Australia

The Australian Labor Party’s climate action platform for the May 2019 Federal Election was the most ambitious yet. Pre-election polls showed climate change was a high priority for voters.

The Liberal-National coalition was divided on climate action. Climate-change deniers controlled the party room, and had elected Scott Morrison as leader, an MP who had famously cradled a lump of coal in parliament to show his support for coal-fired power. Yet Labor lost the election.

The veteran Marxist writer Paul Le Blanc has written the most substantial and critical account yet of the collapse of the USA’s International Socialist Organization, of which Le Blanc was himself a member, though not a central one.

Dick Bryan spoke to Janet Burstall for Workers'Liberty about Labor's tax policies and the federal election results. Dick researches the significance of financialisation, for capital, labour and households. He is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at Sydney University and co-author of the book Risking together.

The ruling conservative coalition won a surprise victory in Australia's federal election on 18 May.

People are asking: how could Labor lose on a platform with a bigger offer of reforms than any other in recent times?

Labor promised to turn government policy towards meeting some of the concerns of trade unions on workers rights, of climate activists on the need to reduce carbon emissions, and of the left more broadly on inequality.

But the underlying theme of class was not addressed by anyone other than the three Victorian Socialists candidates.

Extinction Rebellion, after eleven days of ambitious, disruptive, relatively widespread, and extensively covered actions in their “International Rebellion”, (15-25 April), have moved into a “regenerative, resting phase". They have been celebrating wins so far: media coverage, politicians seeming receptive, changes in public narratives towards recognising the gravity of the situation; reportedly huge expansions of local XR branches.

Interview with Daisy Thomas by Janet Burstall

After an impressive campaign in the 2018 Victorian State Election, the Victorian Socialists are running in the same region of Melbourne in the Australian federal election of 18 May 2019.

The election platform (https://www.victoriansocialists.org.au/election_platform) has a generally OK grab bag of demands, essentially left reformist, but including traditional socialist demands for nationalisation, with variations of calls for community, workers' or democratic control.

Between the two major contenders – the Australian Labor Party (ALP) versus the conservative Liberal Party-National party coalition (LNP) - the coming federal election in Australia (18 May 2019) brings much more differentiation on class grounds than recently seen; and also a significant difference on climate change.

Friday 15 March was a day of contrast in both Australia and New Zealand – exuberance and militant action by students striking for climate action in both Australia; followed immediately by immense sadness, horror and anger at the mass murder by a fascist at a mosque in Christchurch.