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Socialist Alliance condemns violent police attacks on Melbourne and Sydney occupations
Date: October 23, 2011
Socialist Alliance condemns the violent police dispersal of peaceful protesters at Occupy Melbourne (October 21) and Occupy Sydney (dawn, October 23) and pledges its full support for the re-establishment of these occupations against the tyranny of the world's richest 1%.
The experience around the world has been whenever one of these Occupy movement camps has been attacked, even more people have rallied to support them in response. We are confident the same will happen here.
We call on all people who share the Occupy movement's rejection of the gross injustices and global ecological vandalism being carried out around the world to make the richest 1% even richer to join the occupations and lend all possible solidarity and assistance to their re-establishment.
Occupy Melbourne and Occupy Sydney will be back stronger because the 1% and their enforcers cannot arrest the truth. They cannot handcuff ideas. They cannot beat the people's spirit of resistance or throw it into a paddy wagon.
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Occupy to put human need before corporate greed
The Socialist Alliance released the following statement on October 14, 2011.
The Occupy Wall Street protest started small. But it has now become a global movement, with occupy events planned in about 1500 cities worldwide.
It’s born out of the recognition that, in country after country, ordinary people are being made to pay for an economic crisis caused by the super-rich. The 99% are being told they must surrender their livelihoods, their future, their security and their dignity to keep a broken system afloat.
In contrast, the 1% are having a wonderful crisis. The world’s biggest corporations have emerged stronger, more profitable and more powerful than ever before.
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Climate change social change conference attracts hundreds
Saturday, October 8, 2011
By Viv Miley
More than 500 people gathered in Melbourne over September 30 to October 3 to take part in four days of stimulating talks and discussion at the second Climate Change Social Change conference. The conference, which featured five plenary sessions, 39 workshops and more than 90 speakers, was organised by Green Left Weekly, Socialist Alliance and Resistance.
The conference brought together activists, academics and unionists from Australia, Asia, North America and the Pacific to share ideas and experiences from the movements for indigenous sovereignty, against environmental destruction, for women's rights, for queer rights, for peace, social justice and workers’ rights.
The conference opened with a September 30 public meeting. More than 360 people crowded into the Carrillo Gantner theatre at the University of Melbourne to see the opening presentation by US author and academic John Bellamy Foster. His talk was titled “Capitalism and the Accumulation of Catastrophe”.
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'Anti-Semitism' slander ridiculous
Sunday, September 25, 2011
By Tony Iltis
Green Left Weekly, Socialist Alliance, and other left-wing groups have received more attention than normal in recent weeks in the mainstream media and even in state and federal parliamentary debates.
This attention has mainly been in response to the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid and has mostly consisted of nasty allegations of anti-Semitism, with endless colourful references to Hitler and the Nazi’s Holocaust.
There is nothing new in opponents of Israel being slandered as anti-Semites. Since its foundation, Israel has claimed to be the state for all Jews and dismissed any opposition as Jew-hatred.
The recent attacks on the left and the BDS movement in Australia are part of a broader campaign by the Coalition and the Murdoch media aimed at smearing and dividing the Greens.
Misuse of the term “anti-Semitism” is getting ridiculous, and not just in Australia.
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Letter to Pakistan High Commissioner for Australia re Baba Jan and political prisoners
September 22, 2011
Dear Mr Abdul Malik Abdullah,
We are writing to ask for your urgent intervention with the government of Pakistan to secure the release of Mr Baba Jan and five other political prisoners currently detained in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan. Mr Baba Jan is a leader of both the highly respected Labour Party Pakistan and the Progressive Youth Front in the region.
During a peaceful demonstration on August 11 by local residents of Gilgit-Baltistan demanding the payment of compensation allowances due to them following the devastating flood and landslide in the valley of Hunza on July 4, 2010, the police opened fired on the protesters, killing Afzal Baig (22 years old), then his father, Sher Ullah Baig (50 years old) who was trying to protect him. The following day, the population of Aliabad and other localities of Hunza rose up, clashing with the police. On August 19, in an attempt to silence the protesters and conceal these murders from public view, 36 people were picked up by police, then another 33 were picked up on September 16.
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Labor and Coalition unite to destroy refugee rights
Saturday, September 17, 2011
By Jay Fletcher
Now that the Labor government has almost entirely reneged on its 2007 election promise to end Australia’s sickening abuse of refugees, the two big parties are united on an issue they have so vehemently pretended to disagree.
Unhappy with the High Court’s interpretation of the law — that Australia must uphold fundamental human rights when making policies on refugees, and that deporting them to a country that does not have such rights violates the law — the Labor government is cajoling the opposition to agree to water down Australia’s refugee protections.
The proposed changes would make expelling refugees to other countries, opening offshore detention camps and turning boats around lawful under Australian law.
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Liberals attack workers' rights, public services
Saturday, September 3, 2011
By Susan Price, Sydney
The day after the Barry O’Farrell Coalition government was elected in NSW in March, NSW Business Chamber CEO Stephen Cartwright said he wanted action in the first 100 days of the new government.
He said business wanted O’Farrell to cut government spending, sign up to the weaker federal occupational health and safety laws (OH&S;), appoint a Small Business Commissioner, establish Infrastructure NSW, and produce the first report card on the progress of the Pacific Highway upgrade.
These priorities reflected the chamber’s "10 Big Ideas to Grow NSW", which was released in June last year.
Well, the NSW Business Chamber got its wish and then some.
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 Sam Watson: Tackle the real ‘Aboriginal industry’
August 27, 2011
The Strategic Review of Indigenous Expenditure was submitted to the government in February 2010 but only made public on August 7 after a long-running freedom of information case brought by Channel 7. Queensland Murri activist and Socialist Alliance spokesperson Sam Watson spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Jim McIlroy about the report’s findings.
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Over a decade ago, racist One Nation leader Pauline Hanson attacked what she called the “Aboriginal industry”. But the problem lies with the real Aboriginal industry, which is characterised by an army of white businesspeople, consultants, contractors and public servants.
This industry has made an enormous amount of money out of Aboriginal disadvantage over the years. If you closed down all Aboriginal programs tomorrow, many thousands of whites would be out of a job.
You see this contradiction right across the Northern Territory today. The whites live apart from the communities they are supposed to serve. They experience far better salaries and conditions than the Black communities.
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 Nationalise BlueScope Steel to save jobs and the environment!
Socialist Alliance statement
August 23, 2011
BlueScope Steel Ltd. announced on August 22 that it will shut two production facilities and shed 1,000 jobs as part of a restructure aimed at turning around a $1.05 billion annual loss. This will mean the shut down of a blast furnace at Port Kembla in the Illawarra region of New South Wales and closure of its Western Port hot strip mill in Victoria.
The Port Kembla closure will result in 800 job losses, while 200 jobs will be cut at Western Port.
According to the Green Jobs Illawarra Action Plan, one third of the Illawarra region’s manufacturing workforce of 18,000 are direct or contract employees of BlueScope Steel. These cuts will be devastating to communities already suffering from high unemployment and underemployment. The $3 million worth of bonuses executives are paying themselves are a further slap in the face for retrenched workers.
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Baillieu attempts to silence BDS protesters in Victoria
Our right to demonstrate in support of Palestinian human rights must be protected
Socialist Alliance statement, August 10, 2011
Millions of people across the Middle East have been protesting for freedom of speech and freedom to protest, while in Victoria, the Baillieu government is proceeding to criminalise political protest, particularly protest in support of Palestinian human rights.
The government is trying to shut down Palestine solidarity protests by:
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 Disability pensions cut, corporate profits rise
Stefan Skibicki
Saturday August 6, 2011
About 40% of new Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients may be ruled ineligible as the federal Labor government updates the tables for the assessment of work-related impairment for DSP.
Community services minister Jenny Macklin said on July 30 that the revised impairment tables will be implemented from January 1 next year and will apply to new recipients only. This is the first review of the DSP impairment tables since 1993.
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 Hands off David Hicks
Socialist Alliance statement
Thursday August 4, 2011
War criminal and former British PM Tony Blair had only just completed a lucrative commercial speaking tour of Australia when Australia’s federal Director of Public Prosecutions began court proceeding to prosecute former Guantanamo detainee David Hicks under “proceeds of crime” laws.
Government prosecutors want to seize the profits from his book Guantanamo: My Journey, of which about 30,000 copies have been sold.
Hicks has committed no crime recognised under Australian law. Even former Australian prime minister John Howard has admitted this.
The truth about Guantanamo must not be silenced.
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 Australia-Malaysia refugee swap is human trading
Socialist Alliance statement
Thursday, July 28, 2011
The Australia-Malaysia refugee “swap” deal, signed in Kuala Lumpur on July 25, further persecutes people who have escaped conflict and terror and have an international right to seek asylum in Australia.
The Australian government said the plan was intended to attacked the “people smugglers’ business model”. But, in effect, it is a high-priced human trafficking deal between two governments known for discriminating against refugees.
The refugee swap deal is part of the Australian government's ongoing attempt to criminalise and punish refugees who arrive in Australia by boat. However, it is not illegal to seek asylum, regardless of the means by which someone arrives.
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 WikiLeaks vs News Ltd: Jail Murdoch, not Assange
July 16, 2011
By Ash Pemberton
When it comes to comparing the cases of two publishers of secret information — WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch — the hypocrisy from politicians and media is huge.
The key difference between the two is obvious — one seeks to challenge the establishment, the other exerts huge control over it.
Papers run by the Murdoch-owned News International — the British arm of his media empire — were caught stealing personal information from hundreds of people as well as engaging in widespread police bribery.
Their motivation was purely cynical: to produce trashy, sensationalised stories to make money.
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 Gillard’s carbon price: not a serious response
Simon Butler, July 17, 2011
Action on climate change is one of the most important issues of all. But the Gillard government’s carbon price plan is not a serious response, grounded in the climate science.
The biggest problem is that it aims to take ten years to cut Australia’s emissions by just 5% (based on 2000 levels).
This is nowhere near enough. It’s so far from enough that even if it succeeds, the world will still be pushed into an unstable, dangerous climate system.
Most other developed countries have pledged much bigger emissions cuts than Australia. Yet most climate scientists say all the promised cuts put together will be too little, too late.
Visiting German climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber told Lateline on July 12 that the Earth was on track for a 4°C temperature rise.
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 Tasmanian Labor-Greens coalition a mistake
Susan Austin, Hobart Socialist Alliance 18 July, 2011
Socialist Alliance Hobart branch notes the recent expression of disillusionment with all political parties in parliament in Tasmania.
The state government continues to disappoint with its lack of transparency when it comes to funding dodgy deals such as the proposed Aprin loan (now scuttled after Gunns chose a different bidder), with its inability to support the proper funding of public services such as education and health, its inability to either protect our public forests or create jobs, its dodgy priorities (for example, funding race-tracks and football sponsorship while closing down Hayes prison farm), its inability to deal with the rising cost of living and the housing crisis, its inability to protect Aboriginal heritage and its inability to put the environment and the community before Gunns when it comes to the Tamar Valley pulp mill.
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 Regional left statement in solidarity with Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM)
Free All Political Prisoners!
Democracy for the Malaysian People!
On 19 June 2011 a campaign called Bersih 2.0 was launched by Malaysians wanting a free and fair elections in the country as the 13th General Election is around the corner. The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih) also called a gathering for 9 July 2011. On 24 June, the Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM - Socialist Party of Malaysia) launched a Udahlah BN, Bersaralah (Enough BN, Retire Now) campaign. The PSM campaign aimed to expose the corruption of the Barisan Nasional (BN) government and also to drum up support for the Bersih 2.0 rally.
Since 22 June, over 100 individuals have been arrested because they have expressed their support for a mass rally on 9 July, called for by Bersih. As for now, 81 people have been arbitrarily arrested and detained by the police at various locations in the country before the Bersih 2.0 rally.
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 Australian government must pressure Israel to release activists imprisoned in Tel Aviv
MEDIA RELEASE July 12, 2011
Vivienne Porzsolt (pictured in centre), spokesperson for Jews Against the Occupation and a member of the East Sydney branch of the Socialist Alliance, was arrested at Tel Aviv airport on July 11.
Her crime? Trying to visit Palestine.
Ms Porzsolt joined the Freedom Flotilla 2 along with hundreds of other pro-Palestine activists from around the world.
Three other Australians, including former Greens NSW MP Sylvia Hale (on left) and youth worker Michael Coleman (on right), also took part in the protest which was aimed at highlighting the illegal blockade of Gaza.
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 Union fight can beat O’Farrell back
Saturday, June 25, 2011
By Susan Price
In a show of anger against the attacks on workers rights by NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell, 12,000 public sector workers stopped work and rallied outside NSW parliament on June 15.
The protest was organised in just over a week, and several unions, including the Nurses Federation and the fire fighters took stopwork action on the day.
In spite of constant rain, the rally spread out for more than a block along Macquarie Street and into Martin Place.
The date was chosen to coincide with the sitting of the NSW Legislative Assembly, which passed the industrial relations legislation into law that night.
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 Carbon price: the gas agenda
Saturday, June 25, 2011
By Jess Moore
The public wants meaningful action to address climate change. The 2010 annual Lowy poll found that 86% of Australians support climate action. Forty-six percent said they supported strong action and a further 40% supported gradual steps.
Moreover, a 2011 poll by the 100% Renewable Energy Campaign asked 14,000 people their views on renewable energy and the government’s responsibility. It found 91% of respondents think the government should increase action to roll out renewable energy and that 86% think the government needs a plan to get to 100% renewables.
So the pressure is on for federal and state governments to deliver.
But what we’re getting is a lot of gas.
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 Urgent appeal for solidarity - crackdown on Malaysian socialists
Dear friends and comrades
We have received an urgent appeal for solidarity from the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) following the arrest and detention of 30 of their members including their Member of Parliament Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj and several other leading members.
They were arrested while conducting a peaceful nation-wide bus tour They were arrested while conducting a peaceful nation-wide bus tour calling for the ruling Barisan Nasional government (which has run the country since independence) to retire. For background see "Malaysia: Government arrests socialists ahead of Bersih 2.0 pro-democracy rally".
Please publicise this matter and send your messages of solidarity to the PSM to: "International Bureau PSM" int.psm@gmail.com and arul.psm@gmail.com
Thanks
Peter Boyle
National Convenor Socialist Alliance (Australia)
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 Say no to Victoria’s anti-swearing law
Saturday, June 25, 2011
For something as simple as stubbing your toe and saying “Oh, fuck” in public, the Victorian police will now be able to fine you $238.90 for swearing or using offensive language.
Does this mean that an entertainer or musician can also be fined for swearing or using offensive behaviour in their act or song?
The anti-swearing legislation doesn’t define what a “swear word” actually is. This gives the police extraordinary power to use these laws in discriminatory ways.
The police are unlikely to use this fine against everyone. They are more likely to use it against people they deem social undesirables. These could be homeless people, teenagers hanging out in a public space or even a group of activists.
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Socialist Alliance responds to harsh Tasmanian budget
State government budget is outrageous - we need a socially just alternative.
24 June 2011
Socialist Alliance members were outraged by the harsh neo-liberal budget handed down by the Tasmanian Labor-Greens government on June 16.
The budget slashes a total of $1.4 billion from the public sector over the next four years, including a $100 million cut to health within the next financial year and the closing of 20 schools. Up to 1700 full-time equivalent jobs will be scrapped, including 100 police jobs. The 5 per cent cap on water price rises was increased to 10 per cent, meaning price rises of up to $100 per quarter for households.
Public sector workers will have their pay rises capped at 2 per cent a year, with the possibility of an extra 0.5 per cent through productivity improvements, still well below rising inflation and cost of living increases.
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 Nauru refugee detention extreme, inhumane
Saturday, June 18, 2011
By Jay Fletcher
The president of the Pacific island nation of Nauru told Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott that it would move to sign the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees though it has not taken formal steps to do so.
Abbott said on June 13 this meant Prime Minister Julia Gillard had “run out of excuses” not to reopen the centre and send refugees to the small, poor nation about 4000 kilometres from Australia.
The opposition has taken Labor’s extreme and inhumane “solution” to so-called people smuggling as an opportunity to push its planned revival of the “Pacific solution” and the reintroduction of temporary protection visas.
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 Make O'Farrell’s industrial laws unworkable
Saturday, June 11, 2011
By Susan Price
A bill attacking the rights of NSW public sector workers pushed by the O’Farrell Coalition government are set to pass through the upper house on June 14, with the support of Fred Nile’s Christian Democrats and the Shooters Party.
It can then be put through the Liberal dominated lower house on June 15.
The anti-union bill is a draconian measure. If passed, it will give the state government the power to unilaterally set the wages and conditions of public sector workers.
It means the government could not only freeze or even cut wages but also cut penalty rates, shift allowances, maternity leave payments, redundancy payments and other entitlements without public sector employees having any redress to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC).
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Pay Equity: Time To Pay Up!
Socialist Alliance statement, 8 June, 2011
Gender Pay Gap Widens
Forty years after the first equal pay test case, the gap between male and female wages continues to widen.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released on 20 May 2010 put the pay gap (as of February 2010) at 18%. Women on average now earn $239.30 a week less than men. The gap is now at its highest level since August 1994. This pay gap means, on average, Australian women have to work an extra 66 days to earn the same amount as men.
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We’re not being swamped by refugees
Saturday, June 11, 2011
By Sam Wainwright, Socialist Alliance Councillor on Fremantle Council
It was a good thing when 14 Labor members of the Western Australian parliament and the federal member for Fremantle, Melissa Parke, publicly voiced their disgust that unaccompanied children would be sent to Malaysia as part of the Labor federal government’s refugee swap.
The claptrap used to sell this cruel and illogical farce is deservedly collapsing in on itself. Federal Labor’s contradictory flip-flopping on this issue has been excruciating to watch. It’s not guided by any rational policy making, but political imagery.
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 Refugees are not commodities: No outsourcing refugee obligations to Malaysia!
Joint statement of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) and the Socialist Alliance (Australia)
The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) and the Socialist Alliance in Australia denounce the recent agreement made between the governments of Malaysia and Australia, whereby Australia will send 800 asylum seekers who have been detained by Australian authorities to Malaysia in exchange for 4000 refugees currently in Malaysia.
The arrangement for this “Malaysian solution” to asylum seekers attempting to arrive in Australia clearly shows that the Australian government is washing its hands of its responsibility to protect refugees and is “off-shoring” or “outsourcing” the violation of refugee rights to Malaysia, a country with no proper legal instruments to protect the rights of refugees. Both the governments of Malaysia and Australia have not taken the plight of refugees and asylum seekers seriously, and only treat them like trade-able commodities.
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 'Worse than WorkChoices' - O’Farrell to slash public service wages
Saturday, May 28, 2011
By John Gauci
The newly-elected Barry O’Farrell Coalition government in NSW has introduced a bill that gives it unprecedented power over pay and conditions for the state's 400,000 public servants —gutting the NSW Industrial Relations Commission’s (IRC) role.
The Industrial Relations Amendment (Public Sector Conditions of Employment) Bill 2011 amends the state industrial relations act to require the IRC to “give effect to aspects of government policy declared by the regulations relating to NSW public sector conditions of employment”.
Industrial relations minister Greg Pearce told parliament on May 24 that the policy was intended to cap annual wage rises at 2.5% a year in cases where they are not funded by trade-offs in working conditions.
He said the bill was meant to ensure the “wages policy or the government’s fiscal strategy is not rendered ineffective by decisions of the Industrial Relations Commission”.
The proposed 2.5% capped wage rises are less than the rate of inflation. This would mean a wage cut for NSW public sector workers.
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 Budget 2011: A budget for billionaires
By Peter Boyle
The mining and banking companies creaming billions in super profits from the Asian industrialisation-driven mining boom in Australia – the biggest ever mining boom in this country’s history – have done very well from the federal Budget delivered by the Gillard Labor government on May 10.
The big mining companies will continue to pay the lowest ever share in tax and royalties of the biggest ever profits ripped out of the ground in Australia. And on top of that, the Budget guarantees to supply skill labour (at the lowest possible cost) to the mining companies, to reduce these companies’ obligations to contribute to the training of skilled workers, and to subsidise, by billions of dollars, the building of transport infrastructure to get the minerals shipped out as fast and, as cheaply to the mining companies, as possible. Never mind the environmental and social society as a whole will have to bear.
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Sri Lanka must be pursued for war crimes
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The report of the three-person panel appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advise him on human rights issues in Sri Lanka has found “credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law was committed both by the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam], some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
The report focused on the final months of the war between the LTTE (an organisation that fought for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka) and the Sri Lankan government.
The LTTE was defeated in May 2009.
The panel found “credible allegations associated with the final stages of the war. Between September 2008 and 19 May 2009, the Sri Lanka Army advanced its military campaign into the [Tamil province of] Vanni using large-scale and widespread shelling, causing large numbers of civilian deaths ...
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 International May Day greetings from the Socialist Alliance
The Socialist Alliance in Australia sends our warm comradely greetings and best wishes for successful activities on May 1, International Workers’ Day.
May Day this year takes place in a tumultuous time: the multiple crises confronting global capitalism are deepening, while mass resistance to its brutal rule grows. The people’s uprisings across the Arab world this year pose a major challenge to imperialism and neoliberalism, and are inspiring hope and resistance among oppressed people everywhere.
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 Socialist Alliance May Day Statement 2011
'United action is the answer'
The ALP took government on the back of the Your Rights At Work Campaign. But Labor has failed to "rip up" Work Choices.
Australian Industry Group boss, Heather Ridout, told the 2011 HR Nichols Society conference: "There were many positive elements of the previous [Coalition] Government’s work place relations laws that have been retained by the Labor Government".
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Stand up against Israeli apartheid
Socialist Alliance statement April 18, 2011
“Struggles for freedom and justices are fraught with huge moral dilemmas”, said Nobel Laureate and South African anti-apartheid campaigner Bishop Desmond Tutu last year in an address last year to students at the University of Johannesburg who were debating whether to terminate the university's agreement with Ben-Gurion University in Israel (BGU). The university decided to terminate relations with BGU on April 1, 2011.
This same moral dilemma faced Marrickville Council on December 14, 2010, but the majority of councillors (including all four Labor, all five Greens and one independent) voted in favour of joining the global non-violent call to divest and sanction Israel for its apartheid-like treatment of Palestinians.
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 Tax profits, don’t slash welfare
Monday, April 18, 2011
By Peter Boyle
As the May federal budget approaches, Labor PM Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott have gone on a welfare-recipient bashing spree. Exploiting the well-worn and reactionary “dole bludger” stereotype, they are softening us up for budget cuts to welfare and other social services.
But this sadly predictable spectacle is not washing with most people, according to the findings of an April 11 Essential Report survey.
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 Who's afraid of the Green Left?
Sunday, April 10, 2011
By Peter Boyle
For more than a week, Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian has been on the warpath against green and left “extremists”. It began by attacking the NSW Greens for supporting the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid. The Greens are organised in independent parties in each state, but the Murdoch flagship demanded that Australian Greens leader Bob Brown bring its most left-wing branch into line.
Labor PM Julia Gillard joined the fray, branding the Greens as “extremists who do not share the values of everyday Australians.” Former PMs Bob Hawke, John Howard and Kevin Rudd were rolled out to attack the Greens. Former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr accused the Greens of being “overtaken by hardline leftist Greens”.
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 Social change at the heart of climate dilemma
Simon Butler
April 3, 2011
Two days before a March 23 rally against the government’s proposed carbon price took place in Canberra, Liberal MP Dennis Jensen told reporters gathered outside parliament house why he opposed the policy.
He held up a piece of charcoal and dropped it to the ground. “Does anyone know what that is? Charcoal, also known as carbon,” he said. “If you notice when I let it go, it doesn't float into the air.”
After this attempt to rebut the science that says that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, Jensen offered another argument.
He opened a can of coke and poured it in a glass. “All of those little bubbles there, it’s the same stuff that you breathe out,” he said. “This government has managed to actually tax the air that we breathe.”
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Support the Libyan uprising but reject foreign military intervention
Socialist Alliance statement March 18, 2011
The threat of military air strikes against Libya by Britain, France, the US and allies — now supported by a March 17 UN Security Council resolution — may or may not force the despotic Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi to stop using its armed forces against the rebel-held city of Benghazi in the short term.
However, it does pose grave dangers for the sovereignty of Libya and for the wave of democratic revolts that have swept the Arab world this year.
The Socialist Alliance is a strong and active supporter of this wave of democratic uprisings. We welcomed the uprising in Libya that began on February 17 and have helped organised actions in solidarity with this uprising — as we have with the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and Bahrain.
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 Mandatory detention is the problem
Sunday, March 27, 2011
By Jay Fletcher
The situation inside every one of Australia’s refugee detention centres has grown dangerously volatile.
Just days after the Christmas Island breakout and subsequent protests, nine refugees climbed on the roof of a detention centre in Darwin after watching the assault of another refugee on March 15.
Two days later, a 20-year-old Afghan man hanged himself with a bedsheet at the Scherger detention centre after his refugee application was rejected.
Eighty men involved in the Christmas Island protests were moved to the far-north Queensland facility, despite warnings that more suicides were imminent.
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 Carbon price does not equal climate action
The statement below was released by the Socialist Alliance on March 6.
The carbon price framework recently agreed to by the ALP and the Greens is a step in the wrong direction.
This is not because, as the Coalition says, the economy — read the profits of big business — cannot afford to cut emissions. It’s because the framework will be counterproductive to real action on climate change.
The highest prices now being discussed will simply stimulate a mass rollout of gas, extending Australia's commitment to fossil fuels at the expense of renewable energy.
This is because a carbon price is a poor way to promote renewables.
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 Drop all charges against the Zimbabwean activists!
On March 21, six activists who were arrested in Harare along with 39 others while attending a video screening of footage from the people’s uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, will appear in court charged with treason. On the same day, international protest actions – including in Perth - calling for the dropping of all charges against the activists will take place.
Treason is a capital offense in Zimbabwe and Munyaradzi Gwisai, Tafadzwa Antonater Choto, Hopewell Gumbo, Tatenda Mombeyarara, Edson Chakuma and Welcome Zimuto face possible life imprisonment or execution.
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 Justice for TJ Hickey! No more deaths in custody!
Sunday, February 14, 2011
Bea Bleile, Socialist Alliance candidate for the Legislative Council in the coming NSW elections, expressed the Socialist Alliance's continuing support for the Hickey family in their quest for justice in the TJ Hickey case.
On the occasion of the 7th anniversary of TJ's tragic death, I convey our complete support and solidarity to the Hickey Family, Ray Jackson, president of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, Raul Bassi, and all groups and community members seeking justice for TJ.
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 Coalition is no alternative in NSW
Sunday, January 30, 2011
By Paola Harvey [Socialist Alliance candidate for Keira in the NSW state elections.]
Plans by the NSW Liberal/National coalition to cut $3.8 billion in state spending is yet more evidence that the Coalition is no alternative to the Labor Party in New South Wales.
If anything, opposition leader Barry O’Farrell’s plan to cut public sector jobs and services will make things even worse.
O’Farrell is hoping to romp in to government in the March state elections — not because people support his policies, but because people are so fed up with Labor.
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 One hundred years of International Women’s Day
Socialist Alliance statement March 7, 2011
This month, women’s rights campaigners around Australia and the world will celebrate the 100th International Women’s Day.
There could be no more fitting testament to the meaning of IWD than the words of one of the thousands of Egyptian women who joined the democracy protests in Liberation Square in Cairo last month. The people’s struggle to be rid of dictator Hosni Mubarak, she said, is also a struggle for women’s rights: "[Before] we had nothing, now I guess we will take everything."
IWD was born in a time of great social turbulence and massive struggles by ordinary people for a better life. In 1909, a strike of 30,000 garment workers in the United States, mainly migrant women, almost shut down the garment industry. It lasted for three months and won the right to organise and bargain collectively, and improved wages and working conditions.
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 Reverse the NSW power fire-sale, freeze electricity prices & hold a referendum on electricity privatisation
Media Release January 4, 2011
The Socialist Alliance condemns NSW Premier Kristina Keneally and Treasurer Eric Roozendaal for their sell off of electricity trading rights for a mere $5.3 billion just before the Christmas shut-down, said Peter Boyle, national convener of the Alliance and its lead upper house candidate in the March NSW elections.
“The Socialist Alliance is campaigning in the NSW elections for the annulment and reversal of the electricity privatisation.
“We also call for a freeze on electricity prices pending a state-wide plebiscite on the privatisation of electricity. Which ever party wins the next elections should let the people of NSW decide on this critical issue.
“We condemn the Keneally government for closing down Parliament in order to try and block a parliamentary inquiry into this irresponsible fire-sale.”
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 Floods, cyclone shows climate action needed now
Socialist Alliance statement
February 4, 2011
Solidarity and support is needed to help with the impact of the devastating floods that swept through Queensland and other states in January, and Cyclone Yasi in early February.
The cost of loss of life and personal trauma is incalculable, and the resources needed to rebuild, will be huge.
Future prevention or reduction must be part of this. When extreme weather events happen more often and with greater intensity, that's not just weather. Climate — the average of weather — is changing. So we must tackle climate change.
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 Message of solidarity with Tasmanian Aboriginal community
On Friday January 8, 2011 the Socialist National Executive adopted the following statement in solidarity with the Tasmanian Aboriginal community's campaign against the planned Brighton Bypass bridge.
"Socialist Alliance supports the struggle of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community to protect their cultural heritage at Kutalayna, the site of the proposed Brighton Bypass bridge over the Jordan River.
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Documents & Discussion
Socialist Alliance constitution
Socialist Alliance policy
Alliance Voices discussion bulletin
Socialist Alliance wiki site
7th National Conference decisions
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Keep up to date with Fremantle's socialist councillor, Sam Wainwright.
