Left Unity in Australia: two steps forward...

There is truly no rest for the wicked.

The wombats are still tired from the extraordinary events of the weekend - in particular, the Socialist Alliance's 7th National Conference, held in Sydney for the first time. But we are obliged to dive head-first back into the battle for social justice and sustainability.

For those who missed it, the Bureau of Meteorology (one of my favourite outfits, truth be told) has released its Annual Australian Climate Statement 2009, which does nothing to calm our fears about climate change, and indicates that 2009 was the second hottest year in Australia on record (and the 5th hottest year world-wide).

Also worth noting is the impending court decision against Chevron Texico in Ecuador, for causing near-apocalyptic pollution-related harm to that country's rainforest. Chevron is facing over US$23 billion in damages. The "Amazonian Chernobyl" continues to unfold, and Chevron seems poised to appeal any decision against it. Readers should head on over to Chevron Toxico for background, sign the sign-on letter/ petition demanding action and watch the new film "Crude".

But the big news of the week (well, not really, the REALLY big news is that we're all going to die in a supernova as the nearby binary stars of T Pyxidis reach the Chandrasekhar Limit in mass and go "bing badda boom", bathing us all in a deadly Gamma ray burst in a couple of millennia. Maybe.) came out of the Socialist Alliance conference.

After several years of a tentative fox-trot with other affiliates who opposed any such move, the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) has formally dissolved/ merged itself into the Socialist Alliance.

Now, to many on the "left" (by which we mean to include all those self-described "vanguards" of circa three people, as well as the more genuine outfits and individuals), this is either:

1) irrelevant, because the DSP already controls the Socialist Alliance;
2) irrelevant, because the DSP had already dissolved into the Socialist Alliance;
3) irrelevant, because both groups are counter-revolutionary/ Pabloite/ class-collaborationist/ Stalinist/ reformist/ {insert random unsubstantiable insult here}/ etc;
4) irrelevant, because the best vehicle for achieving socialist change is via the Greens/ ALP;
5) irrelevant because {insert name of your grouplet here} is the one true revolutionary organisation.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. None of the above is, of course, true. These views largely serve the sole purpose of quarantining existing groups from engaging with the reality of the Socialist Alliance, the class struggle in Australia, and the need for a new, broad, socialist working class party.

Negative views (and very genuine imperfections) aside, the decision on the weekend could actually be a (another) very interesting and beneficial development, both for the Socialist Alliance, and for the left in Australia more generally. Amongst other things, it removes the DSP from the picture, handing over that group's assets to the larger Socialist Alliance and providing more human resources by removing the need for DSP members to build a parallel organisation.

While individual DSP members will no doubt maintain their political views, and put them forward in the Alliance, in can also be hoped that the death of the DSP may encourage those with paranoiac ideas of a "DSP takeover strategy" to (re)affiliate to the Socialist Alliance. A more successful Socialist Alliance, which welcomes the affiliation of other left groups and individuals, can only strengthen the socialist left in Australia, providing a unified-yet-pluralist and coherent alternative to the disaster which is capitalism.

Of course, there are those who will decry this move by DSP members a retreat from the "leninist" model of party-building, and even from Marxism. I disagree, and perhaps in a further post, I'll return to that claim in order to refute it. But suffice to say that the "Leninist Party" model being constructed by most little left groups today has extraordinarily little to do with what Lenin did in Russia (whatever your views on his successes and flaws).

One of the many (somewhere well over 200) members and delegates who attended the energetic and exciting conference, Ben Courtice, has put together a couple of (somewhat contrarian) analyses of the changes (here and here), not all glowing of course, but interesting reading nonetheless.

The new, improved, Socialist Alliance now has the opportunity to revivify the fragmented left. In one sense, the ball is firmly in the court of other left groups to meet the challenge of creating a genuine socialist alternative in Australia. If Solidarity, Socialist Alternative, the Socialist Party, or anyone else, wants to affiliate, the door remains open, and we will welcome them.

However the Socialist Alliance is not going to be held hostage to the nightmare of the past - a viable, non-sectarian and pluralist socialist alternative must be built, regardless of the involvement of historical divisions. The potential for socialists to present that alternative is greater - and more important - now that ever.

As Olivier Besancenot, the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste's "Red Postie", pointed out recently: "It’s in these times of economic crisis that we will have to show just how useful we really are."

Regional left groups statement on Tamil refugees

Respect human rights - free the refugees!

A joint statement of: Socialist Alliance, Australia; Socialist Party (Australia); Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM); CWI Malaysia; Network of the Oppressed People (JERIT), Malaysia; Confederation Congress of Indonesian Union Alliance (KASBI); Working Peoples Association (PRP), Indonesia; National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS); Indonesian National Front for Labor Struggle (FNPBI); Socialist Worker - New Zealand

Reject Australia's 'Indonesian solution'
Australia should welcome the asylum seekers

All respect for elementary human rights and dignity have been thrown overboard as the governments of Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia refuse to accept the latest wave of Tamil asylum seekers fleeing war and oppression in Sri Lanka and instead treat them like criminals.

The Australian government is the only of these three governments to have signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees but it is refusing to carry out its obligations to asylum seekers under that convention.

For weeks, more than 250 Tamil-speaking people, including children, remain in dire conditions on a boat in Merak, Indonesia. Another 68 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers, including children, remain on the Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking off Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia. Both groups are refusing to leave their boats for fear that Indonesia will lock them up in detention centres with a reputation for brutality and/or send them back to an uncertain future in Sri Lanka. On November 1, it was reported that a boat of asylum seekers had sunk near the Cocos Islands, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, and 12 are missing feared drowned.

Meanwhile, 207 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers are being held at the Immigration Detention Centre at Kuala Lumpar International Airport, and 108 Sri Lankan refugees are being detained at Pekan Nanas Immigration Detention Centre in Johor, Malaysia. Malaysia is both a transit point and a country of permanent asylum for tens of thousands of refugees from countries such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Australian PM Kevin Rudd claims its policy is "humane" but "tough". It is neither. The Rudd Labor government of Australia is bribing the Indonesian government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to intercept the boats of asylum seekers on their way to Australia. This "Indonesian solution" out-sources Australia's obligation to asylum seekers to Indonesia just as its predecessor did to Nauru and PNG in the name of a "Pacific solution".

Many of those seeking asylum in Australia come from Sri Lanka where the Tamils have suffered from decades of brutal oppression at the hands of various Sinhala national chauvinist governments. The government of Mahinda Rajapaksa unleashed an all-out terror campaign this year, killing some 20,000 Tamil people in the month of May. Since the end of the military offensive, more than 300,000 Tamil people have been imprisoned in concentration-style camps and denied the right to return to their homes. It is estimated that 31,000 children are among those incarcerated, without proper access to shelter, food and medicine.

The Australian government, like many governments in the West and across Asia, supported the Rajapaksa regime throughout its final onslaught preferring to maintain trade links, including selling arms, rather than stop the Tamil minority from being massacred.

We condemn the Australia, Indonesian and Malaysian governments for their lack of commitment to the humanitarian problems faced by the refugees and we demand:

• That the governments of our countries withdraw financial and diplomatic support from the Sri Lankan government until it closes the concentration camps, and allows the Tamils trapped in camps to go back to their homes without fear of persecution.
• That no refugee fleeing war and persecution should be forced to return to the country they fled.
• That Australia, as a wealthy and developed country which has exploited its poorer neighbours, should immediately develop a program to settle tens of thousands of asylum seekers and take a leading role in helping reduce the misery of the world's millions of refugees, most of whom are trying to survive in desperate conditions in refugee camps in some of the world's poorest countries.
• That Australia allow the asylum seekers trapped in Indonesia to come to Australia to have their claims heard here and we condemn the Indonesian government for being a puppet for the Australian government in preventing refugees from going to Australia. This cooperation between these two governments is a threat not only to the Tamil refugees but to human rights in the region.
• That Australia must immediately close the Christmas Island refugee prison, close it down and allow those asylum seekers to live in freedom in Australia while their claims are processed.
• That the Indonesian, Malaysian and Australian governments respect the human rights of the refugees, give protection, humanitarian aid and accomodation to the refugees as long as they are in Indonesian territory and place no limitation for their rights to seek an asylum.
• That the Malaysian and Indonesian governments sign the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, release the asylum seekers they have in detention and allow them full access to UNHCR and human rights groups.

We appeal to all democratic and progressive people in Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia, trade unions, human rights organisations and women's rights organisations to understand the plight of the asylum seekers and to support our demands.

November 5, 2009

[If your organisation would like to add its name to this statement, please write to the Socialist Alliance .]

DBL: Local law 8 and the ban on public drinking in Yarra

Done By Law, October 27, 2009

This week on Done By Law we take a look at the recent decision by Yarra Council to place a ban on public drinking. Local Law 8, was passed at a heated Council meeting last week and will give police the power to pour out opened drinks and issue on the spot fines of $100. We’re joined by Councillor Steve Jolly, the only member of Council to oppose the ban, and Belinda Lo from Fitzroy Legal Service.

LOCAl law 8 and the ban on public drinking in yarra: | Download

Liverpool: “a city that dared to fight” Thurs 17 Sept

Perth Socialist Alliance meeting

6.30pm, Thurs 17 September
Perth Activist Centre, 15 / 5 Aberdeen St, East Perth

Report from a participant:
Steve Jenkins
Former member, Liverpool City Council

In the 1980s, the Liverpool City Council (in Britain) took an heroic stand against the Thatcher government’s austerity drive - and won! 25 years ago (July 1984), the council won an increase in funding for its urban regeneration plan because of the mass resistance tactics promoted by the revolutionary socialists in the then Militant Tendency who were an influential part of the council.

Steve Jenkins, as part of the “Broad Left” of the Labour party (which included the Militant Tendency), was a member of the council at the time.

Ph Alex 9218 9608, 0413 976 638 ** www.socialist-alliance.org/perth

Background:

25 years ago: Liverpool - a city that dared to fight
ON 9 July 1984 Liverpool City council, led by Militant (the Socialist Party's predecessor), won a sensational victory over the ruthless Tory government of Margaret Thatcher.

They secured extra funding for the council's urban regeneration programme. The principled stand by the 47 Liverpool Labour councillors, allied to a mass movement of the city's workers and wider working class, stands in stark contrast to today's sleazy and spineless Labour leaders.

"DANEGELD," THUNDERED the Times. Danegeld was the tribute in gold demanded from the English rulers in the thirteenth century by the invading Danes in exchange for not engaging in pillage and plunder.

"Two unlovely black eyes," declared the Daily Mail, when it condemned the Tory environment secretary Patrick Jenkin's retreat over additional funding for Liverpool City council in 1984. It wrote: "The Trotskyites and others of the hard left who run Liverpool have had the best of the fight with him in their threat to defy the law on that city's overspending."

"A cowardly deal" was the headline of the Daily Express which went on: "Patrick Jenkin seems to have bought himself some peace from the Militant-led Liverpool City council. This is a shoddy and cowardly deal... Mr Jenkin has shown that defiance pays."

These headlines were just some of the reactions to the Militant-led Liverpool City council's success in securing £30 million from the Thatcher government on 9 July 1984.

In contrast to the outrage expressed by the media were the scenes of exultation that greeted the councillors when they reported the outcome of the negotiations with Jenkin to a 600-strong meeting of the Liverpool District Labour Party.

Programme

Liverpool was the only council to secure extra funding from a Thatcher government wedded to the principles of monetarism espoused by the likes of economists Milton Friedman and Frederick Hayek, whose monetarist model was also embraced by Chile's bloodthirsty dictator Augusto Pinochet with murderous consequences for the Chilean working class.

This victory enabled the council to carry out its electoral programme, included the building of 5,000 houses, opening six new sports centres, creating 2,000 jobs and refusing to carry out £10 million worth of cuts which had been the legacy of the Liberal/Tory alliance which had ruled Liverpool for the previous 20 years, with a short interregnum of Labour rule.

This anniversary is particularly significant as it occurs at a time of national and global capitalist upheaval, and the mind-boggling revelations about the behaviour of MPs who have aped the actions of the greedy bankers by using every phoney device to stuff their pockets with gold.

The next thing to come under the spotlight should be the lucrative consultancies and directorships of MPs and ex-ministers who have become millionaires overnight having presided over the privatisation of publicly-owned companies.

Also, temporarily hidden from the public gaze, the private porkers in the financial sector continue to stack up personal wealth. A couple of examples show that, in spite of the near-criminal activity of the bankers, Peter Mandelson's philosophy of 'being relaxed about people being filthy rich' is alive and well and, in spite of Brown's bluster about 'responsible banking,' continues to shape the outlook of New Labour.

In 2008, in the midst of the economic crisis, bankers earned on average £255,000 more than their counterparts in other branches of private industry. Incredibly Northern Rock's non-executive directors' salaries rose by 33% after it was nationalised.

Recently, City sources revealed that RBS, bailed out by the taxpayer, and milch cow for Fred 'the Shred' Goodwin, made a deal with its head of global banking John Hourican which grants him a package which, given the rise in the RBS share price, doubles his stake on paper to £11 million in two months. And only last week the government approved a £10 million remuneration package to Goodwin's successor, Stephen Hester.

Against these figures, the frame-up against the 47 Liverpool Labour councillors by the District Auditor, who charged them with losing the Liverpool rate payers £106,000, is truly grotesque.

Terry Fields and Dave Nellist were two MPs who gave unconditional support to the Liverpool City council and who were expelled from Labour as a result of the witch-hunt unleashed by the then Labour Party leader (now Lord) Neil Kinnock.

His Lordship has been uncharacteristically silent about the 'grotesque chaos'* overwhelming a Parliamentary Labour Party that, as a consequence of his action in unleashing a pogrom to cleanse Labour of socialists, no longer remotely reflects the interests of the working class (* the scurrilous term used by Neil Kinnock in his infamous 1985 Labour Party conference speech to attack the Liverpool 47).

In contrast to the behaviour of the current crop of charlatans, Terry, Dave and later Pat Wall in Bradford, accepted only the average wage of the workers they represented who were working in industry.

It is a tribute to their dedication to socialism that their names are mentioned more and more over the airwaves and in the local press during public discussion on the current parliamentary revelations. For example, I was contacted by Radio Merseyside to explain the role of Terry Fields as a firefighters' rep and MP in the context of the present parliamentary bacchanalia.

The passage of time has not diminished the achievements of the 47, nor undermined the importance of the struggle. In spite of the distortions of establishment spokespersons, aided and abetted by the lies of right wing parliamentarians and trade union leaders, the record of the 47 remains stubbornly intact.

The 47 inherited a catastrophic financial situation when they took control in 1983. The outgoing Liberal-Tory alliance had deliberately underspent throughout the 1970s as a cynical ploy to maintain electoral support. In one year they actually cut the rates (a forerunner of today's council tax).

This was achieved by increasing rents, terminating the house-building programme and shedding thousands of jobs, in addition to cuts in other sectors. Thus Liberal council leader Trevor Jones was able to claim he presided over the lowest rate increases in Liverpool's history. He was knighted by a drooling Thatcher for services rendered.

Thatcherism

These events had as their background the Thatcher government's dislike of local government or, more precisely, Thatcher's hatred of local democracy which often then resulted in the election of Labour councils.

Part of the Tories' programme when they were elected in 1979 included decentralising state power and devolving decision-making to localities. In fact, the opposite took place. Using the device of the block grant system which penalised local authorities who exceeded the government's prescribed spending limits, the government succeeded in slashing local authority expenditure.

The percentage of local expenditure financed by central government fell drastically from 61% in 1979-80 to 48% in 1985-86. That 13% shortfall had to be funded by local councils if services were to be maintained.

However, such was the Tories' ruthless determination to drive down local expenditure, they introduced a policy of rate-capping with savage penalties for those councils who exceeded the limitations imposed by central government. For every £1 breach of expenditure, £2 would be lost in rate support grant.

Initially, all Labour-controlled local authorities had agreed to support a campaign against the policy of rate-capping. Amongst the leaders of this campaign, it is incredible to recall, were David Blunkett and Ken Livingstone, with Neil Kinnock as their parliamentary cheerleader.

However, the consequences for Liverpool were more severe than all other authorities. In 1984-85 the total target of expenditure set by the government for all English authorities was 6% lower than their expenditure in 1980-81, but Liverpool's target, as a consequence of the rating policy of the Liberal/Tory alliance, was 11% lower than its spending in 1980-81.

Liverpool's officials estimated that between 1978-79 and 1983-84, the city had lost between £26 million and £34 million in government grants as a result of the government lowering Liverpool's spending target. This was the £30 million (on average) that the council explained the government had stolen.
Thus, the years of rate-slashing policies by the Liberal-Tory alliance in Liverpool meant that the financial position of the city was in even greater dire straits than all other local authorities.

The government's policies meant that, in order to balance the books, a local authority would either have to increase the rates, sometimes massively to compensate for Tory cuts, or savagely cut back on jobs and services.

The Liverpool District Labour Party's policy was to reject both of these options and instead to carry out its electoral promises. In the elections of 1983 a key component of the Liverpool party's electoral programme was 'No rate or rent increases to compensate for Tory cuts.'

That campaign explained to the Liverpool electorate the consequences of Liberal/Tory rule. The campaign also explained the pernicious slashing policies of the Tory government and gave a commitment that a radical socialist programme would be implemented. This included house building, job creation, rent reductions and improvement of services, linked to a campaign to retrieve funding from central government. The result was the magnificent electoral victory in 1983 with Labour gaining 12 seats, giving Labour 51 seats against the Liberal/Tory total of 48.

The massive financial crisis already described, which Liverpool Labour inherited, was seen as a reason for the implementation of the electoral programme rather than, as is usually the case with all the pro-capitalist politicians, a reason to retreat.

If Liverpool's expenditure had increased at the same rate as other authorities and even within government guidelines through that period, then the city's target set by the government for 1984-85 would have been much higher. In addition to the problems caused by the Liberals' financial jiggery-pokery through the 1970s and early 1980s, in 1983 the incoming Labour council inherited a budget which included £8 million to £10 million of unallocated cuts.

Against this background it was a diabolical lie for the right wing to allege that the crisis in Liverpool was of the 47's own making. Jack Straw, for instance, who in 1984 advocated a rate rise of 60%, has to this day never retracted the lies spewed out by him and his colleagues.

His excuse over the scandal about his parliamentary claim for full council tax when he had already been allowed a 50% discount was that "accountancy does not appear to be my strongest suit." This admission serves to underline his ignorance about the real depth of Liverpool's financial crisis that even Patrick Jenkin was compelled to recognise.

Mass struggle

But the victory was not achieved merely by slick negotiation between the councillors and Patrick Jenkin. Jenkin's promise to 'do his very best' to ameliorate some of Liverpool's problems wasn't solely due to his compassion having seen, in his words, 'housing conditions the likes of which I've never seen.'

It was also prompted by the mass support enjoyed by the council evidenced by the 1,000-strong demonstration which followed him around the housing estates which he viewed on his visit to Liverpool.

He was also conscious of the magnificent electoral support as well as the physical support shown by the great demonstrations that marched through the city in support of the council's policies, particularly the demonstration on budget day the previous March when a one-day strike took place, supported by 30,000 local authority workers. 50,000 people marched through the city that day in support of the council's proposed 'deficit budget'. That support was the reason Thatcher had despatched Jenkin to the city to get a real flavour of the situation on the ground.

Celebration

The council meeting following the funding victory was greeted with scenes of jubilation more akin to welcoming a returning football team having won the FA cup. The lobby of the council saw local authority workers, striking miners, young people, unemployed and parents with their young children, all listening to the victory speeches. Labour speakers were greeted with cheers, while over the benches of the Liberals and Tories hung a mood of demoralisation.

The support for the council was based on concrete changes to better people's lives. For instance, before the local press joined the Rupert Murdoch/Robert Maxwell media axis in its demonisation of the councillors, the Daily Post carried a headline 'House-proud city has got it right.' It reported the comments of a housing expert, Alice Coleman, who had carried out extensive research into housing conditions nationally and internationally.

'Liverpool,' she declared at a meeting to assess the council's housing policy, 'has got it right.' She completely concurred with the main thrust of the Urban Regeneration Strategy and the council's conviction that the majority of people preferred to live in traditional houses.

Moreover, the spin-off effect of the city's housing programme on employment had been publicly recognised by building companies who are not usually friends of Labour. In the three years from April 1983 to May 1985 it was estimated that 6,489 jobs had been generated in the private sector as a result of the house-building programme.

Twenty-five years late, the chattering classes agonise over the disengagement of people in general from politics and their disillusionment with the mainstream parties. Chat shows on various agencies of the media usually draw the conclusion that the party leaders, particularly Gordon Brown, lack charisma, or they don't have the ability to crack a good gag.

The logic of this argument is that New Labour should persuade Ken Dodd to lead the party and they would romp home at the next election with a massive majority based on a 99% turnout!

The Liverpool 47 attracted the highest Labour vote in history, and higher than in any election since world war two even though the population of the city had declined from 700,000 in 1945 to 460,000 in 1983. While turnout for local elections in recent years has ranged from 11% to 20%, the turnout in 1983 and 1984 was 45% to 55%. A clear message that if policies which correspond to the needs and aspirations of the working class are implemented, then the support will be forthcoming.

It was this level of support that gave the ruling class and its allies at the tops of the Labour movement an enormous problem.

The council leaders warned the workers that the Tories would bide their time and wait for the opportunity to take their revenge, particularly with the vengeful Margaret Thatcher determined to crush any opposition. They explained the urgency of stepping up the national campaign to persuade other major councils to take the Liverpool road and to compel Thatcher to retreat.

Tragically, this strategy did not succeed. One by one, the other councils involved in the anti-rate capping campaign capitulated under Tory pressure, aided and abetted by the national Labour leadership, particularly by the treachery of Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Ken Livingstone in London and David Blunkett in Sheffield, sounded the retreat which turned into a rout, eventually leaving Liverpool in isolation. This retreat was accompanied by a hysterical media campaign designed to isolate Liverpool, with deputy Labour leader Roy Hattersley accusing the Liverpool councillors of 'literal corruption'.

In spite of their unparalleled record of achievement, the power of the state eventually prevailed. Thatcher's district auditor, supported by the House of Lords, removed the 47 councillors from office, cheered on by the Labour leaders. Kinnock and his lieutenant, witchfinder-general Peter Kilfolye, finished the job on behalf of the capitalist state by expelling the majority of the 47 from the Labour Party.

Since then many gallons of ink, acres of newsprint, and speeches by right wing charlatans have attempted to denigrate the 47's period of office. But the record has been written in concrete buildings and stands as a monument to the socialist achievements of the Liverpool City council of 1983-87. Achievements symbolised by the incredible victory over Patrick Jenkin 25 years ago.

This article is by Tony Mulhearn, Socialist Party (CWI in England & Wales)

Sinn Fein councillor quits and joins Socialist Party

Via the Socialist Party (Ireland)'s website, this exciting news:


Cllr Domhnall O Cobhthaigh resigns from Sinn Fein to join the Socialist Party

Sinn Fein councillor Domhnall O Cobhthaigh today announced his resignation from the party at a press conference in order to join the Socialist Party to “build a cross-community opposition to the right-wing economic policies of the Assembly Executive”. Fermanagh Cllr Domhnall O Cobhthaigh who has served on Fermanagh District Council for the past two years claimed he could no longer remain in Sinn Fein as it was now part of an Assembly Executive which is “implementing cuts, job losses and privatising public services”. Joe Higgins, Socialist Party MEP for Dublin welcomed Mr O Cobhthaigh’s decision to join the Socialist Party today in Belfast “The Socialist Party seeks to build a movement of working and unemployed people in Northern Ireland in Protestant and Catholic communities against the attacks on jobs, wages and services which are being pursued by big business and the parties in the Assembly. We warmly welcome Domhnall as a valuable member of the Socialist Party and look forward to building a genuine socialist alternative in Fermanagh for working people and youth.” Jim Barbour of the Fire Brigades’ Union welcoming Mr O Coghthaigh’s decision claimed “There is an urgent need to develop a cross-community anti-sectarian political alternative for workers who are facing massive job losses and attacks on wages, terms and conditions. It is nothing short of a disgrace that while the banks are bailed out to the tune of billions, ordinary working people are paying the price for their crisis. Domhnall’s decision today is a welcome development in building a socialist voice for workers. We are also working closely alongside our colleagues in Britain campaigning for a new mass party to represent working class people who have been long abandoned by New Labour.” Mr O Cobhthaigh also stated that he has resigned his council seat. “Despite my happy experience in working with the communities of Erne West and Enniskillen in demanding improvements, I feel it would be indefensible to retain a council seat to which I have not been elected (I was co-opted to the seat in 2007). Therefore, I have decided to resign from my seat on Fermanagh District Council. Why I have resigned from Sinn Fein to join the Socialist Party Councillor Domhnall Ó Cobhthaigh resigns from Sinn Féin and Fermanagh District Council 3rd September 2009 “I have decided to resign from Sinn Fein after a period of careful reflection. Over the past twelve years I have worked tirelessly to develop Sinn Féin as an engine of change. Leaving is a very difficult decision given the many friends I am leaving behind in the party. “I consider that the current economic crisis has brought to antagonism the contradiction between the nationalist and socialist agendas within Sinn Féin. I have struggled for many years to promote the agenda of community empowerment and opposition to neo-liberal economics but realise that I cannot now usefully continue that within Sinn Féin. As a result I have decided to resign my party membership. “Despite my happy experience in working with the communities of Erne West and Enniskillen in demanding improvements, I feel it would be indefensible to retain a council seat to which I have not been elected (I was co-opted to the seat in 2007). Therefore, I have decided to resign from my seat on Fermanagh District Council. “Over the past year, I have come to understand that the Assembly system itself only reinforces the sectarian divisions within our society. All five mainstream parties are doing little more than overseeing the long-term administration of senior civil servants and their right-wing agenda. While I still have the greatest of respect for many of my former colleagues within Sinn Féin, I cannot see how they will change this significantly in the context of the current framework of governance. “I welcome the fact that we now live largely free from violence. I believe that working class people played a key role in what became known as the peace process through their opposition to sectarian violence. Today however deep sectarian divisions remain and low level sectarian violence continues. The main Assembly parties have a shared right-wing economic agenda. Their policies of cuts and privatisation only cement sectarian division. “I also want to use this opportunity to unambiguously reaffirm my opposition to all groups who would wish to take us backwards to conflict or who would further increase divisions between sections of the working-class. Looking forward for change “I wish to play my part in building a cross-community working-class platform to oppose the cutbacks which are being forced on working people to pay for the bailouts for the super-rich and which leave Fermanagh communities suffering from second-class provision right across the board. “Over the past two years I have learnt that there are very many people who share my commitment to fundamental change. I know that the effects of the current downturn are impacting on all but I am aware of their particular impact on young people who are leaving education only to struggle to find employment. The mainstream parties do not deliver and cannot deliver for working class and young people. As a result, there is a growing gap between all the mainstream parties and the majority of people, particularly the working class. “I am convinced that change can only come about if working, unemployed and young people themselves organise to challenge the status quo. We have seen the power of effective local campaigns in fighting against health cutbacks and against the imposition of water charges. The sad truth is if we are waiting for change to come at the hands of any of the mainstream parties, then we will wait a long time indeed. Working people must organise themselves against cuts and to defend jobs. “Having looked around I am convinced that the Socialist Party offers a platform from which to build such campaigns and is determined to achieve fundamental change in the way society is organised. I am now committed to working alongside party members in building the party in Fermanagh to struggle alongside workers and our communities at every possibility.” “As a first step in building this, I will be organising an open night in Enniskillen Library to discuss the reasons for my leaving Sinn Féin and the way forward for resisting the Assembly’s agenda of austerity.”

Strong surge in socialist vote in Victorian council elections

Socialist Alliance press release;

December 2, 2008

“The surge in the vote for socialist candidates in the weekend Victorian local government elections shows that increasing numbers of working people are looking for candidates whom they trust to defend their interests as economic crisis looms”, Socialist Alliance Victorian State Convener Sue Bolton said today.

Noting that the socialist vote had grown most in Labor heartlands Bolton said that it largely came from working people who were fed up with being taken for granted by the ALP, but didn´t trust the Greens to take a forthright pro-worker stance.

“The vote is also an expression of trust in socialists who are active fighters for people’s rights, and known as organisers against developer and Brumby government plans to close or privatise essential services as well as bulldoze the urban environment.”

Bolton congratulated Socialist Party Yarra City Councillor Steve Jolly on his re-election with 29.2% of the formal vote. “Steve Jolly’s vote is testimony to all the work he has done in defence of the community and the workers of Yarra City Council”, she said.

The Socialist Alliance spokesperson said that the socialist vote also showed that the Brumby government would have a very hard time driving ahead with the cross-city tunnel and the freeway extensions envisaged in the Eddington plan. “Votes like the 18.9% for the Socialist Alliance’s Stuart Martin in Maribyrnong City Council indicate that a lot of the community is dead against the Victorian ALP model of urban vandalism.”

The Socialist Alliance campaign also struck a strong response in Geelong, where candidates Bronwyn Jennings and Lisa Gleeson won 10.8% and 11.8% of the vote on a platform of “making Geelong a climate action council”, with a strong emphasis on improving public transport and housing and residents’ democratic participation in council decision-making.

Bolton added that the increase in the socialist vote was part of a progressive swing in politics, as the increased vote for the Greens confirmed.

“People are increasingly voting against mainstream Lib-Lab politics. The Socialist Alliance will build on these results to strengthen real worker and community resistance to the economic crisis, destruction of services and degradation of the environment. We look forward to collaborating with all other political forces that support those goals.”

The Socialist Vote in the November 29 Victorian Local Government Elections

Candidate	Organisation	Council	% of formal vote
Steve Jolly	Socialist Party	Yarra City	29.2
Stuart Martin	Socialist Alliance	Maribyrnong	18.9
Margarita Windisch	Socialist Alliance	Maribyrnong	12.4
Lisa Gleeson	Socialist Alliance	Greater Geelong	11.8
Bronwyn Jennings	Socialist Alliance	Greater Geelong	10.8
Sue Bolton, Vannessa Hearman, Turan Ertekin	Socialist Alliance	Moreland	9.0
Anthony Main	Socialist Party	Yarra City	5.5
Chris Johnson	Socialist Alliance	Queenscliff	3.2
Denise Dudley	Socialist Party	Yarra City	2.1

For more information or interviews: Sue Bolton on 0413 377 978

Socialist Party councilor re-elected in Yarra

From the Socialist Party website, 30 November

Best result for a socialist in more than 50 years!
Australia’s only socialist councillor Stephen Jolly has been re-elected in the City of Yarra. Preliminary results are showing that Socialist Party member Stephen Jolly has in fact beat the Labor Party candidate in their traditional heartland of inner city Melbourne.

Jolly, who has been a councillor since 2004, has won approximately 28 per cent of the vote in the Langridge Ward of Yarra City Council. This is by far the best result for any socialist candidate in more than 50 years!

In the other wards of Yarra Socialist Party members have also achieved decent results. Anthony Main won about 5 per cent of the vote in the Nicholls Ward and Denise Dudley won about 2 per cent of the vote in the Melba ward. (All figures are based on preliminary results from the VEC)

Jolly said today “this result sends a wakeup call to both Labor and the Greens. This shows that socialist ideas do get an echo if explained in the right way.”

In light of this important victory the Melbourne Branch of SP will be holding a meeting to discuss the Victorian council election results and which way forward for socialists and community campaigners.

The details are: 7pm Thursday December 4th @ Trades Hall, corner of Lygon & Victoria Streets Carlton South. All welcome!

The wombats also strongly advise anyone interested in further left unity and discussing strategies for socialists in Australia today to get along to the Socialist Alliance national conference this weekend (Dec 5-7) in Geelong. More details here.

Socialist Party - "Greens: Open letter to Solidarity"

With good reason - given our advocacy of greater left unity in Australia - the wombats tend to keep a close eye on the (often small) far-left groups that are around, and what moves they make in the right (or wrong) direction.

The latest such example is the open letter (republished below) from the Socialist Party (a small, Melbourne-based organisation with the curious honour of having Australia's only elected socialist - Yarra councillor Steve Jolly) to the group now known as Solidarity (formed after the reunification of 3 of Australia's 4 IST groups - Solidarity, the International Socialist Organisation, and Socialist Action Group).

There is nothing new about the SP's approach (the wombats have covered it - and related news -before - here, here, here, and here - and Socialist Alliance has written similar letters), but it provides a good example of what's wrong with Solidarity's (and Socialist Alternative's for that matter) approach. In place of building a dignified and potentially quite robust socialist space on the left of Australian politics, both groups substitute riding on the coat-tails of the Greens (to be fair to SAlt, they are so dismissive of electoral politics as to be almost anarchoid, and the "coat-tails" reference probably doesn't explain their approach at all).

Of course, the SP might have more weight to their arguments if they were part of a larger left, that wasn't focused to such an excessive degree on Yarra and Jolly's re-election. The Socialist Alliance and Socialist Party collaborated to a very limited, but fruitful, degree in the elections last year. Although this was not much more than keeping off each other's "turf", it oughtto be a hint to the SP that they can, and should, think strongly about greater left collaboration.

The wombats rather doubt that CWI/ IST collaboration in Australia is going to take place anytime soon without a rather large unity project in-between, and the only one of those with any legs at the moment is the Socialist Alliance.

The original of this letter can be found here.

******************************************************************************************

Dear Solidarity comrades,
During last years federal election campaign the Socialist Party challenged the Australian section of the International Socialist Tendency (IST), then called the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), to a debate around the topic of ‘How should socialists relate to the Greens?’

The ISO declined to debate us and proceeded to support the Greens in the election. Their support was not limited to cheer leading from the columns of their newspaper but included handing out ‘how to vote’ cards for the Greens in the seat of Melbourne where SP stood a candidate!

Since then the ISO has merged with Solidarity and the Socialist Action Group and has been renamed Solidarity. From all reports Solidarity is now the official section of the IST in Australia.

We understand that both the Socialist Action Group and Solidarity also supported the Greens in the 2007 federal election campaign and that part of the political foundation of the merger that took place was ongoing support for the Greens in elections.

It was somewhat surprising then for us when we read the following article in the paper of Solidarity’s sister organisation in Britain called Socialist Worker. The article actually echoes many of the points that we made to the ISO during last years election campaign. Read it for yourself.

Can the Greens be a radical alternative to the mainstream?
By Anindya Bhattacharyya
Taken from the online version of Socialist Worker issue 2097 dated 19 April 2008

Many people are frustrated with the three mainstream political parties and would like to see a left wing alternative to their pro-business agenda. The Green Party is widely touted as an organisation that could fill this role.

It is certainly true that the Green Party includes many individual activists on the left. The Green MEP Caroline Lucas, for instance, has played a solid role in the anti-war movement.

Yet despite this, the Greens do not present themselves as a left wing party, nor do they as an organisation play any kind of systematic role in left wing movements against war, racism and neoliberalism.

This distancing is quite deliberate. “If we positioned ourselves as explicitly left it would be dangerous, with no guarantee of success,” says Chris Rose, the Green Party’s national election agent.

And however “left” they may appear on paper, in power the Greens can act very differently. Jenny Jones, a Green member of the London assembly, strongly backed Metropolitan police chief Ian Blair over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Sian Berry, the Green candidate for London mayor, echoes the mainstream parties in calling for more police officers (albeit of the “community” variety).

In Leeds the Greens even went into coalition with the Tories and the Liberal Democrats on the city’s council for two years.

This was justified by Chris Rose as follows: “We say none of the mainstream parties are worth anything. So, if the situation demands it, it doesn’t really matter which one we work with, just what the outcome is.”

Elsewhere in Europe, where Green parties are more established, their record is similarly chequered. In France the Green Party lined up with the establishment in supporting the neoliberal European Union constitution.

In Germany, Green MPs have given unstinting support to the war in Afghanistan – despite a party congress decision to oppose German troops being sent to join Nato forces there.

The tendency of Green parties to drift to the right and their penchant for remaining aloof from mass movements have a common foundation.

They reflect the fact that the Greens are essentially a middle class party with some left wing opinions, rather than being a political organisation rooted in the working class.
This means that while Greens may hold “progressive” views on many issues, they have little to say about the class struggle between the majority of people who work for a living and the minority that rules the world.

It means that the Greens look to individualist solutions to issues such as climate change and world poverty, such as adopting a “green lifestyle” or promoting “ethical consumerism”.

Ultimately it means that while individual Greens can play a left wing role on certain issues, the party as a whole will never become a serious working class alternative to the pro-business parties.

They cannot connect with the swathes of ordinary people who are hit by low pay, poor housing and cuts to public services – and who want to fight back.

That radical political alternative must be built from below, by activists who campaign in trade unions and the mass movements against privatisation and war – and who look to the power of workers to transform society.

Read the article online here

The question we would have for the Solidarity comrades is if you are in fact maintaining your electoral support for the Greens what is the difference between the Greens in Britain and the Greens in Australia? Are they so different that a different approach to them is required? Is the situation in Britain so vastly different to that in Australia?

You told us last year that “Unfortunately, we found some of your characterisations of the Greens as sectarian and wrong”. Does this mean the characterisations that your British comrades have of the Greens are also sectarian and wrong?

You said “We support the Greens because they represent a very important layer of people that firmly rejects the Labor Party’s political sell-outs. Most Greens supporters reject Labor’s capitulation to neo-liberalism and support the kind of social democratic policies that were once expected from the Labor Party. But you don’t seem to have recognised this significant point.” It seems your British comrades have also failed ‘to recognise this significant point’!

The truth is that, leaving aside our difference with the British IST over tactics in the upcoming elections, we think the analysis put by the British IST comrades in relation to the Greens is far more in tune with reality than the oppurtunistic position that you have put here in Australia.

If we are wrong and you have in fact changed your position we would welcome that shift. But if you are in fact planning on supporting the Greens in the upcoming council elections in Victoria we would like to renew our challenge for you to debate us on the question of ‘How should socialists relate to the Greens’.

It is not the case that the socialist vote in these council elections will be negligible. In fact we will be defending our position on Yarra Council. We would be interested to know if the comrades from Solidarity will be supporting fellow socialists or if they will again be campaigning against us in support (as your British comrades put it) of the middle class Greens? We look forward to your reply.

Comradely

Anthony Main
On behalf of the Socialist Party

SAlt and the Socialist Party find a common cause in disunity.

The Australian satellite of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), the largely Melbourne-based Socialist Party (SP), held it's Socialism 2008 conference on March 14 and 15, in Melbourne's Trades Hall. By their own accounts it was a "great success", with just over 50 people over the course of the whole weekend!

Now, the wombats do not want to appear to niggle or snipe (the left in Australia can do without more of that, and the colour of the kettle often resembles that of the pot). Perhaps 50 (including international guests) is a laudable acheivement for the SP. But for an organisation with pretensions of being a vanguard for the working class, that continuously makes calls for a "New Workers' Party", and which is almost entirely limited in spread to Melbourne, fifty people is not a lot.

Of course, noone that is familiar with the SP would have expected a massive turnout, even in this post-WorkChoices climate. But, as scientific socialists (both the wombats and the SP, and, we presume, some of our readers) we must look at this closely, and in context.

The exact membership of the SP is not widely known, but it wouldn't be above the same number - 50 - if that, but probably not all members whould have been able to make it. By comparison, an organisation with a sectarian outlook on the world (and of course the rest of the left) - Socialist Alternative (SAlt) - has around 200 members, and got an estimated 250-300 to their Marxism 2008 conference, also held in Melbourne. So perhaps the ratio of members to conference turnout is the same. Or perhaps not.

What's more important, however, is what they do with their time (and members). Alone amongst the left, the SP has managed to get one their members elected - Steve Jolly on Yarra Council - and expends a fair bit of effort in that area alone, while also orienting fairly firmly towards workers. SAlt, on the other hand, doesn't run in elections, and has a rather bizarre approach to recruitment, preferring students to workers (they actually have a rationale for this, printed in their handbook, which fits nicely with their fixation on propaganda), a factor which no doubt explains a fair bit of their size, as well as the high turnover they experience.

Politically, however, they come from quite different strands of "Trotskyism", the SP of the more orthodox kind of the CWI, while SAlt's politics are of the IST "State Capitalist" flavour.

So, it might seem somewhat surprising to discover that the two organisations recently had a "debate" on the topic of "strategies for building revolutionary organsiations" - which also attracted 50 people. But the content of the SP report on the evening explains a lot more than it thinks.

While the SP's Anthony Main was right in criticising the isolationist propagandising of SAlt (as captured in the recently-published and pretty theoretically distorted book by leading SAlt member Mick Armstrong, From Little Things, Big Things Grow), the impression you get (both from up here in Sydney, as well as from reports that the wombats have had from people who were at the meeting) is that the whole thing was an excercise in rhetoricising.

Both groups took comfort from the fact that neither was really challenging the other - SAlt don't run in elections (although I don't know how many of them hang out in Yarra) and have no pretensions to any "new workers' party" bar themselves - one day; and the SP (while they do try to recruit some students) is too small to really worry SAlt, so they can carry on recruiting students until the cows come home.

Amazingly they found that they agreed on most things! Socialists. Agreeing.

Unfortunately, however, one of the things that united them was a common enemy - the Socialist Alliance. Nothing like sectarianism to bring some groups together. The SP - the supposed "champion" of a new workers' party, continues to ignore anyone who takes the first steps towards building it. In his address, Main criticised the Socialist Alliance because it began (and in his mind still is) merely an alliance of left groups. Aside from being a mischaracterisation, one wonders how Main imagines convincing the unions, community groups and perhaps the left of the ALP to split and join with socialists in the struggle for a "new workers' party" unless you've already got some credibility, and political weight, under your belt. And how you're going to get that unless you start building the kernel of that new party.

At the Socialist Alliance-initiated Trade Union Fightback conference in Melbourne in 2005, the SP's Steve Jolly got up and repeated the call for a "new workers' party". Craig Johnston, Socialist Alliance member, and former Victorian AMWU state secretary, responded that he agreed with the idea, and "that's why I joined the Socialist Alliance".

Of course, noone but the most delusional thinks that the Socialist Alliance is a new mass workers' party, however. Around a thousand members isn't a "mass" anything. But it's a start, and a start which doesn't fit the SP's schema. And they've put so much energy into deriding it and attacking it, that they couldn't possibly think it mught be a good idea. Could they?

As for Socialist Alternative, well, Socialist Alliance does threaten them. One affiliate of the Socialist Alliance, Resistance, the socialist youth organisation closely linked to the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), recruits, as you might tell from the name, young people, especially on campuses. The DSP itself, a revolutionary marxist affiliate of the Socialist Alliance, is bigger than SAlt, and produces Australia's main left-wing newspaper, Green Left Weekly.

Add to this several hundred non-alligned members, in various campaigns, and unions, with branches in places many SAlt has never even been, and Socialist Alliance looks like a pretty viable option, if the rest of the already organised left wanted to get (back) involved.

The problem is that they apparently don't. Even the sudden burst of unity amongst the other 3 IST groups in Australia, fusing in February to form Solidarity (website still under construction), doesn't appear to extend to the idea of a broader left (no matter how excited they get over Die Linke or other, successful, broad left projects).

Compared to the votes that the Greens get (over a million), and the members they have (around 8,000), this all seems like small bikkies, but socialists have an ability to punch well above our weight, whereas the Greens are a bit all over the place most of the time, not to mention the lack of anything resembling a proper analysis of both society, or the causes of the problems facing the planet. Could (would?) the Greens pull off something like this, for example?

It is because of what socialists can acheive - even when we are so ridiculously disunited - that we need to honestly, and very, very, quickly, return to the table of unity. There are more opportunities for socialist ideas now than there have been for a very long time (in some ways, more than in the anti-capitalist globalisation struggle, if of a different tone), and the need for a coherent alternative that can prevent runaway global warming demands that those who claim to see the long view of history through a clear window pane, turn their gaze to the future with a similar urgency.

"No ideologically pure propaganda groups on a dead planet!" is one tongue-in-cheek slogan that springs to mind.

UNITYblognz - "History calls for a Broad Left party"

The folks over at UNITYblognz (otherwise known as New Zealand Socialist Worker) have hit upon a fact that apparently continues to allude so much of the left - both in Oz and abroad - namely that we need a broad left party. Simply dawdling along in the same-old "we've got the correct program so stuff you" manner that altogether too many far-left outfits use to maintain ideological (as well as numerical - if small = pure) purity is doing nobody any particular good. Except maybe the capitalists.

NZSW are a funny creature anway. While a part of the International Socialist Tendency, they have been engaged in an ongoing tit-for-tat with the IST mothership in the UK over a number of things - Venezuela, RESPECT, and the general question of broader left strategy. Suffice to say that London hasn't been happy, especially as they characterise the RESPECT coalition, and the SWP's approach to it as a broad-narrow coalition "where a Marxist group forms an alliance with other groups and individuals on the left in a bid to "take control" behind the scenes. "

As with much of their output, this is a valuable and well-written contribution to the question of revolutionary strategy in the 21st Century (not to be confused with the rather shallow and crude attempt at sectarian one-upmanship displayed in the first para of this post from the Socialist Party here in Oz. It reads unfortunately like they meant to attack the rest of the left, then got distracted. Force of habit?).

Read, enjoy, and then let's go do something about it...

SPECIAL FEATURE- History calls for a Broad Left party

by VAUGHAN GUNSON and GRANT MORGAN


In 2006, the neo-liberal maniacs at the World Bank ranked New Zealand as No.1 in the world for doing business, out of 200 countries surveyed. And a recent government report titled "Wealth Disparities in New Zealand" showed that 95% of New Zealand's net wealth is owned by half the population. The other half is left with the crumbs - a mere 5% of the country's wealth. Two decades of neo-liberal polices have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, increasing the rage, frustration and alienation at the base of New Zealand society.

In recent years Socialist Worker-New Zealand (SW-NZ) has recognised that these discontents are being combined with signs of self-activity amongst grassroots people, which is causing them to be more open to alternative political ideas. The rise of a global social justice movement has been influential. There have been bursts of union militancy, along with mass movements against imperial wars, GE foods and government injustices against Maori. In combination this points towards a political stirring at the grassroots of New Zealand society which socialists must relate to.

It's a basic principle of Marxism that the movement of masses of people is needed to change society. The question for socialists, then, is what can we do today to help turn growing dissatisfactions at the grassroots into something far more politically coherent, organised and confident? In seeking to advance the movement we need to recognise and analyse the barriers in the way of greater working class self-activity.

Read the rest at UNITYblog

Socialist unity in Oz? Two steps forward...?

Well, it's been a while in coming, but the bad running joke of the Australian Left - the existence of not just two, or even three, but FOUR Cliffite groups (that is, groups with politics originating in the International Socialist Tendency) - is over. There's only two now.

On February 2-3, the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), Solidarity, and the Brisbane-based Socialist Action Group (SAG) held a unity conference in Sydney and decided that maybe being in different organisations was a tad silly. After all, they have the same politics (not least a fondness for the nonsense which is State Capitalism), and have been working together (including pre-caucusing before movement meetings) in various campaigns for a while now. This collaboration has been accompanied by a series of joint internal discussion bulletins which, if a wee bit light on the theory, were are least genuinely oriented towards some kind of unity.

The final outcome is a new organisation under the name of "Solidarity", which reflects, if anything, the relative strength of that organisation compared to the other two, particularly in movement work. SAG members apparently argued for a name including the word "socialist", but clearly didn't win. There is likely to be a monthly newspaper, and while the Wombats haven't heard the new paper's name yet, we hope that one of the options floated, "Liberty", gets quickly stymied. Sounds thoroughly daft, in our opinion.

The background to the various splits in the Australian IST would be too formidable a task to go into, except to say that Solidarity left the ISO when it was in the Socialist Alliance, while SAG managed to extricate themselves from the pretty undemocratic propagandist sect-ism of Socialist Alternative (the fourth member of the Cliffite menagerie in Oz). A small group of SAlt members in Sydney left around the same time, joining Solidarity (although two of them soon decided to join the Greens).

The Solidarity split, led by Ian Rintoul, was fiercely anti-Socialist Alliance, so when the ISO finally gave the formal imprimatur to their withdrawal from the Socialist Alliance (a left-unity project, mind you, and one which is ongoing), the biggest barrier to "unity" was overcome. One of the other key features of the new organisation is it's decision to support the Greens in elections, rather than calling for a socialist vote where possible.

This is so despite the nation-wide presence of the Socialist Alliance, and the presence in Melbourne of the Socialist Party, both of which compete in elections; and despite the fact that the internal joint discussion highlighted the inability of the three united groups to have little, if any, impact on the Greens or Greens members during the election campaign. As the Wombats have pointed out here and here, both the Socialist Alliance and the SP approached the ISO last year asking for socialist solidarity around the elections, to no avail.

Socialists do indeed have to work out the best way to work with the Greens, especially those in the amorphous 'left' of the Greens, and there are no "perfect" formulae that are especially better than any others. So the basic idea of Solidarity is hardly flawed in that respect. But ignoring the existence of the rest of the left won't help much when it comes to winning over people caught up in the biggest left-of-Labor political party in history. We need the most unified and vibrant approach possible, and, while the step towards unity is to be welcomed, if it - as seems likely - aims to become yet another competing force on the left, it's unlikely to assist that process.

[One interesting way forward on the Greens question is the ecosocialist reading circle that has been set up in Adelaide, containing members of the Greens, as well as Socialist Alliance, DSP, Communist Party, and others. Dave Riley is preparing an educational series on Climate and Capitalism which could well be used by this group, or by any others for that matter, in conjunction with various forms of socialist/ Green collaboration.]

So, while Bob Gould might think this unification is the best thing since sliced bread, it is still fundamentally limited by what is - if past practice is anything to go by - likely to end up with a certain amount of tail-ending of the Greens, and a sectarianism towards the rest of the organised left - especially the Socialist Alliance. It is perhaps telling that one of the sole voices in the ISO to point out that they might have made mistakes themselves in the early period of the Socialist Alliance (as opposed to blaming everything on the DSP) is in an extreme minority.

The recent unification is still a largely healthy development, however, and we will chart it's development over time.

As if this wasn't enough for one weekend, the Melbourne-based Socialist Party (of the Committee for a Workers' International), has put up on it's website a pamphlet it produced two years ago calling for a "New Workers' Party", and then attempting again to explain why it's simultaneously not actually trying to build one. It's a bit of a read, but for a small group operating only out of Melbourne (even if they do have the country's only elected socialist in Steve Jolley on Yarra council), the tone is all a bit rich, really.

It will be interesting to see, however, whether and how the question of left unity can find new ways forward under the new right-wing Rudd Labor government. There are already plenty of opportunities opening up. The test is, as always, whether we can muster the subjective resources necessary to make use of them. The energy privatisation campaign would be a particularly good one to start with, one would think.