By Oliver Marras, Socialist Party Melbourne

As I entered my mid-teens, exposure to a mix of world events, music and political material increased my concerns about the political situation around the world today. The continued decline of human rights, living standards and democratic and economic freedoms eventually led me to a breaking point.

I needed to find solutions to what seemed like a colossal interconnected world-wide mess. I was looking for something that would offer logical conclusions and an overall analysis of the world coupled with real solutions to the problems we face.

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By Mick Suter, Socialist Party Perth

In recent weeks police in Perth have repeatedly attacked the Nyoongar Tent Embassy on Matagarup (Heirisson Island). Large numbers of officers have been used along with horses and dogs. Four people have been arrested on trumped up charges in an attempt to try and weaken the protest.

The Barnett Government has ordered the police to remove the protesters. At the moment the Tent Embassy is the most vocal and visible form of opposition to the government’s attempt to take land from the Nyoongar people in South Western Australia.

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SP Newsletter No.398

Last month Socialist Party members helped launch the new Fightback! campaign. This campaign was set up to tackle the constant cost of living increases. Not only does Fightback! point out where the problems in society lie, but it outlines a way to genuinely address the issues we face.

As the global economic crisis gets worse internationally, many people in Australia are keeping their fingers crossed that things won’t get as bad here.

But young people’s prospects are already bleaker today than they were just 5 years ago before the crisis hit. All the indicators suggest things are only going downhill!

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By Chris Dite, Socialist Party

The Hunger Games franchise has become a runaway hit, with the release of the Hollywood adaptation reviving interest in Suzanne Collins’ book trilogy.

The series is set in what we imagine to be North America in the future. This cruel society is strictly divided into a wealthy Capitol and 12 poverty-stricken districts, each of which represents an essential industry (such as mining or food production). The Capitol maintains the status quo by selecting two children from each district every year and pitting them against each other in a reality TV show that resembles a gladiator arena.

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SP Newsletter No.397

Languishing at around 30% support in opinion polls, the ALP continues to lurch from crisis to crisis. Despite repeated attempts to spin their way out of trouble, most ordinary people see Labor’s politics for what they are - helping the rich to get richer while the bulk of the population struggles to make ends meet.

Since the beginning of the year downward trends in the world economy have intensified. The sovereign debt crisis in Europe has gotten worse and China’s consumption, output and growth have all fallen. All of this is effecting the situation in Australia, with China’s problems widely predicted to worsen as time wears on.

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International Workers’ Day and the socialist alternative to austerity and barbarism

May Day (International Workers’ Day) is an opportunity for celebrating the militant internationalist traditions of the working class movement, converging with the explosive struggles of today. 1st May this year is as a key date in the calendar of living struggles and movements. The CWI believes that these struggles - from Greece to Chile, Nigeria to Tunisia - not only represent the inevitable explosive response to the current crisis. They also signal the emergence of a social force capable of reducing to rubble the plans of the international ruling class to pauperise workers and young people. The organised working class, mobilised in the fight for a genuinely socialist alternative, can transform society.

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SP Newsletter No.396

Bob Brown, the leader of the Australian Greens, announced that he was resigning from the leadership of the party earlier this month. He will also resign from the Senate. Brown has been a senator for 16 years and leader of the party since it was formed in 1992.

Christine Milne has been elected as the new leader of the Greens and Adam Bandt has been elected deputy leader.

Since the party’s inception the mild mannered Brown has been the face of the Greens and its main national spokesperson. Under Brown’s leadership the Greens have grown to be the ‘third force’ in Australian politics winning 1.7 million votes in the last federal election.

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Reviewed by Anthony Main, Socialist Party

Allyson Hose from Socialist Alternative has written a new pamphlet called ‘The Baiada poultry workers’ strike - How class struggle unionism can win’. It is an attempt to give an overview of the Baiada strike which took place in the western suburbs of Melbourne in late 2011.

The introduction of the pamphlet claims that its goal is to highlight “important lessons that workers, rank and file unionists, socialists and activists need to learn from the Baiada workers’ victory in order to build back strong, combative unions that can challenge the priorities of Australian capitalism and win.”

Unfortunately this pamphlet falls well short of its stated aim. From the title you would hope that the work was a critique of the industrial strategy put in place by the leaders of the National Union of Workers (NUW). Instead it paints the union leaders as mere bystanders, which in the final analysis, covers over the conservative role that they played and continue to play in relation to this dispute.

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SP Newsletter No.395

Socialist Party members are involved in establishing a new campaign to fight against the increasing cost of living. The campaign, called ‘Fightback!‘, will kick off this month and aims to grow into a dynamic force that can win real changes.

While Australia has so far averted the worst of the economic crisis, there has already been an impact on people’s living conditions. Young people in particular have been hit hard. The future looks bleak unless people begin to fight back to change things for the better.

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The following perspectives document was discussed, amended and voted on at the recent Socialist Party National Conference held in Melbourne. This document builds upon past perspectives documents and should be read in conjunction with the documents which were agreed by the last meeting of the International Executive Committee (IEC) of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI).

While the economic crisis has not had the same dire impacts on Australia as it has in places like the US and Europe, it has begun to have an effect. Unemployment is set to rise further over the next six months, as is underemployment.

According to Newspoll 60% of voters rate unemployment as a very important issue, putting it ahead of national security concerns. The last time Newspoll surveyed attitudes towards unemployment was July 2008, when only 46% rated it as a very important issue.

With nearly 40% of the workforce employed on an insecure basis concern about secure working hours is at an all time high. This goes hand in hand with housing stress and a general worry about rising costs of living and the growing divide between rich and poor.

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