The following is abridged from a speech given by Stephen Jolly, Socialist Party member and Yarra city councillor, to the council's swearing-in ceremony at Richmond Town Hall on December 1.
Last Saturday, 91% of voters in this area voted for what they believed were left-wing candidates — either Green or Labor or Socialist Party. This sends an important message, by the way, to the Labor Party federally, which seem to think that after its defeat last month it has to embrace evangelical Christianity and be even more pro-market in order to win elections. The people of this area have exposed that idea for the rubbish it is.
The brave and defiant stand of locals last Saturday shows that they expect us to provide some sort of relief from the neoliberalism of the state and federal governments and big business.
Relief for the working families who are mired in debt and struggling to provide for their children — with childcare and aftercare and vacation-care debts.
Relief for the old people, especially in the low-rise housing commission homes in Collingwood, who after 50 years of paying taxes and slaving for bosses are left to rot with no support.
Relief for the people of the housing commission estates who live every day faced with mass unemployment, deep poverty and drug use in and around their homes.
Relief for the groovy young people who serve us our cafe lattes and cappucinos in Smith Street and Brunswick Street, but when you scratch their shell you find young workers trapped in long-term casualisation.
As a socialist I say, relief even for the home owners and middle class and small businesses in this area who are hit year-in, year-out with rate rises by a council too scared to fight federal and state government cuts to their funding and instead decide to off-load the problem onto homeowners.
The Socialist Party wants to improve conditions on the housing commission estates through better access to child care, after care and vacation care and more youth workers.
We want council to stand up to dodgy development in our area, such as the Banco development on Smith Street. If Banco thinks it can go over the heads of the 1500 people who lodged objections to its plans it will have another thing coming.
We want to fight for the urban environment by opposing the extension of the Eastern Freeway, which will worsen air pollution and boost car use in our area.
And we want to support local workers by opposing long-term casualisation. If small businesses want support from council they must show that they are sticking to basic occupational health and safety and industrial laws.
To get these changes local people must continue to mobilise and organise. Socialist councillors cannot do it on their own. The fight to implement our program will not be easy.
The current budget, voted in by the old council with four ALP and four Green councillors says in its preamble: "New initiatives or projects that are not cost neutral to be justified through a business case". In other words, we had a council that was Green-ALP in name, but Thatcherite in economic policy. This will be challenged in 2005.
We believe the similarities between the Greens and Labor are greater than the similarities between these two blocs and the Socialist Party. That is why I voted tonight for (Labor's) Kay Meadows for mayor for the next 12 months — I will ensure both Labor and Green and the independents all get a go at the mayor's job in the next four years.
We, on the other hand, want to drive through policy successes so that in four years' time we can say to the electorate, "This is what we did with one councillor — can you imagine what we could do with a majority Socialist Party council?" We will use — and already have used — our position to squeeze every reform for ordinary people that we can. This will come out more clearly in the next week or two.
In conclusion, we live in the most exciting part of Melbourne at the moment. A journalist on a local paper said to me this week: "I'm glad I work on this paper and not somewhere in the eastern suburbs. This is going to be an exciting four years!" Last Saturday made me even prouder to live in this area. I still can't believe that the people of Collingwood, Fitzroy, Clifton Hill and the rest of the area voted for the Socialist Party in enough numbers to get us elected.
We are about to make history. We want to try to stand up to the juggernaut of neoliberalism that has gone on for the last 30 years. Let's together storm the gates of heaven. Let's make the next four years a success.
From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.
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