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Given that it is a interesting election for Australia, it may be useful to monitor the various left responses to the Socialist Alliance and other left of Labor campaigns. Despite the a calibre of candidates like Sam, standing for the Socialist Alliance --or the ideological question of what the various platforms propose to do about anything specific (like capitalism OR refugees OR industrial laws OR indigenous rights OR climate change... ) -- Socialist Alternative has advised its readers to vote this way: http://www.sa.org.au/federal-election "In the coming elections Socialist Alternative advocates giving a first preference vote to either Labor, the Greens or others who are genuinely left-wing, like socialist candidates, and putting the Liberals last. However what really matters is not what we do in our five minutes in the polling booths, but what we do day in and day out to build a fighting movement that can begin to turn the tide in our favour." At the last federal election Socialist Alternative ignored the existence of the SA (and other socialist campaigns) all together, but this time around " socialist candidates" are warranting being listed even though they are treated on par with a liberal bourgeois party and middle class party dedicated to electoralism . Nonetheless, what matters this election, under the Australian preferential voting system -- is how many first preference votes can be generated away from the Labor Party to its left while also ensuing a victory of Labor instead of the Coalition (Liberal/National Party). At stake is breaking out further from the crippling duopoly of the two party system and exposing working people to a much broader range of progressive and left political options.It may be standard cant to argue that "what we do day in and day" is what matters, but breaking the logjam is part of a process of fostering more independent political action outside of parliament and the polling booth. That Socialist Alternative believes that we should all vote for anyone but Abbot's Liberals --and that all the options in that basket left of Abbot are equal -- stretches my political imagination (and certainly my patience!) Even VoteClimate calls for a First Preference for the SA at this poll and writes: http://voteclimate.org.au/2010_Aus_Federal_index.html "Socialist Alliance Consistently one of the best performers on climate change since Vote Climate looked at its first election in 2006. In the 2007 federal election Socialist Alliance had the second strongest climate policies behind the "What Women Want Party", who are not running in this election (clearly having got what they wanted?). This time the Socialist Alliance take the number one position. "Socialist policy is basically driven by care for people, and they understand the direct connection between the environment, the services it provides and human wellbeing. They have reviewed climate science and impacts and concluded the mainstream response to climate change is no where near enough. :"In response they have developed the first comprehensive climate emergency response of any party Vote Clmate as seen. The policy is comprehensive and sets out the goals on principles from which a detailed climate emergency response would be developed. It covers all key areas except population. You can down load their climate policy here. "The Socialist Alliance policy is the strongest of any nationally organised political party and offers the best hope for the future and we recommend you vote for them both in the senate and in the lower house seats." dave riley ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
