BY NIKKI ULASOWSKI
PERTH — Around 60 members and supporters of the Socialist Alliance attended the organisation's WA conference on October 12. A variety of workshops and plenary sessions were held, discussing topics such as fighting governments' and employers' attacks on workers' rights, the Australia-US free trade agreement, globalisation, politics in Latin America and many others.
The conference also considered the campaigning and outreach work of the alliance. The conference voted to begin organising caucuses in areas of political work conducted by Socialist Alliance members. It also finalised plans to stand candidates in the next federal election. Participants voted to endorse the "Stop Bush" protest on October 23.
Barry Healy, co-convenor of the newly formed Perth Hills Socialist Alliance branch, told the conference that the anti-war movement "expressed a fundamental rejection by the majority of the peoples of the world of the legitimacy of the imperialist war drive in general, and the US-led war on Iraq in particular. It expressed a deep yearning for a peaceful world in which everyone can live with a sense of security. It expressed a sincere cry for justice, especially justice for the peoples of the Third World. Certainly, there is a lull in that movement at the moment, as the Iraqi people begin their resistance against the US invaders. But the movement hasn't gone away."
Healy added: "I believe those demonstrations will be seen in the decades to come as a turning point of human culture. We socialists will build upon those sentiments to lead the peoples of the world to freedom."
From Green Left Weekly, October 22, 2003.
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