Socialist councillor Sue Bolton, first elected to Moreland City Council in 2012 and re-elected in 2016, is standing again. Moreland is a hub of community activism going back to the anti-conscription movement during World War I.

The JobMaker plan, announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on May 26 at the National Press Club, is an attempt to get us to accept a post-COVID-19 return to the neoliberal regime that made jobs precarious, ran down hospitals and other public services, and made housing and education unaffordable.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is using the COVID-19 pandemic to push through amendments to security laws that would further erode people’s rights and which are not proportionate to any particular threat.

While Victorian Socialists showed great potential when it was formed in early 2018 and ran two big and exciting socialist election campaigns, it has not lived up to its promise to build a more united left.

We want to be able to stand candidates in the 2021 WA state election so that we can present socialist solutions to the economic, social and ecological crisis that capitalism is inflicting on us all.

The slogan “There’s no going back to normal” has gained considerable popularity for good reason. As governments all around the world have struggled to deal with the health and economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, they have been forced to take emergency steps they would not have countenanced just months ago, challenging the idea that greater public spending to address social needs is simply unaffordable.

We are calling on unions to campaign around the following 10-point plan to ensure that any lifting of restrictions protects lives and livelihoods and not just a return to business as usual

This year May Day, takes place in the midst of the global COVID-19 crisis, which reminds the working class across the world that the fight for a just, safer and better world for all is impossible without the solidarity, organisation and mobilisation of the working people to demand for genuine social change.  

Morrison has long made clear that he has no intention of trying to eliminate COVID-19 entirely. He justifies this by saying the economic cost — that is, the cost to corporate profits — is too high.

The fall in the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the last few days has been received by most people with cautious relief. The official advice of federal and state governments remains to maintain the social distancing and to stay at home.

But the capitalist class is looking at things very differently. It is growing impatient for capitalist exploitation to return to “normal” and they are preparing us to accept the cost in lives.