'Don't just vote, change the system!'

BY
SUSAN PRICE

“Elections results don't change very much for ordinary people.” Surprisingly,
this comment was made by Lisa Macdonald, a candidate in the March 23 NSW
state elections. But perhaps her comment was not so surprising, since Macdonald
is no ordinary candidate. She describes herself as a “revolutionary politician”.

A long-time women's liberation activist, a former editor of Green
Left Weekly and a campaigner for refugees' rights, Macdonald is the
Socialist Alliance's lead candidate for the NSW Legislative Council. She
recently spoke to GLW about the alliance and the NSW elections

What do you see as the most important issue in the NSW election?

Undoubtedly, the most important issue is the Howard government's support
for a US war against Iraq. That's why the members and candidates of the
Socialist Alliance are prioritising building the anti-war movement; why
we're campaigning to mobilise s many people as possible for the February
16 anti-war protest here in Sydney.

How does running candidates in the state election relate to building
a movement against the federal government's policy on Iraq?

Election results don't change very much for ordinary people, because
parliamentary electoral contests are dominated by those with big money.
But election campaigns are still an important arena of campaigning and
struggle for socialists because they are an opportunity to present a vision
of what would be possible if elections really were democratic, and
how real democracy - the rule of the common people - could work.

If the laws, the allocation of society's wealth, Australia's participation
in world affairs, and so on, really did reflect the will of the majority,
we'd live in a very different society.

The war drive by Howard and most of the mass media right now is a perfect
example. The government sends Australian warships and troops off to fight
a war against Iraq despite the fact that the majority of Australians are
against this war. Ordinary people, working-class people, weren't asked
their opinion, let alone given a vote about going to war or not. What sort
of democracy is that?

By making opposition to the war on Iraq the major issue of our election
campaign, and proclaiming that the major parties don't speak for us, we
are helping to “democratise" the electoral process, while also involving
more and more people in the far more democratic process of mass action
outside parliament.

Furthermore, involving people in grass-roots campaigning is central
to the Socialist Alliance's whole perspective for achieving real improvements
in ordinary people's lives. Such improvements are most solidly established
when ordinary people are directly involved in fighting for them.

Many people we meet while campaigning on the streets say to us, “I'm
not a socialist, but I agree with everything in your platform”. Good quality,
free public education, health services, child-care and public transport,
jobs for everyone, a shorter working week without any cut in take-home
pay, an end to racism and sexism - all these things make sense to ordinary
people who are finding it harder and harder to survive, let alone have
any choices in life, under the onslaught of “economic rationalism” - which
is just a fancy euphemism for screwing more out of working people to further
enrich the corporate owners and executives.

The harder question is how to achieve the sort of rights, living conditions
and social equality that Socialist Alliance's priority pledges encapsulate?
You have to address that or having terrific policies on paper doesn't mean
a thing.

That's why we're putting most of our efforts into strengthening the
people's movements, encouraging people to take political action themselves.
It is in the process of acting to achieve change, like stopping Australian
involvement in a particular war, that people work out what other changes
they want and how to achieve them.

What about the rise of the Greens? Does this put the need for the
Socialist Alliance on the back shelf?

I have watched the development of the Greens in Australia closely for
over a decade. I was a founding member of the NSW Green Alliance in 1990
(the precursor to the NSW Greens) and the Greens' candidate for Reid in
1991, winning 14% of the vote.

I really welcome the recent surge in the Green vote because it reflects
that more and more people are breaking free of the two-party con in Australian
politics, and they're doing so in a left direction.

The Greens usually take good positions on the important issues and seem
to be getting a bit more involved in the social movements now. But the
Greens still feed the illusion that social progress comes from getting
the right people into parliament.

Most Greens don't yet understand that you need to take on the root cause
of society's ills - the private profit system - if you want to achieve
real, lasting change, and that you can't do that using the system's own
institutions, like parliament. Rather, we need to rebuild working-class
organisation and representation from the ground up, outside of parliaments,
in workplaces, schools and local communities.

There is a great need in Australia for a united organisation that presents
a clear, anti-system point of view, and that consistently builds all of
the struggles against that private profit system. This is what the Socialist
Alliance seeks to be.

Having said that, we think it is very important that all progressive
parties cooperate as fully as possible during election campaigns to strengthen
the anti-establishment pole, the pole that says to people, “You don't have
to settle for this sham of a democratic process; there are alternatives
to the business-as-usual of the major parties”.

That's why the Socialist Alliance in NSW will direct its preferences
to the Greens and is talking to the Greens and other progressive candidates
about presenting a united electoral front of opposition to the war, for
refugee rights, in defence of civil liberties and workers' rights, and
against privatisation and funding cutbacks in as many public forums as
possible during the election campaign.

From Green Left Weekly, February 12, 2003.

Visit the Green Left Weekly
home page.

From GLW issue 525