BY ANDREW HALL
CANBERRA The Socialist Alliance was the best thing to happen on the left in Australia since the formation of the Communist Party following the 1917 Russian Revolution a bold claim from the National Tertiary Education Union's Doug Kelly but one which summed up the enthusiasm of the alliance's May 24 launch here.
The Socialist Alliance aims to be a different type of political organisation, speakers at its launch said to applause.
It's not just the people behind the table giving talks or the electoral candidates. The Socialist Alliance is everyone at [this] meeting, said the Democratic Socialist Party's James Vassilopoulos, while the International Socialist Organisation's Sylvia Liertz encouraged everyone to own the alliance and to take an active part in it.
It is time for a change, Liertz began her speech. [While] Australia has two new billionaires ... and money is used to bail out HIH, nothing is given to the other end of society.
For Vassilopoulos, the alliance presents a chance to rid socialism of the connection to Stalinism and to Bob Hawke.
The Socialist Alliance should aim to live up to three challenges, he said: to use the electoral terrain to take part in the battle of ideas; to build grassroots campaigns, such as that for freedom for refugees; and to facilitate an even broader regroupment of the left.
Several Labor Party members jumped up from the audience during discussion time, pledging to join and tearing up their ALP membership cards with delight. They will join the more than 50 people who have so far put their name to the alliance in the ACT.
Greetings were also read to the meeting from radical historian Humphrey McQueen and from Ken Fry, a former Labor member of parliament
The next meeting will be held on June 5, 7.30pm Copland Building Room 030, at the Australian National University.