Socialist Alliance takes 'first step'

BY NICK EVERETT

SYDNEY — “When I first heard about the idea of the Socialist Alliance,
these old bones straightened up a bit. I wanted to know more about it.
I wanted to be able to participate with tens of thousands of others to
change the society that we are currently forced to live in.”

With these words, respected indigenous activist Ray Jackson captured
the feeling of the 250 people who attended the public launch of the Socialist
Alliance at Trades Hall here on April 10.

Jackson, also a member of the Freedom Socialist Party, told the crowd:
“There has never really been a party representing the battlers and the
working class ... The Socialist Alliance is the way to go. We're not going
to take over the country straight away, but we've got to take that first
step.”

The meeting, which opened with a rousing performance by Sydney's Solidarity
Choir, was also addressed by assistant state secretary of the National
Tertiary Education Union and International Socialist Organisation member
Michael Thomson, who argued that the alliance “will help build networks
to resist economic rationalism, whoever wins the elections”.

Referring to the recent large public protest meetings against the state
government's plan to close a number of inner city schools, Thomson explained
“This is where the Socialist Alliance fits. We support the students, teachers
and parents — we're part of the fight.”

Thomson called on “trade unionists who've had enough of economic rationalism
and companies getting massive profits while our wages and conditions get
pushed down” to get active in the Socialist Alliance.

Dae Keum Kim, coordinator of the Korean Resource Centre in Sydney, told
the meeting: “Most of our members are not socialists, but when I took out
the [alliance's] platform they said, 'This is good. This is what we want'.
The KRC endorses and supports the Socialist Alliance.”

Speaking on behalf of the Socialist Alliance, Lisa Macdonald from the
Democratic Socialist Party told the meeting: “The organised left has never
before come together in such unity on such a radical platform. It is a
tremendously exciting project, and really the only one which could do justice
to the exciting political landscape at the moment.”

Macdonald pointed out that “the specific-issue campaigns and multi-issue
movement against corporate tyranny that are gathering momentum internationally
show what socialists have always known: the only force that can bring about
social change — whether reforms or revolutions — is the mass of working
people.

“That's the basic premise of the Socialist Alliance: that building strong
extra-parliamentary movements and forming alliances between them is the
only path forward, in the immediate and longer term.”

The meeting's chairperson, Alison Stewart of the International Socialist
Organisation, read out messages of support, including from former Builders
Labourers Federation leader and “green bans” pioneer Jack Mundey, Workers
Health Centre coordinator and union activist Peggy Trompf, Sydney University
professor of political economy Frank Stilwell and shorter work week campaigner
Wayne Sonter.

The meeting also passed by acclamation two Socialist Alliance statements
in support of the campaigns against the NSW government's plans to close
public schools and weaken workers' compensation legislation.

From GLW issue 445