By Peter Boyle
The socialist vote declined in the October 3 federal election, reflecting the swing back to the ALP in traditional Labor seats, where most of the 39 left candidates stood. The Greens and the Australian Democrats also suffered a decline.
The Democratic Socialists — the largest socialist team with 12 Senate candidates covering every state, and 12 House of Representatives candidates — attracted about 25,000 votes, primarily in the Senate.
The Democratic Socialists fielded a lower house candidate in Newcastle but the election there was postponed because of the death of the Australian Democrat candidate.
The Democratic Socialists' candidates averaged 0.8% of the vote in lower house seats, despite competition from Green, and in some cases several other alternative candidates.
In the Senate, the Democratic Socialist teams averaged 0.3%. Their best result was in South Australia, where the party won 0.5% of the Senate vote.
"We had our highest House of Representatives votes in the ACT (averaging 1.4%)", said national secretary John Percy. "This reflects the respect we have won there through our leadership in several union and other movement struggles. In the NSW Senate, we out-polled relatively established alternative electoral groups like Common Cause-No Aircraft Noise.
"On the whole we are pleased with our vote, especially as this is the first time since 1990 that the party name has been on ballot papers and many of our activists are fully occupied by educating the 600 new members that Resistance recruited during the anti-racist campaign."
The Communist Party of Australia's two House of Representatives candidates, listed without party affiliation on the ballot paper, scored 0.6% and 1%.
The Progressive Labour Party's lower house candidates in Victoria obtained 4.2% and 2.4% in seats where no Green or other alternative candidates were standing.
The Victorian-based Militant group's sole candidate, listed as an independent on the ballot paper, obtained 1.2% of the vote.
The recently formed Broad Alliance averaged 0.7% of the vote in the two NSW seats it contested. The Socialist Equality Party (formerly the Socialist Labour League) and the Communist League candidates received far smaller votes.