BY GRAHAM MATTHEWS

MELBOURNE — Around 30 people attended the campaign launch for Judy McVey, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Brunswick district, on November 27 at Cafe Mingo. Speaking with the candidate were Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union organiser Denis Evans and peace activist Dave Kerryn.

“I was brought up to be a racist”, Evans told the launch. “I was taught that Greek and Italian migrants were here to take our jobs. But I met two communists at the Carlton and United Breweries where I went to work at 18. If I hadn’t taken up what they said, I wouldn’t be here today.”

“From the Vietnam war we’ve seen the formation of a rich left culture”, Kerryn told the meeting. “I see my family coming together”, he said of the Socialist Alliance project. “At times we’ve been a dysfunctional family, though we’re all we have.”

“I’ve been observing this gradual process of coming together from a distance”, Kerryn continued. “It’s based on the idea that if we don’t go on together, we go down separately. I hold hope for this process that it will lead to an open movement, maintaining the best traditions of the socialist movement.”

“We need a vision for Brunswick”, said Judy McVey. “A society based on human needs — without racism and sexism and without war. It’s a long-term view, but it’s a vision that we shouldn’t lose sight of.”

“We need to fight to bring down capitalism”, McVey continued. “The war is part and parcel of the attempt by the major powers to divide up the world. Our state leader should be an anti-war activist.”

“We’re not saying just vote. We’re saying help build the anti-war movement to build an alternative”, McVey concluded.

From Green Left Weekly, December 4, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

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