I have always been surrounded by talk of politics throughout my life as I grew up with South African parents and as such, the subject of apartheid was never far from any household conversation.
By Michael Hering, Socialist Party Melbourne

Although some of the anti-apartheid movement had aligned themselves with Marxist politics, I never really had an idea of socialism until I became an aid worker and was confronted with the harsh reality of African poverty.

During this period I began to search for alternatives to a capitalist system as it was clearly not a system that favoured anybody who wasn’t rich. And so my interest in socialism grew and I also became more interested in the politics of South America which has been experiencing a resurgence in socialist thought and ideas.

It was during a nine month backpacking trip which included Africa that I traveled to South America where I saw a political awareness and show of solidarity amongst ordinary people and in a lot of cases extremely poor people that I had never seen either in Africa or elsewhere. This gave me the impetus to join the Socialist Party and further the struggle here in Australia.