BY TONY ILTIS
MELBOURNE — The Socialist Alliance has launched its campaign for the November 30 Victorian election. On November 8, the Socialist Alliance launch in the seat of Footscray, in Melbourne's west, attracted 35 people.
Surma Hamid from the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, which is affiliated to the Socialist Alliance, spoke about why socialists oppose the coming US/UN attack on Iraq. She pointed out that, while Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is an "anti-human dictator who must be overthrown", this is not reason that Washington wants to wage war on the Iraqi people.
Hamid said that the objective of the US war is not to bring freedom and human rights to the people of Iraq but to install a puppet regime that can stabilise bourgeois rule and help the US preserve its hegemony of the oil-rich region and the world.
Before 1990, Hussein was backed by the West and it turned a "blind eye" to the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds and Iranian civilians and soldiers, Hamid explained. "The world is full of weapons of mass destruction and despotic regimes, the majority of which are close allies of the US", she reminded those present.
The economic sanctions that have been enforced against Iraq since 1991 are a weapon of mass destruction, Hamid added. Iraq has been "bombed and blockaded back to stone age... The coming aggression will inflict more psychological and material damage."
Prominent Socialist Alliance member and former state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) Craig Johnston commented that it was the first time he had ever addressed a campaign launch for a parliamentary candidate. "For too long the ALP has taken the electoral arena area for granted", he said.
"The Socialist Alliance is putting forward pro-worker policies while the ALP is attacking workers and refugees. Labor is just a pale imitation of the Liberals", Johnston declared.
Johnston strongly endorsed the Socialist Alliances's candidate for Footscray, Justine Kamprad, who is an activist member of the AMWU. He pointed to her role in the formation of the AMWU Women's Committee and as a representative at the union's state and national conferences.
Kamprad told the crowd that the seat of Footscray has been held by the ALP since 1927 and wryly asked, "Haven't local people done well?". She pointed out that 85 years of ALP representation had given Footscray less public housing, terrible living standards and a lack of translation services for the 47% of the population from non-English speaking backgrounds.
"What do we have in the west? A refugee detention centre, two prisons, sub-standard roads, poor schools and bad health services", Kamprad said. She condemned the federal government's temporary protection visa system for refugees, which is supported by federal Labor. It puts a huge burden on migrant communities who must provide the services for refugees that are denied to them by the government.
Pointing to the closed factories in West Footscray, Kamprad rejected the Victorian and federal governments' refrain that there was no money for jobs. "But they always find the money to wage war and torture refugees", she noted.
During her campaign, Kamprad has focused attention on state Labor government's role in two local industrial disputes. On October 16, National Forge went into liquidation, threatening the jobs and entitlements of more than 350 workers.
Following negotiations between the AMWU, the car industry (which is a major customer of National Forge) and the government, a buyer was found for the company. However, the only the more profitable parts will be retained. Only half the employees will kept on, for three years. The Socialist Alliance has demanded that the company be nationalised, to save all the jobs.
The Socialist Alliance also supported Maribyrnong council workers who went on strike on October 30, over the Labor-dominated council's attempt to take two days of leave from them.
Michael Reidie reports that on November 7, 20 people gathered at John Curtin Hotel, opposite the Trades Hall Council building, for the launch of the Socialist Alliance's campaign in the seat of Melbourne. Candidate Arun Pradhan highlighted the Socialist Alliance's support for striking AMWU workers in the electorate.
Simon Millar, a member of the Workers First group within AMWU, spoke about the importance of winning support from workers who are disaffected with the broken promises and the right-wing policies of the Labor government.
From Green Left Weekly, November 20, 2002.
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