for Indigenous and refugee rights and elections. See events What we'll fight for Climate change Early childhood, primary and secondary education First Nations How else could Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull get away with his disgraceful attack on the Sudanese community, blaming them for gang violence? Join us for a discussion of the Victorian Socialists manifesto and find out how you can help get the first socialists elected to an Australian parliament for almost a century. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. I suggest you ask them if they support Australian military being in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and ask very pointedly if they believe the massive imperial propaganda campaigns against China, Russia and Iran. [36] In addition, the party seeks to cap the pay of Members of Parliament at AUD $87,000 per year, equivalent to that of a six-year nurse. ], Subscribe to Socialist Alliance & Green Left newsletters. Its not just about raising these demands. Engaging in a combination of grassroots activism and electoral politics, Socialist Alliance currently has two elected officeholders across Australia, all of whom serve on the local government level. Damien Marie AtHope's Art. The Animal Justice Party and Fiona Patterns Reason Party (which did not stand in 2018) scored a combined 5.3%. The Victorian Age (1837-1901) took its name from Queen Victoria, who came to the throne during the period of industrialization and when manufacturing industry and international trade took over from the old agricultural economy. Posted in State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, Trot Guide | Tagged 2018 Victorian state election, 2019 Australian federal election, Australasian Spartacist, Australian Communist Party, Australian Workers Party, Communist Party of Australia, James Robertson, Jim Robertson, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Equality Party, Spartacist League of . The Victorian Labor government looks set to be re-elected in a landslide. As the cost-of-living and housing crises hit hard, Daniel Andrews Labor government was re-elected in Victoria, despite a 5.8%swing against it. In some places like Canberra they're just exclusively reformists. Socialist . In 2012, Corey Oakley declared backing for US imperialist interventions, writing: The time for knee-jerk anti-imperialism has passed. In Ukraine, Socialist Alternative openly supports the pouring of US weaponry into the hands of the right-wing Zelensky government in the war against Russia, just as it agitated for the US assault on Syria. There could be a similar or worse result on November 26, possibly producing a hung parliament, with neither Labor nor the Liberals able to form a majority government. This was formed in 1915 as an explicitly anti . In a 2021 article, the organisations secretary Corey Oakley declared: Imagine if we had had a socialist in the Victorian parliament this last year. Victorian Socialists would have had a voice in the mainstream debate defending Dan Andrews from all the lunatic attacks from right-wing elements, while claiming to challenge him from the left.. Victorian Socialists was established in 2018 as an alliance of pseudo-left groups, but now functions as an electoral front for Socialist Alternative. [27][28], VS ran candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 2022 federal election, and subsequently launched a campaign to win a seat in the 2022 Victorian state election. This was smaller than 2010, when they scored 11.2% andin 2014, they scored 11.5%. [21] The party was registered at a federal level with the Australian Electoral Commission on 7 April 2019. The Greens vote dipped by 0.6%. . Chief amongst these movements were the Women's Peace Army, led by Vida Goldstein. In Geelong, where they are strongest, their members have done stuff like doorknocking to hand out "change the rules" campaign material that advised people to vote Labor. It undoubtedly has contributed to the vote for socialists both where we are known as campaigners and also where socialist policies made sense to those who dont really know us so well.. Good condition in wraps, back cover missing front loose therefor. In the 2018 Victorian state and 2019 federal elections Socialist Alternative campaigned alongside the Socialist Alliance to support the newly founded left-wing political party, the Victorian Socialists. The avowed purpose of the campaign is to get at least one Socialist Alternative member into the upper house of Victorias parliament, aided by second or third preference votes from other parties, all of which are horse-trading preferences with bourgeois parties to secure seats. By running as a candidate, Bolton can harness support from anti-racist, Islamic, First Nations and disability activists. Hug them tightly. Colleen Bolger, a lawyer and activist with Socialist Alternative, is the third candidate on the ticket. The Socialist Labor Party was a socialist political party of Australia that existed from 1901 to the 1970s. The Liberal Democrats and the Derryn Hinch Justice Party did not win a seat. During the state election, Victorian Socialists could get out 150 people to mass doorknock certain areas and get similar numbers to meetings. He played a critical role in saving Richmond Secondary College from closure in the 1990s. However, the Greens vote grew in the seats they had already won and they won Richmond. The climate emergency gets worse every year as mass extinction events and irreversible biodiversity losses put our future in jeopardy. Like most socialists, the party initially welcomed the revolution, but by 1920 democratic socialists such as Ross had become critical of the Bolshevik regime. In Ukraine, the US is fuelling a proxy war against Russia that threatens to escalate into nuclear conflict. At the start of World War One, nearly eight in ten Australians identifed as Protestants. CEO salaries are up more than 40 percent in a year while living standards for everyone else are getting smashed. The Socialist Alliance condemns Russia's war against Ukraine,which violates international law and is a catastrophe for people in both countries. Sue Bolton, Socialist Alliance (SA) Merri-Bek councillor and Pascoe Vale candidate, toldGreen Left that socialists received significant votes. Many VSP members joined the new party, but the majority, led by Ross, remained aloof. In September 2019, following allegations of family violence, Jolly was suspended from VS pending an investigation, leading him to resign from the party. NUW organisers for the union to soften its approach successfully opened the way for union staff to campaign for the Victorian Socialists. Founded in February 2018, it is an electoral alliance of various socialist parties, organisations, community groups and trade unionists. Vic Soc is organised by Socialist Alternative (Cliffite Trotskyists) and other socialists. In Broadmeadows, the combined socialist vote was9.47%, a rise of2.32%. But can we really afford to sit around and wait until the perfect coalition comes along. 1/3 2:16 1.9K views 1 47 85 Show this thread Interested in @vic_socialists's Tweets? I'd preference both above lab/lib/greens. Now were paying for it as the energy companies squeeze us for every cent. Victorian Socialists are campaigning in those wards because the Alliance demanded that we do that when they were still part of VicSocs and now the Alliance is likely to just split the vote and make it harder to get a socialist elected into any of those. [12][13], The 2018 election campaign gained support from several trade unions including the ETU, VAHPA, UFU, CFMMEU (MUA division), AMIEU and NUW. Socialist Alliance is hostile to the elimination policy advanced by the SEP and principled epidemiologists because it is oriented to the very political parties responsible for the mass social. "Imagine if we had had a socialist in . In 1907, the VSP, plus similar groups in the other Australian states, came together in a loose federal organisation calling itself the Socialist Federation of Australia, but this never became a functioning national party. Now however, abstentionism has given way to its opportunist mirror-image, parliamentary cretinism, i.e., the desperate attempt to secure seats in parliament on a reformist, non-socialist program. Electoral Space Contents History Australian Socialist League Socialist Labor Party The Victorian Socialists serve a definite function, in seeking to channel workers and young people who are attracted to a socialist perspective, back behind the political establishment. The rest of the swing against Labor went to the right 6.39% to the Liberals and 4.28% to Family First (which did not stand in 2018). Around half of those were Church of England, with Presbyterians and Methodists being the next two largest . 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The Victorian Socialists office is located on the traditional lands of the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. Mainstream Protestant churches in Australia overwhelmingly supported the war. ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref. In other words, Victorian Socialists would function as a loyal opposition to the state Labor government. Neither Ukraine nor China are mentioned in the Victorian Socialists policy platform. Disgraced former Labor MP Adam Somyurek, who ran for the Democratic Labour Party, is predicted to win the last spot in the Northern Metropolitan region. Of course the Greens should be doing this too but, as a party, theyre just not as convinced as we are that the system stinks. Victorian Socialists is a campaign to get a socialist elected. In 1907 it had about 2,000 members.[5]. A faction of the VSP hoped to "bore from within" and win the ALP for socialism. Our schools are in crisis. [2] This was in conflict with the mainstream Labor movement which was in favor of the White Australian Policy. This is where the Victorian Socialists could make a difference. Whether its the relentless attacks on trans people, the racist panics about boat people or African gangs or the attacks on Aboriginal sovereignty all of it is there to divide us and to distract us from the great robbery going on right in front of our eyes. Politicians are overpaid and out of touch. Support for the two capitalist ruling partiesLabor and the Liberal-Nationalshas fallen to historic lows. [25][26] Socialist Alternative member Jorge Jorquera became the first Victorian Socialists candidate to be elected to office, winning a seat on the Maribyrnong City Council. The Victorian Socialists (VS) stood in all 22 seats that cover the two Legislative Council (LC) regions of Northern Metropolitan and Western Metropolitan. From last December, Andrews used his previous popularly supported association with the 2020 lockdown in Melbourne, which eliminated local virus transmission, in order to work with then Liberal-National Prime Minister Scott Morrison and New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet to scrap nearly all pandemic safety measures. Progressives need to support that campaign. The party was founded in 2001 as an alliance of various socialist organisations and activists. Watch David Norths remarks commemorating 25 years of the World Socialist Web Site and donate today. Socialist Alliance participated in the founding of the project because we felt that it could be a step towards a bigger and more united left, beginning with an electoral alliance. Victorian Socialists candidates Stephen Jolly and Sue Bolton. Victorian Socialists constantly defend the union apparatus against workersactively collaborating to impose and cover up its betrayals. The February 5 announcement in Melbournes Herald Sun that the Victorian Socialists an alliance of socialist groups will contest the Northern Metropolitan Regional upper house seat in the November Victorian elections flags a new, exciting opening for the left and progressive movements. Ross's two sons, Lloyd Ross[6] and Edgar Ross, however, both became prominent Communist Party members. For decades, the elements that today comprise Socialist Alternative abstained from electoral activity. For many young people,the fact that modern Australia emerged from a colonial-settler society founded on the violent dispossession of First Nations peoples is a self-evident fact. But despite the whinging of the mainstream media, this will be no victory for the left. In 2020, Socialist Alternative member Jorge Jorquera was elected as the Victorian Socialists candidate for Maribyrnong Council in Melbourne. It insisted that, avenues must be made available for members to be active outside of the electoral cycle. of Austria-Hungary by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914, rippled across the 1906 to 1914 was the time of Liberal Reform. The left should never forget how Pauline Hanson used her first term of office in 1996 to mobilise a right-wing base of support. Candidates included the former Geelong Trades Hall Secretary Tim Gooden for the Western Victoria Region and local councillors Stephen Jolly and Sue Bolton for the Northern Metropolitan Region. Reasons Fiona Patten is unlikely to retain her LC seat. Australian Socialist Alternative conference: In the service of imperialism, The pseudo-left Victorian Socialists in the Australian elections: Parochialism and parliamentary cretinism, Union sends Australian plasterboard workers back to work after 40-day lockout, The Syriza government in Greece: The pseudo-left in power. Victorian Socialists can typically pull out far more volunteers than the alliance too. Political parties. The property market has become a casino for speculators interested only in profits, while homes are priced out of reach of an entire generation. Seats that recorded big votes for VS were: Footscray, where Maribyrnong councillor Jorge Jorquera won9.77%; Broadmeadows(8.37%); Greenvale (7.15%); Brunswick(8.24%); Northcote (6.76%); Preston(6.28%); Laverton (6.36%); and St Albans(6.78%). I'm involved in Victorian Socialists because I think getting a socialist elected means they could play an agitational role. .Seriously: A Brief Guide to Surviving the 21 st Century (Revised & Updated Edition) by Danny Katch (Haymarket Books, 2023). We acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and pay our respects to elders past, present and future. Western military supplies went some way to preventing a rapid Russian military victory and the imposition of a puppet government in the early stages of the war.. Leadership aspirants said they would reverse that. The 'socialist imperialists' were in the clear majority after 1900. Jolly has been a long-time councillor on Yarra City Council, one of the local government areas included in the Northern Metropolitan seat. The Andrews government has presided over a state with the highest number of police in Australia, a hospital system in crisis, skyrocketing rents and mortgages, and inflation that is seeing profits grow even as the rest of us struggle to pay our bills. Overhaul the health system with funding to increase hospital capacity, improve ambulance response times, boost worker numbers and raise wages. [2], The VSP did not primarily contest parliamentary elections, seeing itself mainly as a force for socialist education in the wider Labor movement. Even though Socialist Alliance aren't able to properly campaign for all of the council wards they're running in, they have put up candidates to compete with Victorian Socialists who could have actually won some of those. Recent decisions have shown that Victorian Socialists is not open to allowing any groups of independents, for example, to develop its political life outside of elections. define the dominant classes Politics of Australia. The Robodebt royal commission has revealed that lower level Centrelink workers were telling their bosses that the system was wrong and cruel. A faction of the VSP hoped to "bore from within" and win the ALP for socialism. The Victorian Socialists is an electoral alliance involving members of Socialist Alternative, Socialist Unity Caucus, and many independent socialists based in the southern Australian state of Victoria. Nevertheless, the combined votes of the far-right parties were substantial in Eastern Victoria Region (20.8%); the Northern Victoria Region (20.02%); and the Western Victoria Region(19.8%). Or demanding that public housing and public transport stay in public hands and not run down and privatised? The Greens vote rose from 10.7% (2018) to 10.9%, not the widely talked-up Greenslide. A zero carbon economy by 2035. This shift is a revealing response to the deepening crisis of the entire Australian political establishment. Historyshows that governments have consistently resisted any proposals from First Nations advisory bodies to deliver real justice. These groups have all either taken office or propped up the discredited existing establishment parties, in order to suppress working-class resistance to the austerity dictates of the global financial markets. Every significant issue confronting the working class demands an international solutionthe danger of US imperialism triggering a third world war, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, attacks on democratic rights and the danger of fascism. Not all projects are perfect. The Treasurers values-based capitalism looks like it will include cuts to public spending, greater private investment, cuts to services and greater upfront costs. Authorisation for electoral content by V. Miley, Suite 1.07, 22-36 Mountain St, Ultimo, NSW, 2007. That followed exposures of rampant branch stacking, i.e., the fake inflation of membership figures by rival factional powerbrokers. Claims the new IR laws willclosethe gender pay gap andstrengthen equal pay laws are welcome. Our natural resources the minerals beneath the ground, the arable land, the forests, the water in our rivers have been handed to the highest bidder. [2] Party members such as Tom Mann and John Curtin took the stance of anti-imperialism and internationalism, while members such as Maurice Blackburn argued that Australia required a strong army to enforce the White Australia Policy. Workers and young people seeking a genuine alternative need to consider the history and program of the only party advancing an internationalist and socialist perspective, the Australian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the Socialist Equality Party. The 1920 second congress of the Communist International, in a resolution drafted by Leon Trotsky, explained: Activity in parliament consists primarily of revolutionary agitation from the parliamentary rostrum, unmasking opponents, and ideological unification of the masses, who, particularly in areas that lag behind, are still prejudiced by democratic illusions and look to the parliamentary rostrum. VS aims "to put politicians on a worker's wage so they live like the rest of us" and "to get socialists into parliament who will fight to make workers richer and billionaires poorer".[5][6]. Whichever group wants to bring the troops home from adventures in murdering foreigners for the profit of the ruling class, and wants to make peace with nations which want to be independent of US imperialism hug them. No new gas or coal. 8vo. Another articleWhat would a socialist do in parliament?written last month by Victorian Socialists candidate Colleen Bolger, likewise insisted that being elected would see a socialist standpoint injected into contemporary debates and would thereby help shift politics to the left.. The Socialist Alliance passes resolution that Labor'sIndigenous Voice to Parliament will be another token gesture, unless the government is forced by a strong popular movement to take real measures towardsFirst Nations justice. KERRYN PHELPS: Why Independents are the teal deal In return they have received some union financing, including, when the organisation was founded, $50,000 from the Labor Party-affiliated Electrical Trades Union. Since Victoria retains the undemocratic group voting ticket system, the so-called preference whisperer Glenn Druery tried to maximise far-right parties chances of election to the LC by organising them to tightly preference each other, but none received a high primary vote. We acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and pay our respects to elders past, present and future. Weve got to put politicians on a workers wage so that they live like the rest of us. Join us for the launch party of our 2022 state election manifesto, and find out how you can get involved in the historic campaign to get the first socialists elected to an Australian parliament for almost a century. One of H. G. Wells' first ventures outside of the science fiction realm, the novel Love and Mr. Lewisham was published in the year 1900. When the Construction Forestry, Mining, Maritime and Energy Union organised a return to work, accepting the companys below-inflation wage offer that the workers had previously voted down, Socialist Alternative trumpeted this as a victory.. The encouraging votes for socialist solutions in working-class areas is a reminder that peopleare fed up with Labor taking them for granted, while doing little to support them, she said. This pro-imperialist record underscores the role of Victorian Socialists. Victoria has now registered nearly 6,000 deaths during the pandemic, the highest of any state, with the vast majority of these occurring this year, as a direct result of this live with the virus policy. As at November 2020, the party had one elected representative, Jorge Jorquera, a Councillor on Maribyrnong City Council. This has not happened since the Communist Party of Australias Fred Patterson won a state seat in north Queensland in 1944, after several years of being a councillor.