Socialist campaign launched in Adelaide
By Liam Mitchell
ADELAIDE — The Democratic Socialist election campaign for the South Australian seats of Adelaide and Hindmarsh was launched with a "Meet the Candidates" public meeting on Saturday, February 13, attended by 30 people.
The Democratic Socialist Electoral League is standing Melanie Sjoberg in Hindmarsh and Adam Hanieh in Adelaide.
Sjoberg talked about the role of the Labor Party and the Accord in keeping workers' wages down and the need for an alternative to both the ALP and the Liberals.
She said that the Democrats, while posing as an alternative, operated purely within the parliamentarist framework. What was needed was a new kind of politics — one that aims to build a movement and put people first.
Hanieh spoke of the policies that should be implemented by a progressive government — protection of the environment and real measures to reverse the damage already done, creation of jobs for unemployed people, democratic rights for women, unions, migrants and Aborigines, the defence and extension of the public sector and a guaranteed minimum income for all.
He also stressed that working people should not have to pay to get the economy out of the mess it is in; the costs should be paid from record corporate profits. Big business should be paying to relieve the burden it has placed on ordinary people, he said.
Discussion took up a number of issues as well as running the campaign itself. Participants stressed the need to emphasise alternative funding for DSEL policies and that an alternative to the two-party system must seek to involve people in politics and control over their own lives.