Socialist Alliance (SA) has launched a “Take Back the Wealth” campaign in Western Australia, after several months in the making. I’ve been preselected as lead Senate candidate for the 2028 federal election as part of this campaign.
We want to dramatise the need for wealth redistribution in a state like WA, which is dripping in mining wealth. Meanwhile, homelessness is impossible to ignore. During a cold snap in 2021, six homeless Noongar people died on the streets in Boorloo/Perth.
We live in a land of plenty, yet people are going without; it is so blindingly obvious.
While there are calls for the mining industry to pay greater taxes and royalties, which SA supports, the discussion needs to include socialist solutions to the capitalist crisis.
Yes, we can tax corporations that have a monopolistic control over mineral wealth, but they keep reproducing the inequality and we are left trying to play catch up.
Central to the “Take Back the Wealth” campaign is the idea that the mines should be brought into democratic public ownership, under community control. That needs to be coupled with land rights, so that First Nations communities have real control over their own land and we prevent absolute catastrophes, such as Rio Tinto’s destruction of Juukan Gorge.
A few years ago, WA overtook Qatar as the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Australia took about $700 million in taxes and royalties from the offshore oil and gas industry, which sounds like a lot until you compare that to Qatar — where the industry is state-owned — which collects $17 billion a year.
Norway is another useful comparison; every offshore oil and gas project has to be 50% owned by the state-owned Equinor and the government imposes a 78% tax on the private partner.
By contrast, WA Labor is literally giving away resources — which belong to the people — to mining corporations that pay a derisory amount in taxes and royalties. To add to the rort, much of the profit is repatriated to overseas investors, who are destroying the planet.
Wealth redistribution
As nearly all social and economic crises stem from wealth inequality, the pathway to turn that around is wealth redistribution.
Pre-selecting a Senate candidate this far out from the next federal election is a way to kickstart our Take Back the Wealth campaign.
We do not get a lot of free publicity, like Pauline Hanson’s racist nonsense does, and therefore we have to plan a long campaign. Of course, SA is active every day of the year, but without mainstream media coverage, many people have never heard of us or our solutions.
The eyewatering spend on AUKUS, now more than $375 billion — or $35 million a day — for the next 30 years, is another example of money that could be invested in so many other useful projects, such as environmental repair, affordable housing and disability support.
Given that transport emissions are Australia’s fastest-growing contributor to the climate emergency, we need investment in sustainable transport solutions — including freight on rail, extending public transport and active transport in our cities.
I live in the Walyalup/Fremantle region, adjacent to Cockburn Sound, where the HMAS Stirling naval base on Garden Island is located.
Nearby is the Australian Marine Complex, at Henderson, which will service British and United States nuclear submarines, due to visit a lot more often, and the future AUKUS-class submarines, if they ever get built.
Now we’re told there are two locations where there will be radioactive material, including the submarine reactors, adjacent to a major capital city.
People need to understand just how dangerous that is.
Right now, there are nine nuclear-powered submarines sitting on the ocean floor; five Soviet submarines and four US ones. They’re under a massive amount of pressure. One day, those reactors are going to leak. Why would we want more of that for our planet?
The other major disastrous impact of AUKUS is that it sucks WA down the bipartisan path of making Australia a leading arms manufacturer and exporter.
We have a housing affordability crisis with a nine-year waiting list for public housing. So it is surreal to hear WA Labor boast about how quickly it can build new housing to accommodate the stationing of US military personnel.
People are desperate for manufacturing jobs in WA, particularly in the suburbs of Rockingham and Kwinana, which are adjacent to the naval base. While the big oil and gas corporations promise more jobs, they build their platforms overseas and float them here.
The propaganda states that AUKUS will create 20,000 jobs, which sounds like a lot. But, at $18 million a job, this would have to be one of the most inefficient job creation programs in history. We could create so many more manufacturing jobs making wind turbines and other renewable energy infrastructure.
I was an elected councillor at the City of Fremantle from 2009 to 2021. The position allowed me to take initiatives with campaign groups.
For instance, as part of the “No Business in Abuse” initiative with the Fremantle Refugee Rights Action Network, I successfully moved a resolution to end contracts with companies doing business with the offshore detention regime. At the time, the City of Fremantle had a contract with Wilson Security.
The motion’s success coincided with a high point in the refugee rights campaign nationally. It showed how working with activist groups can deliver change.
Framework for change
In this comparatively rich country, most people see representative democracy as the framework for political change.
It is not only a big task for smaller parties to be elected; the democratic solutions we’re putting forward will sound unrealistic, so we have to explain how we might get there.
Building on my experience on council, I’d like to use our Senate campaign to build movements that involve and empower people as participants, rather than spectators.
Our Take Back the Wealth campaign will raise the need for anti-capitalist solutions to the crimes of capitalism as the only way forward. That’s going to take a lot of dialogue with anyone who wants to engage.
SA is keen to collaborate with the newly formed WA Socialists or Socialist Party, which may run in the federal election. Where we can cooperate, we will. Obviously, we should avoid running in the same seats. Further cooperation could include endorsing each other’s candidates and, in the Senate, the possibility of a joint ticket.
We chose not to run against the more left-wing grassroots Greens activists in the last state election, and to campaign for some of their candidates. We always suggest people preference the Greens ahead of Labor.
Of course, even if we manage to get someone elected, it would not be enough to make the changes society urgently needs.
That would require not just a majority in parliament, but a major mobilisation of working people outside of it demanding a break with big business’ economic and political hold over society.
That seems like a long way from where we are today. But we need to be honest about the fact that, ultimately, it is what we have to do if we want fundamental change. We need to talk about why it is so hard to make such change, and at the same time help build the community and working-class power that can start us on the way.
This is what makes us different to the Greens.
We need to say to people that if you want decent housing, a safe climate and more social resources, it will not be enough to just vote for them; you also need to be prepared to mobilise for them.
That’s why our campaign slogan was not “Redistribute the Wealth” or “Share the Wealth”. “Take Back the Wealth” tells people that to achieve even modest policies that move us in the direction of fundamental social change means we all have to contribute something.
It’s no good just having a vision for a better future; people learn about the way society is structured and how to organise by taking part in the struggle. Taking that step helps build a culture of resistance, and self-organisation and confidence will be the stepping stones towards more fundamental change.
[Contact Socialist Alliance to get involved in the Take Back the Wealth campaign, and help the party register in Western Australia.]