BY LIAM MITCHELL
SYDNEY — Following the success of its ground-breaking campaign in the federal election, the Socialist Alliance in NSW is setting its sights on the March 2003 state election and has launched a campaign to get electoral registration in this state within the next two months.
"There is no doubt that just missing the deadline for federal registration cost the Socialist Alliance both votes and public profile", Lisa Macdonald, the alliance's candidate for the seat of Reid in the November 10 federal election, told Green Left Weekly. "We did all of our campaigning as Socialist Alliance, but then had to rely on people remembering our individual candidates' names when they came to vote because the alliance's name was not on any ballot paper.
"We're delighted with the votes we received, nationally and in NSW, but we also know that many people were unable to express their support for the Socialist Alliance because they couldn't find us on the ballot. We don't want to repeat that problem."
The Socialist Alliance has therefore decided to move directly from the federal campaign into applying for registration in NSW.
Changes to the state's electoral legislation last year have made it much harder for small parties to become registered and stand candidates. For example, any party which does not already have a member of parliament must submit 750 membership forms, each one filled out and signed by a party member enrolled to vote in NSW. The members' enrolments are then checked by the State Electoral Office before the application is publicly advertised for two weeks to allow any objections to the registration application to be lodged.
Furthermore, for a party to have its name on the ballot paper, this process must have been completed and the party's application for registration approved at least 12 months before the election date.
"The Socialist Alliance in NSW is prepared to jump through these undemocratic and ridiculously bureaucratic hoops to get registration for a couple of reasons", Macdonald said. "The most obvious is the crying need to offer a left alternative to Bob Carr's government, the longest-lived Labor government in the country at present."
According to Macdonald, the significant decline in the ALP vote in NSW in the November 10 federal poll — Labor's lowest vote in NSW since the 1930s — can be explained in part by the many years of Carr government attacks on ordinary people's living conditions, most recently the closure of public schools in inner Sydney, its dismantling of workers' compensation rights and public transport, and the premier's own propaganda campaign to racially profile crime and scapegoat refugees and non-Anglo communities.
"If ever there was a Labor government that needed bringing down it is this one", Macdonald said. "But there is always the danger that the disgust at the NSW ALP among working people will be expressed in reactionary rather than progressive ways at the polls. In this context, it is very important that the left raise its flag, intervene confidently in the electoral arena as the genuine alternative to all the major parties and their smaller far-right off-shoots.
"There could not be a more appropriate context to have the word 'socialist' back on the ballot papers than at the next NSW election."
The second reason, Macdonald said, is that the Socialist Alliance wants to be able to build as effectively as possible on the rich experiences, widening networks and public hearing it began to develop during its first electoral effort for the November 10 poll.
"Coming out of that election campaign, alliance members are much more confident about presenting and getting a serious hearing for socialist solutions to the increasing problems and crises that are being inflicted on the working class. These problems are only going to get worse as the economy becomes more depressed and Labor and Coalition governments deepen their attacks on ordinary people's living conditions and escalate their racist scapegoating."
If you want to help the Socialist Alliance gather the 750 signatures required by January to get electoral registration for the 2003 election in NSW, phone Lisa Macdonald on (02) 9690 1977 or email < sydney@socialist-A HREF="mailto:alliance.org.au"><alliance.org.au>.
From Green Left Weekly, November 21, 2001.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.