Socialists announce candidates
By Liam Mitchell
ADELAIDE — The Democratic Socialists have announced two candidates for the next South Australian elections. A major point in their platform will be greater democracy and the involvement of ordinary people in running the state, especially in the wake of the bail-out of the SA State Bank.
Melanie Sjoberg, candidate for the seat of Adelaide, told Green Left Weekly that the collapse of the bank was an indication of the problems with both the economic system and the government.
"It's not good enough to call for the heads of the former premier, John Bannon, and those of the board of the bank", she said.
"While it is certainly true that there is nowhere near enough accountability in government, to merely lay the blame at the feet of Bannon or the Labor government as a whole is to leave unanswered the very problems that the collapse stemmed from."
Sjoberg pointed out that the causes of the bank's "quite legal, if negligent, deals between the bank and private interests. The illegal operations amount to a small portion of the bank's overall losses.
"What we have and what needs to be changed, is that a small number of unelected bureaucrats are being paid exorbitant salaries to gamble with public money. This has been quite legal and indeed goes on all the time.
"What should be criminal is financing projects that aimed to make a profit for a handful of people. It is the system that allows this — they were merely following capitalism's economic laws — and it is this system that we need to change."
Trish Corcoran, candidate for Peake, is a member of the socialist youth organisation Resistance and involved in issues such as youth rights, unemployment and public transport and the environment.
"Public transport is in a shocking state with the way the government has been slashing services", she told Green Left.
"We have a car-choked city, with fewer and fewer alternative options. The government needs to spend more on transport, not less, and attract people back to using public transport.
"For this to happen, it must be accessible to everyone. However, lately it has become much harder for people to use."