Australian Labor government lines up behind US/Israeli attacks on ICC
Labor’s leaders have again backed the Israeli regime, after it has murdered more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza as part of a genocidal ethnic-cleansing campaign.
Oscar Grenfell•
The Socialist Equality Party (Australia)
VIDEO: SEP (Australia) meeting—“Free Julian Assange! Oppose imperialist war!”
Speakers emphasised that the fight against Israel’s genocide, imperialist war and for the freedom of Assange must be based on the independent mobilisation of the working class against capitalism.
League of imperialist criminals denounces the International Criminal Court
US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have joined hands with the fascistic Christian fundamentalist Republicans Mike Johnson and Lindsay Graham to condemn the ICC and assert the right of Israel and the United States to commit war crimes with impunity.
Jordan Shilton, Andre Damon•
Australian Labor Party hysterically denounces pro-Palestinian protesters at its Victorian conference
The branding of anti-genocide demonstrators at Labor’s conference as a violent mob is the latest example of a broader campaign to vilify and potentially outlaw opposition to Israel’s onslaught in Gaza.
Patrick O’Connor, Oscar Grenfell•
Labor government attacks its own senator for condemning Gaza genocide, Australian complicity
Labor joined hands with the Liberal-Nationals to pass a motion denouncing opposition to the mass murder, exposing the de facto unity ticket they are on in support of genocide and war.
Oscar Grenfell•
Oscar Grenfell•
Mike Head•
International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees•
Martin Scott•
Peter Symonds•
Put the SEP on the ballot! Become an electoral member of the SEP! Take up the fight against genocide, war and inequality!
This campaign is essential to ensure that the Socialist Equality Party’s name appears on the ballot papers for the next federal election, as the only party fighting for the socialist alternative to capitalist barbarism, war, inequality and dictatorship.
Stop the political frame-up of Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk!
The fraudulent charge of treason brought against Syrotiuk is aimed at intimidating and suppressing growing opposition among Ukrainian workers and youth to the imperialist-backed Zelensky regime and the escalating war against Russia.
David North•
Australian educators demand the release of Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk
“Bogdan is the victim of trumped-up charges, intended to strike fear into others who are seen to be enemies of the state because of their opposition to the Ukraine government.”
Our correspondents•
Health Workers Rank-and-File Committee in Australia demands the release of Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk
“Socialist opponents of the Ukraine war are being demonised as traitors just as opponents of the Gaza genocide are being slandered as antisemitic and terrorist supporters.” – Dr Zewlan Moor
Our correspondents•
Australian educators’ rank-and-file committee demands that Ukrainian regime release Bogdan Syrotiuk
A meeting of the Committee for Public Education denounced the arrest of the courageous Ukrainian socialist and demanded his immediate freedom.
Our correspondent•
Our correspondents•
Clara Weiss•
Clara Weiss•
Kevin Reed•
David North•
Contact the SEP!
Phone: (02) 8218 3222
Email: sep@sep.org.au
Facebook: SocialistEqualityPartyAustralia
Twitter: @SEP_Australia
Instagram: socialistequalityparty_au
TikTok: @SEP_Australia
PO Box 75
Kingsgrove, NSW, 1480
Revealing data on escalation of income inequality in Australia
Tax concessions for the wealthy and corporations far outweigh the “not fiscally sustainable” cost of increasing welfare payments by $550 a fortnight.
Nick Beams•
Australian “cost-of-living” budget fails to stem political disaffection
Post-budget polls point to primary voting support for the Labor government falling further below the near-record low vote of 32.5 percent at the May 2022 federal election.
Mike Head•
Australian Labor government’s budget benefits the corporate elite behind token “cost-of-living relief”
Facing an election within 12 months, the Labor administration is desperately trying to head off working-class disaffection over the intensifying cost-of-living crisis.
Mike Head•
Australia: Misleading stats used to conceal social causes of “gender-based violence”
Amid the current highly promoted campaign over “violence against women,” the actual situation surrounding the latest tragic deaths is deliberately ignored to conceal the social conditions that produce such deadly events.
Cheryl Crisp•
Oscar Grenfell•
Vicki Mylonas•
Mike Head•
Patrick O’Connor•
Mike Head•
Australia: Deakin staff defend students involved in pro-Gaza university encampments
More universities have issued eviction notices, and an encampment that was previously attacked by Zionist thugs at Monash University has now been dismantled.
Eric Ludlow, Oscar Grenfell•
Australia: Gold Coast Gaza rally hears socialist anti-war perspective
Led by young workers and Middle Eastern families, more than 100 people rallied and marched through Surfers Paradise on Saturday to denounce the intensifying Israeli genocide in Gaza and the Australian Labor government’s support for it.
Our correspondent•
Students at university encampments in Australia speak out against Gaza genocide, war
“There’s no doubt about the state of the world right now. It’s so terrifying. That’s why we’re all here, to show that we’re anti-war. With Russia and Ukraine too, there is just conflict everywhere at the moment. It has to stop.”
Our reporters•
Australia: Committee For Public Education holds forum opposing the Gaza genocide and educators’ victimisation
The CFPE forum called for educators to mobilise against the imperialist-backed genocide in Gaza and the accompanying crackdown on democratic rights.
our reporters•
Our reporters•
Eric Ludlow•
Our reporters•
Our reporters•
Health Workers Rank-and-File Committee (Australia)•
Beams pointed to the roots of the pseudo-left in tendencies that broke from the Trotskyist movement and rejected the revolutionary role of the working class.
Australia: Police called to shut down SEP campaign as Victorian nurses reject union-government wage cut
The real-wage slashing deal was voted down in a meeting of around 3,000 health workers, despite a concerted attempt by the union leadership to suppress criticism of the proposed enterprise agreement and fraudulently portray it as a win.
Martin Scott•
Australia: NTEU opposes fight against job cuts and restructuring at Western Sydney University College
What became evident is essentially a partnership between the union and management to stifle opposition by pressuring or encouraging staff members to apply for redundancies.
Our correspondents•
Australia: Telstra slashes 2,800 jobs in latest profit-driven restructuring
Telstra’s is the largest job cut announcement by an Australian company so far this year, but takes place in the context of a broader attack on working-class jobs and wages.
Martin Scott•
Australia: Workers face 30 percent pay cut during protracted repairs at Whyalla Steelworks
With the collaboration of the unions, workers are being forced to shoulder the cost of the failed repairs, which are now expected to take at least another month.
Steve Strietberg•
Clare Bruderlin•
Martin Scott•
Our reporters•
Clare Bruderlin, Martin Scott•
Paul Bartizan, Martin Scott•
Stella Assange: “Julian is just one decision away from being extradited”
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson told the assembled media, “It is abundantly clear that the process in the courts in the United Kingdom are corrupt. The case is rigged against Julian.”
Laura Tiernan•
Australian Labor government complicit in Assange extradition threat
The Labor government is doing nothing to obstruct Assange’s looming extradition to the US, where he would face 175 years imprisonment for exposing war crimes.
Oscar Grenfell•
Julian Assange and the fight against imperialist war
The World Socialist Web Site is publishing the text of the speech delivered by Socialist Equality Party National Secretary Chris Marsden and Assistant National Secretary Tom Scripps at public meetings held in Manchester, London, Inverness and Sheffield.
Thomas Scripps, Chris Marsden•
Australian educators demand freedom of Julian Assange
A group of teachers from the northern and western working-class suburbs of Melbourne overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding the immediate and unconditional freedom of imprisoned journalist Julian Assange.
Committee for Public Education•
Thomas Scripps•
Thomas Scripps•
Richard Phillips, Oscar Grenfell•
Thomas Scripps•
Mike Head•
Book launch with David North and Evan Blake: Two works, on Trotsky and the pandemic
At an event in Sydney, Australia on Thursday, May 25, World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North launched his new book Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century. He was joined by Evan Blake, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States, who presented another new title from Mehring Books, COVID, Capitalism, and Class War: A Social and Political Chronology of the Pandemic.
IYSSE Australia and New Zealand hold meetings on way forward in fight against Gaza genocide
Events were hosted in person on campuses at the University of Melbourne, University of Newcastle and Western Sydney University. An in-person meeting was also held in Brisbane and an online one in New Zealand.
Our reporters•
IYSSE meetings in Australia and New Zealand: The crisis of political perspective of the Gaza protests
We encourage youth, students and workers to attend the events which will provide the international socialist revolutionary program necessary to end the genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli state and its imperialist backers.
International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia)•
Oppose Zionist harassment of Gaza genocide opponents at the University of Melbourne!
Zionist activists from the Melbourne University Jewish Students Society have twice sought to disrupt IYSSE campaigns opposing the Gaza genocide.
Our reporters•
Australian students strike again to protest Israel’s genocide in Gaza
It does not detract from the political importance of the student strikes to note that they have become smaller. Blame for this lies with the pseudo-left organisations who, at present, form the leadership of these protests.
Eric Ludlow•
International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia)•
Our reporters•
Jason Quill, Eric Ludlow•
Eric Ludlow, Oscar Grenfell•
International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia)•
Australian “military secrets” laws threaten researchers
Chilling legislation points to intensifying AUKUS preparations for war against China.
Mike Head•
Australian whistleblower sent to prison for exposing Afghan war crimes
David McBride is the first person prosecuted over the documented war crimes, including extrajudicial killings—not for perpetrating them but for exposing them.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australian chopper and Chinese fighter involved in so-called “near miss”
The Australian government and media, as well as the US, have deliberately inflated the incident, exploiting it to again ratchet up tensions with Beijing.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australian defence minister in Ukraine, backs US-NATO war against Russia
Marles’ visit confirmed that Australia is now providing lethal aid to Ukraine, making it a de facto participant in the US-NATO conflict with Russia.
Oscar Grenfell•
Ben McGrath•
Oscar Grenfell•
Mike Head•
Peter Symonds•
Oscar Grenfell•
Rising infection and death rates from COVID contracted in Australian hospitals
Australian hospitals and other medical facilities now determine their own COVID policy with only slight variations in their approaches to “preventing” infection with the deadly disease.
John Mackay•
Australian government, media silent on last COVID wave that killed one thousand people
While experts have pointed to the dangerous implications of the recent spread of the Juno variant, their statements have been ignored by the Labor governments and the official press.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australia: Queensland’s chief health officer calls for the scrapping of the term “Long COVID”
Gerrard’s assertion is part of the campaign by the political establishment in Australia to normalise COVID-19 with the claim that Long COVID is no different to the long-term symptoms of seasonal influenza.
Frank Gaglioti•
On the eve of Long COVID protest: An interview with Julie Lam, photographer and founder of MaskTogetherAmerica
Scheduled to address the March 15 protest by Long COVID patients at the Lincoln Memorial, Julie Lam speaks with the WSWS.
Benjamin Mateus•
Bill Shaw•
Bill Shaw•
Oscar Grenfell•
Bill Shaw•
Chris Gordon•
Put a socialist, anti-war party on the ballot! Join the SEP (Australia) as an electoral member today!
Socialist Equality Party assistant national secretary Max Boddy calls on workers and young people in Australia to sign up as an SEP electoral member.
Apply for electoral membership of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia)
The SEP has launched an energetic campaign to register with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) as a political party. This will enable us to field candidates with the party name on the ballot paper in the next federal elections. We are currently excluded from this basic right due to anti-democratic electoral laws jointly rammed through the Australian parliament by the Labor and Liberal parties on August 26, 2021, which tripled the required membership number to 1,500. This is to block ordinary people from choosing to vote for a socialist candidate.
The working class must have a conscious political voice. Join the SEP today.
Our party fights for:
● Social equality for all!
● An immediate end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
● An end to all militarism and war.
● A scientific program to eradicate the coronavirus pandemic. No to the mass death policies of the ruling elite.
● Against nationalism and racism. For the unity of the international working class.
● Quality, free education and healthcare for all. A decent, full-time job with permanent conditions for those able to work.
● A workers’ government and socialism—democratic control of the wealth that workers produce, for human need, not corporate wealth.
There is no solution to the crisis confronting the working class except by ending the capitalist system. The slaughter being carried out in Gaza is the latest and most bloody expression of the drive by imperialism to World War III. We advance a socialist program that calls for the abolition of a society based on corporate profits, the establishment of democratically-controlled public ownership over big business, and the dissolution of the vast military-industrial complex.
Fill out this form to apply to join the SEP as an Electoral Member.
Membership is free.
Fight the bipartisan attack on democracy—join the SEP as an electoral member!
In a blatant act of political censorship, the Socialist Equality Party has been deregistered. Nevertheless, the SEP will stand candidates in the federal election, if and when it is called, and conduct the broadest possible campaign for a genuine socialist alternative.
Read more
Australia: Fight the climate change disaster, become an SEP electoral member
What is required is the struggle for socialism, based on a turn to the working class, the social force whose fundamental interests align with reconstructing society to address the climate crisis.
Mark Wilson•
Australia: Workers and youth in Melbourne explain why they support the SEP’s electoral member campaign
The SEP has received an important initial response, amid widespread hostility towards the major parties and an anti-war politicisation fuelled by outrage over the ongoing US- and Australian-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Our reporters•
VIDEO: Workers and young people sign up to put the SEP (Australia) on the ballot
“The Socialist Equality Party are the only ones presenting an alternative to capitalism, imperialism, genocide and the normalisation of mass death.”
Our reporters•
Long-time Australian Labor Party member resigns to become SEP electoral member
A retired nurse and longtime Labor Party member explains why he has quit that party to join the Socialist Equality Party as an electoral member.
Mike Head•
Our reporters•
Our reporters•
Mike Head•
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Mike Head•
Defeat of Australian Labor’s Voice referendum highlights stark class divide, not racism
The Voice voting patterns demonstrate the intensifying hostility of working-class people to the entire political establishment.
Mike Head•
Indigenous Voice leaders denounce Australian voters
An open letter, issued by a privileged layer of indigenous figures who led the Voice Yes campaign, further highlights the immense class chasm shown in the referendum’s overwhelming defeat on October 14.
Mike Head•
Australian pseudo-left slanders population as racist after defeat of Voice referendum
Socialist Alternative’s analysis of the referendum is an attack on the working class, exposing this organisation as a rightward moving representative of privileged layers of the affluent upper middle-class.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australian workers oppose the Voice, call for better conditions for Aboriginal people
“The Labor government is not working class, it is an elite group of people, setting up a puppet called the Voice.”
Our reporters•
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Our reporters•
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Oscar Grenfell•
Max Boddy•
Resolution adopted at the Sixth Congress of the SEP (Australia)
The COVID disaster and the political crisis of Australian capitalism
“The criminal ‘let it rip’ pandemic policies of governments—invariably enforced by the labour and trade union bureaucracies—have exposed the brutality of capitalism, and its readiness to sacrifice lives for corporate profit and private wealth accumulation.”
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Resolution adopted at the Sixth Congress of the SEP (Australia)
Build an international movement of the working class against imperialist war!
“The same contradictions and crisis of world capitalism are also propelling the working class into struggle, providing the basis for the building of an international anti-war movement.”
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees!
A mass network of interconnected rank-and-file committees can and must serve as the foundation for the fight for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a workers’ government based on a socialist program.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Free Julian Assange!
The ongoing persecution of Julian Assange is bound up with imperialist war, escalating online censorship and a broader turn to authoritarianism.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Historical Foundations
The program of the Socialist Equality Party is of a principled, not a conjunctural and pragmatic, character. It is based on an analysis of the crisis of world capitalism and an assimilation of the strategic revolutionary experiences of the working class and the international socialist movement.
The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party was adopted by the Founding Congress of the SEP in Sydney in 2010. It traces the historical events and strategic experiences of the working class and Marxist movement spanning more than a century.
Principles
Membership in the Socialist Equality Party is based on agreement with its Statement of Principles. The principles of the SEP incorporate the essential experiences of the revolutionary upheavals of the twentieth century and the corresponding struggle waged by Marxists for the program of world socialist revolution.
Lecture series: Why study the history of Trotskyism?
The lectures, now all available online, reviewed some of the fundamental lessons of the protracted struggle by the Trotskyist movement for socialist internationalism.
Leadership
Crisp was a founding member of the Socialist Labour League, the forerunner of the SEP, in 1972, and has played a leading role in the Trotskyist movement in Australia for more than four decades. She was elected National Secretary at the Fifth National Congress of the SEP in 2020.
Max was elected to the position of assistant national secretary at the 2020 SEP National Congress. He writes regularly for the WSWS on issues facing asylum seekers and their inhumane treatment at the hands of Australian governments. He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Newcastle, majoring in Aboriginal Studies.
Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000.