Democratic Socialists launch campaign for Denison

By Iggy Kim HOBART — The Democratic Socialist candidate for the seat of Denison, Sarah Stephen, speaking at her campaign launch on February 10, attacked the Labor Party for giving young people no future to look forward to. "We wondered whether Keating's decision last year to increase funding for youth suicide prevention programs, while introducing a whole lot of cutbacks, was just a sick joke. It's clear that there's a direct link between youth homelessness, unemployment and poverty and youth suicide." Stephen argued that Labor's youth policy "was a lot of hype" but that fundamentally "it's a rehash of a lot of old policy — youth 'slave' training wages and government subsidies for business, as well as cramming more young people back into school". "Young people today are more disillusioned and cynical about parliamentary politics than ever before. And it's hardly a surprise. The choice between Labor and Liberal is clearly no choice at all. We want to tap into that disillusionment amongst young people and channel it in a positive direction — to build a movement that can overturn the undemocratic, farcical nature of parliamentary politics. "The Democratic Socialists' campaign aims to push for a fundamentally different approach to parliamentary politics — one that uses parliament to support and build the progressive campaigns that people are involved in, to build the 'parliament of the streets', Stephen concluded.