Workers' Liberty 25 August 2002

back to WL25 front page

Draft priority pledge for the NSW election campaign

The Socialist Alliance is standing in the New South Wales elections to give a voice to the solidarity and struggles of people who have to work to earn a living, who have no property and investments to keep them in luxury.

Our platform is based on the demands that workers are fighting for in New South Wales, as well as on the necessary matching demands that the power and privileges of capital must be challenged and their monopoly of wealth and production be ended by a government that is serious about meeting the needs of the majority.

A Labor government acts so much like a Liberal government, because Labor will not challenge the wealthy, because Labor believes that society is best run when the major enterprises and industries are run for a profit by private owners, not for human need by democratically elected and accountable bodies.

• The Socialist Alliance specifically stands with public sector workers, defending public provision of vital services such as schools, child care, hospitals, public transport and environment protection. The Socialist Alliance pledges to fight for the resources from the Federal Government that are needed to be able to provide these services. We are for these services to be provided by securely employing sufficient workers on decent wages and conditions, including high standards of health and safety backed up by effective workers' compensation.
• The Socialist Alliance is on the side of workers in NSW fighting for jobs and union rights, including equal pay for women, and opposes all laws which can be used to stop union action.
• We pledge to support struggles for environment protection, and against the sell off of publicly owned land to private developers.
• We support the rights of asylum seekers to come to Australia and would offer these people assistance with resettlement in place of the abusive policy of mandatory detention now in force.
• We are totally opposed to the so-called "Anti Terror Laws" now being debated in Canberra, which (if enacted) would be used to attack and frame working class organisations and left wing and trade union militants.
• We say: not one soldier, not one gun, not one bullet, and no backup support for George W. Bush's coming war against Iraq.
• We are for full reconciliation with Australia's indigenous peoples: we support land rights, native title and a treaty.

Any Socialist Alliance candidates elected to the NSW parliament will be uncompromising and outspoken representatives of people taking up these struggles. We will use our positions to challenge the rotten, corrupt system that is administered against us and for the wealthy by Labor and Liberal alike, and to replace it with public ownership and democratic control by workers and the community.