Elections

Last September, while campaigning for the position of Lord Mayor of Newcastle and a ward councillor, I bumped into an NSW Labor Party officer at a coffee shop.

“Comrade”, he said, “You’ve got some great policies”. “Feel free to borrow any of them,” I relied cheekily. “Our housing policy, for example, is based on Socialist Alliance councillor Sue Bolton's work in Moreland, Victoria.”

The next day the local papers reported that ALP candidates were talking up “affordable housing”.

There are many ways to fix New South Wales — currently plagued by cuts, privatisations and tollway madness — participants at a socialist activist conference concluded on August 12. The day-long discussion ended with the election of a team of Socialist Alliance candidates to contest for the NSW Legislative Council in the March 2019 elections.

Victorian Socialists, as trenchant anti-racists, share the disgust and outrage of many at the speech made by Katter’s Australian Party senator Fraser Anning on August 14.

In the context of calling for the reintroduction of White Australia and acceptance of racial discrimination, particularly targeting Muslims, we cannot believe the term “final solution” was used by Anning with any intention but to invoke Goebbels. This was the speech of a fascist. 

Before the “super Saturday” byelections on July 28, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was saying the outcome would be a “test of leadership”.

Then he lost all five contests and changed his tune.

By now, it is widely known that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “won the election” in his country. But Muhsin Yorulmaz writes that the authoritarian leader’s support is waning.