Draft Programmatic Document of the Socialist Alliance

Contents

Introduction
Global capitalism
Nature of capitalism
Class structure
Development of imperialism
Contradictions of capitalism
Nature of the capitalist state
Capitalist ideological control
The development of capitalism in Australia
Socialist strategy and tactics
A revolutionary perspective
Role of a socialist party
Independent mass action and the struggle for reforms
Trade unions
Independent struggles of the oppressed
Socialists and electoral tactics
The ALP and the Greens
Socialist Alliance platform of action
For real democracy
For social and economic rights for all
For rights at work
Make work and workers' entitlements secure
For a healthy, safe and secure workplace
For equality at work and an end to discrimination
For unity and solidarity among all workers
For women’s liberation
Equality and justice in the workplace
Independence and equality in family life
Women's control over their own bodies
An end to sexual violence and exploitation
For the free expression of gender and sexuality
For the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
Reconciliation and Compensation
Recognition of Rights and Building Awareness
Social and economic equality
Sovereignty, Treaty and Land Rights
Against racism, for the rights of migrants and refugees
For ecologically sustainable development
An Emergency Climate Change Plan
Forests
Land Management
Water
Energy
Nuclear Issues
Waste
The transition to socialism
The Problem of Bureaucracy
Social and economic transition

Introduction

Humanity has reached a critical crossroad. Capitalism cannot advance society as a whole. Already, large sections of the world live in poverty, repression and endless war but in addition the irrational and insatiable drive for profits by a highly monopolised and globalised capitalism is driving towards irreversible and catastrophic climate change.

Capitalist governments — and the giant corporations they work for — are refusing to act on the desperate warnings of the great majority of the world's leading scientists to avert the climate crisis.

This threat to our common future arises out of the unprecedented drive for profit at all cost by a tiny rich elite and the giant corporations that now own or control most of the world's wealth. To free itself from an unprecedented climate and social crisis, humanity has to liberate itself from capitalism, by taking ownership and control of society’s productive resources from the capitalist elite and replacing this system with the democratic self-management of working people -- socialism

This document sets out the current views of the Socialist Alliance on the crises of capitalism and the way to overcome them by struggling for a socialist society. While it is intended as a summary of our perspectives that can guide our work, rather than an introduction to socialist ideas, those interested in socialism and our views should also find it of interest. It incorporates a number of policy positions and documents previously developed by the Socialist Alliance, and will be revised and updated to reflect new developments and in light of new experiences and struggles.

A socialist organisation does not need detailed agreement on theory and history. But a general understanding of the nature of capitalism, globally and in Australia, of the nature of the socialist alternative, and of the aims, demands and methods of anti-capitalist struggle, can be very useful in guiding our work. The experiences of the socialist movement and revolutions since the mid nineteenth century as well as the massive anti-capitalist struggles across Latin America today provide rich lessons for twenty first century socialists.

This document begins with a general outline of the nature of capitalism, continues with an outline of the development of capitalism in Australia, puts forward our perspectives in current struggles, and concludes with our view of what the transition to socialism might look like.

Global capitalism

Nature of capitalism

Capitalism is a form of class society. Unlike older forms of class society based on slavery or traditional hierarchies tied to control of the land (feudalism), capitalism is based on private ownership of the means of production and the organisation of social and economic life through the market. Under capitalism long-standing forms of exploitation and oppression are taken up and new forms developed.

Class structure

Economic and social life in capitalist societies is largely based on the relationships between three classes, that is, groupings of people with a similar position in the socio-economic structure.

• The capitalist class A very small minority of people own and control the bulk of the productive resources of society: factories, mines, office blocks, shopping centres. Capitalists, without contributing anything necessary to social life, are able to take the bulk of surplus value from production in the form of profits. This economic dominance gives the capitalists control of political and cultural life and the capitalists thus constitute a ruling class.
• The working class The great majority of people in a developed capitalist society consists of workers or their dependents. Workers are those who do not own enough property to make a living and need to sell their labour power, their ability to work productively, to an employer, whether in ‘blue-collar’ or ‘white-collar’ work. While economically exploited under capitalism, workers are potentially the most powerful force in society, due to the social nature of production.
• Middle classes These are social groupings which play an intermediate role between capitalists and workers. They include more ‘traditional’ forms of small capitalists, such as farmers and shop-owners, who may be self-employed or employ a small number of workers. Middle layers also include those in salaried positions with considerable power and autonomy at work and/or whose income allow them to accumulate significant income-generating property, for example managers and some highly skilled and well-paid professionals. Middle layers are often a social base for capitalism but can be won to the cause of the working class and socialism.

These are broad social processes rather than distinct categories that all individuals can be neatly labelled into. For example there is a grey area between working class and middle class positions in some highly skilled and well-paid salaried professionals work, and some are obliged to work under formal contractor-type arrangements when their lack of autonomy and power at work mean they are in reality workers.

Development of imperialism

Private ownership and competitive market relations inevitably lead to further concentration of wealth and power. By the late nineteenth century these processes had led to capitalism as a global system entering an imperialist or monopoly capitalist phase. The most developed economies of Europe and North America had by then become dominated by a few large corporations, which because of the need of capitalism to constantly expand, had to find new places to invest their capital, needed new markets for their goods, and new sources of raw materials. Nearly all of Africa and much of Asia was quickly taken over by these states.

After the Second World War, mass movements for decolonisation won independence for most of the former colonies. But they remained economically and politically dominated by the rich countries through huge debt burdens, unequal trade, and lack of access to more productive technologies.

Contradictions of capitalism

Capitalism gives rise to a number of contradictions that produce exploitation, oppression and environmental destruction. These include the contradictions between:

• Labour as a social activity, and the private expropriation of the surplus produced by labour;
• The need for capitalists to both expand production, and to minimise wages;
• The mechanisation of production and the rate of profit, which is generated by human labour;
• The international production and the continued existence of competitive national states;
• Formal “equality” in the market, and the interests of capitalists in fostering divisions based on sex, ethnicity and sexuality in order to better exploit and rule working people
• Production for profit at all costs, and the continued existence of a liveable environment.

The contradictory nature of capitalism leads to regular economic crises of overproduction, continuing specific oppressions based on sex, ethnicity and sexuality, conflict and exploitation between states, and ecological crises.

Nature of the capitalist state

The exploitative and oppressive nature of capitalism, and the competition between capitalists, gives rise to the need for a state to provide a secure environment for the interests of capitalists to be met. Armed forces, the police and the justice system provide physical security, and public sector bureaucracies provide market regulation and some measure of education and health care to help reproduce new generations of productive workers. The capitalists’ economic power gives them decisive control over these institutions of the state and also formally elected parliamentary institutions.

Capitalist ideological control

The capitalists’ economic power also means that institutions with ideological and cultural functions such as the news and entertainment media and educational institutions are dominated by pro-capitalist ideas.

The development of capitalism in Australia

Capitalism developed in Australia in the form of a colonial settler state, based on dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations: stolen Aboriginal land—and the valuable resources which lie therein, and the unpaid or underpaid Aboriginal labour used to establish the pastoral industry.

Prior to the coming of Europeans in 1788, this vast continent and surrounding islands was populated by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations. More than 300 languages were spoken. Over tens of thousands of years, these nations established social, political and economic structures with varying degrees of complexity. They engaged in trade—for example, the clans in the continent’s north traded pearls and trepang with the Macassans—and sustainably managed the fragile ecosystems across their estates.

The process of colonisation, which started in 1788, required the destruction of these structures and the imposition of a class society brought from Britain by the colonisers.

Across the continent the Indigenous peoples resisted. But treaties were never negotiated over the use or settlement of the land, and the colonisers invented a legal fiction — terra nullius — to justify their illegal and violent annexation. Under successive governments, whole populations were forced into missions, denied their language and culture, and given diseased blankets, and tea, flour, and tobacco to live on. In many areas, hunting parties were paid a bounty to chase down and kill those who refused to accept the new order. Throughout the last century, Aboriginal children were removed from their families and communities. These children were lied to about their heritage, and were used as slave labour — as housemaids, or on cattle stations — and were frequently abused.

A white/European capitalist class independent of Britain and relatively democratic forms of rule developed in Australia through the nineteenth century, without the revolutions for independence and/or bourgeois democracy that were necessary in other countries. There were however, popular struggles such as the 1854 Eureka Stockade miners struggle, which raised a number of political and democratic demands including for universal manhood suffrage, the right of the non-propertied classes to run for parliament, for parliamentary reform and issued a challenge to British imperial rule.

Overall, the Australian working class developed in relatively favourable conditions, and the ideas of nationalism, class collaboration and even chauvinism and racism are prevalent among the working class and middle class layers.

Economic development in Australia has been bound up with racism — from the dispossession of and superexploitation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; to the kidnapping of and enslavement of Melanesian people (in a practice known as ‘blackbirding’) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; to the inhumane and exploitative policies towards successive waves of migrants, refugees and overseas workers in the twentieth and twenty-first century; to Australian capital’s continuing exploitation and theft of mineral and energy resources from sovereign nations in the South Pacific today.

Today Australia is a small imperialist power, independent of although a close junior partner of the imperialist system dominated by the United States.

Socialist strategy and tactics

A revolutionary perspective

To win a truly democratic, peaceful, just and ecologically sustainable future, working people must take the ownership and control of society’s productive resources out of the hands of the capitalist minority and transfer it to society as a whole.

Humanity's collective wealth and technological capacities needs to be urgently invested in a radical transformation to an ecologically sustainable society that is just, equitable and freed from all class divisions. This can only be achieved through a qualitative expansion in direct democracy and democratic planning at all levels.

However, this can only be realised through a decisive struggle to defeat the power of the capitalist class and the transfer of political and economic power to the working class and all exploited and oppressed groups to begin a transition to a socialist society.

All previous attempts to end the rule of the powerful capitalist minority have been met with repression. The working class and oppressed majority can defeat this repression only with the most thoroughgoing self-organisation.

A revolutionary transfer of power will require new democratic institutions of popular power based on the independent self-organisation of the working class and all other oppressed groups.

The road to building the consciousness and self-organisation powerful enough to form a new political power lies through campaigning against all instances of capitalist exploitation and oppression, through independent mass action. The remainder of this section discusses how our revolutionary perspective and our tactical orientation of independent mass action informs our view of the role of a socialist party, of the trade unions, of popular self-organisation, of the Labor Party and the Greens and of how we orient to elections within the current system.  The following section — our ‘action platform’ — discusses our general approach in terms of analysis, slogans and demands around immediate aspects of capitalist exploitation and oppression.

Role of a socialist party

The fundamental aim of Socialist Alliance is to contribute to the construction of a mass socialist party that can educate, organise and mobilise the Australian working class and other oppressed groups to replace the power of the capitalists with popular power. We are open to uniting with all those prepared to join us in this aim, and to be part of any political formation than can advance towards this aim.

We recognise that any form socialist organisation takes today today is but one step in a much bigger, and still to unfold process of building such a party capable of leading such a struggle. A party capable of leading real revolutionary struggle will have to unite the real socialist leadership that develops in the course of the class struggle.

The kind of mass movements and mass consciousness that would allow a mass revolutionary party to develop have yet to crystallise in Australia. The responsibility of any serious socialist group is to help create the preconditions for the emergence of such an organised force among radicalising sectors of the working class and oppressed.

A small revolutionary socialist group should help shape and initiate struggles, or join in already-existing struggles, to win improvements in the here-and-now for the working class and all oppressed groups. Such struggles, combined with revolutionary socialist popularisations and educational outreach to more and more people, can help us to work towards building the mass revolutionary socialist party needed.

A serious socialist organisation does not start out with the illusion that it has a finished, “correct” program. It will develop its political program in the process of engagement in such struggles through which it seeks to win real leadership and political authority in the working class and seek to unite around the struggle for socialism with the real leaderships that emerge in the working class.

A serious collective engagement in the class struggle and the development and testing out of an effective political program requires organisation around the principle of unity in action with freedom of discussion and opinion.

A socialist organisation needs to have a democratic constitution and structure supported by democratic political practice and political culture. The ultimate guarantee of this democracy is an educated and engaged membership. Therefore, the Socialist Alliance strives to be an organisation where all members are active consistent with their circumstances (work or study, age, health, family responsibilities, location) in the building of the organisation, its political campaigns and projects.

The Socialist Alliance seeks to increase its weight and influence in the working class as socialism remains simply a dream unless it can become a movement of the working class. As such the organisation must constantly strive to be, in the main, a party of workers. Its structures and culture must be accessible to workers and the organisation has a duty to provide the political education and collective support needed to enable the equal and effective participation of workers in the political life of the organisation.

Any active socialist organisation also needs to pay special attention to the recruitment of young people, who can be the most confident and energetic activists. Young people are relatively free from the pressures of family life and from the weight of past defeats suffered by working-class and other oppressed groups. While we should seek to recruit young people from the working class, the unemployed and from high schools, it is critically important for socialists to have a well-organised presence on universities and other higher education institutions and to engage in political activity on these campuses. To develop the experience and confidence of younger activists, the Socialist Alliance encourages leadership structures that allow young people to develop through taking leadership responsibility.

Independent mass action and the struggle for reforms

Socialists advocate, encourage and seek to organise the independent (of the capitalist class) mass struggle of the working class in defence of its own immediate, historic and global interest. The revolutionary overthrow of capitalism is the final outcome of a process of increasing working-class consciousness, self-confidence and unity in action. Propaganda and agitation alone cannot bring about the necessary transformation of mass consciousness. Direct experience of success in mass struggles is essential, and such mass struggles are most often struggles for reforms to improve the masses' immediate conditions of life.

A socialist organisation needs to avoid both: reformism, the view that struggles should be limited to demands that are compatible with the capitalist system; and ultraleftism, the rejection of reforms or use of superficially “militant” methods of struggle which sideline mass participation.

Trade unions

The trade unions are only encompass a small part of the working class today but they remain the basic organisational vehicles for the workers' day-to-day defence of their economic interests against the capitalist class.

They also remain the key institution through which the ALP maintains its dominant political influence over the working class. This remains the case despite the fact that trade union density has shrunk from 46% in the early 1980s to 18% today. As such the battle for political leadership in the trade unions remains a important priority for socialists.

Socialists should struggle in the trade unions to maximise their effectiveness in the defence of the immediate interests of the workers and, in the course of such struggles, win the workers to a socialist perspective.

Socialists strengthen the union movement by promoting trade-union democracy, labour unity and class independence. Trade-union democracy involves the right of the union ranks to freely determine the union's goals and policy, and to elect and recall the union's leaders. The ultimate guarantee of such democracy is the involvement of the entire membership in the union's activities, particularly at workplace level. A strong workplace delegate structure is needed for this.

Socialists also strengthen the union movement and the working class as a whole by:

• Campaigning for unionisation of unorganised workers.
• Extending solidarity to all workers in struggle.
• Breaking down narrow craft divisions and promoting democratic amalgamation into unions that embrace all workers in a given branch of industry.
• Promoting full participation in the life of the unions by specially oppressed groups of workers, such as women, migrants, the young and the unemployed.
• Promoting international working class solidarity.
• Urging unions to take up the struggles of the oppressed and struggles for a sustainable environment.

Socialists in the trade unions, especially any holding leadership or organiser positions, should work under the political direction of the organisation.

Socialists in leadership positions in the trade unions should offer political leadership not only on the immediate bread and butter concerns of the union's membership but also on all the major political issues of the day that impact on the working class and other oppressed groups. They should seek to present the independent interest of the working class on all political questions and mobilise trade unionists around these questions wherever possible.

Independent struggles of the oppressed

The working class movement comprises much more than the trade unions and socialists should seek to win leadership in the various other organisations, institutions and campaign groups that working class seeks to organise against capitalist exploitation and oppression.

In addition, socialists should seek to provide political leadership in the struggles of all other groups oppressed by capitalism. Such leadership could be provided through reporting and exposing these oppressions through the propaganda of the organisation and through direct participation in the actions and/or organising bodies of such struggles.

Socialists advocate, encourage and seek to organise the independent (of the capitalist class) mass struggle of the working class in defence of its own interests and against all oppressions. By engaging in struggles against all oppressions, socialists seek to build a bridge between immediate struggles of the working class and other oppressed groups with the broader anti-capitalist struggle. It is only through such struggles that the working class can develop a consciousness of the need to replace capitalism and emancipate itself.

The systematic championing by socialists of struggles against all the ills of the capitalist system is part of the process of development of the working class from the subject of capitalist oppression to the self-conscious power that can end minority class rule and organise the transition to a new classless society.  Beginning with the organisation of the politically advanced elements of the working class, this process eventually involves the broadest layers of the class.

Socialist intervention in and leadership of the struggles against various oppressions should always be aimed at maximising independent mass action. Socialists should be serious builders of the movements and advocate steps that advance the movement, connect with the working class and bring the greatest possible number of people into action.

Socialist interventions should always respect the democracy and independence o movement structures. This is particularly important in movements against oppressions in which the capitalist class exploits and fosters entrenched prejudices to divide the working class, for example through racism and sexism.

Socialists and electoral tactics

The main form of the struggle of the working people and oppressed for political power is mass mobilisation: strikes, demonstrations, pickets, etc. This necessarily involves the development of new forms of organisation independent of the capitalist state.

Socialists however should not abstain from parliamentary politics. Socialists need to put forward socialist ideas in this arena that is still regarded by the most working people as the main political forum and vehicle for satisfying their social needs. This is particularly so in periods of comparatively limited mass activity, when most people see the ballot box as their only or main means of redressing their grievances.

Socialists need to engage in parliamentary elections to build up our strength in this arena as a critical means of winning a hearing in broader society and thereby advancing the mass social movements. In the process, we seek to expose the limitations and essentially anti-democratic nature of the system of capitalist parliamentary institutions and to explain how these can be replaced by a genuine system of popular self-government. Such an alternative would be based on social ownership of the decisive means of production, would immensely increase the real participation of the masses and their control over decisions that affect their lives.

Socialists should be seen as the strongest defenders of democracy, exposing the limitations of capitalist democracy and campaigning for the extension of democracy to the economic sphere.

However, the primary goal of socialist parliamentary electoral campaigns is to develop the political awareness and self-activity of the masses and to draw all progressive organisations into mass political activity.

Socialists elected as representatives at any level of government should act as “tribunes of the people,” seek to use these positions on government bodies to organise campaigns and public mobilisations in the interests of the working class and oppressed sectors and take all progressive measures possible within the framework of these institutions. They will also use these platforms to present socialist positions, including the need to build new institutions of popular power.

Socialist elected representatives should work under the close direction of the organisation, retain no more that the average wages of a skilled worker and at all times put forward the party's political positions and support the development of new forms of democratic organisation or the working class and other oppressed groups that are independent of the apparatus of the capitalist state.

The ALP and the Greens

The Australian Labor Party, formed more than a century ago by trade union officials and sections of the intelligentsia, now acts as a systematic agent for capitalist rule in the labour movement. ALP governments have always defended the interest of the capitalist system and worked to contain trade union and other social movement struggles within the framework of capitalist parliamentary politics.

The ALP has fostered parliamentarism, class-collaboration, racism, xenophobia and protectionism as ways to diverting the working class from seriously confronting the capitalists and their governments. It has promoted the false idea that workers in Australia have more in common with their “Australian” bosses than they have with the working masses in other countries — particularly in the colonial and semi-colonial countries.

Therefore, a central part of socialist struggle in this country today is to win the working class away from the conservative domination of the ALP.

While it still retains a significant base in the working class, all ALP governments since the 1980s have played a leading role in the capitalist neo-liberal offensive. With the collaboration of the trade union bureaucracy the Labor leadership has severely weakened the trade union movement and constrained it from taking independent mass action. In this period the ALP has increasingly abandoned championing new reforms — or even defending previously won reforms — in the interest of the working class and other oppressed groups.

As the neo-liberal ALP has effectively abandoned much of its historical social-democratic program of reforms to ameliorate the worst effects of capitalism, the Greens party has a emerged out of some of the environmental and other social movements and taken up some of the reforms that the ALP once championed. In doing so they have won some of the forces deserting the ALP and developed a platform clearly to the left of the ALP’s.

However, the Greens party also limits itself to seeking changes within the framework of the capitalist system and primarily through the mechanism of parliamentary politics. The Greens do not stand for breaking from the capitalist system even if some of their politicians and leaders may have come from the left or even still consider themselves “socialist”. This can be seen in their unwillingness to campaign even for the urgently needed solutions to the climate change crisis, which necessarily involved major imposts on the rights of ownership of big capitalists. Instead the Greens have tailed behind the false “market solution” of the ALP's carbon price/emissions trading scheme.

It is necessary, but not sufficient, to expose through our propaganda the politics of the ALP and the Greens. The struggle to win militant trade unionists and other activists away from the capitalist politics of these parties also requires socialists to have a united front approach to these parties, wherever it is possible, to advance the independent mobilisations against all oppressions of the capitalist system.

Socialist Alliance platform of action

Socialists need to provide clear answers to the problems facing working people in order to mobilise the forces necessary to overturn capitalism. The demands and tactics relevant in any campaign will depend on the stage of the struggle and the forces involved. Here we set out the main themes and approaches. 

For real democracy

We need a radically different political system: a system of participatory democracy that empowers the big majority of people who are currently excluded.

Necessary to genuine democracy is social ownership of the economy on which we all depend. Real democracy is impossible if one part of society owns the economy and the other part is compelled to work for them.

The political system requires fundamental change. A new system would be based on organisations of popular democracy in localities, workplaces and schools which could directly make decisions affecting their respective communities. Elections to such local self-government bodies and to a national assembly should be based on proportional representation. Representatives should receive a worker’s average wage. They should be subject to recall through a simple process if their electors are dissatisfied. The voting age should be lowered to 16 years.

All public officials should be subject to election and recall.

Workers should be able to elect their managers and collectively direct their workplaces.

The main goals and targets of economic activity should be popularly decided.

The mass media should be placed under the control of the community to reflect the interests and concerns of ordinary people.

For social and economic rights for all

The capitalist solution to the economic crisis is a radical increase in the rate of profit through cutting working-class living standards and conditions of work. This is combined with an austerity measures to restrict public spending on measures that do not directly assist the capitalists, and to force more people into work.

Socialists need to campaign for social and economic rights for all through measures such as:

• A massive program of public housing construction, carried out by a government-owned construction agency; laws to fix rents at no more than 20% of a tenant's income; confiscation of unused dwellings and their inclusion in the stock of public housing; outlawing of landlordism; nationalisation of the banks, building societies and finance companies to ensure that low-interest housing loans are made available to working people and home loan repayments are substantially reduced; cheap loans to be made available to enable public housing tenants to purchase the dwellings they live in.
• Introduction of a universal health-care system, in which all medical and dental services are provided free of charge to everyone.
• Termination of all subsidies to private schools and colleges; free tuition, free textbooks and adequate living expenses should be provided to everyone who wants to attend public schools, colleges and universities.
• All elderly and retired persons should be able to receive adequate social security benefits. In addition, there should be a massive expansion of publicly funded social services (specialised health care and nursing, domestic work services, etc.) to enable the aged to live in dignified conditions.
• Society should provide the material conditions that will enable all people with disabilities to as much as possible exercise the basic human right of controlling the course of their lives and of making decisions regarding their daily lives. Thus they should have access to adequate social services and benefits and/or meaningful employment. Public transport systems should be designed to include the needs of people with physical disabilities. Building codes should take account of the needs of the physically handicapped, and should be strictly enforced.

For rights at work

Socialists should campaign for workers and union rights around the following points:

Jobs for all at a living wage

• Legislate the minimum wage at around 60 per cent of average weekly earnings ($870 in mid-2014).
• Shorten the working week (without loss of pay) to spread around available work.
• Stop privatisation and rebuild a modern, democratically managed public sector.
• Repeal all anti-union laws, defend and extend the right to organise
• Enact a workplace Bill of Rights that guarantees workers and unions the right to organise and protest. Full recognition of unions and union representatives.
• Repeal the Workplace Relations Act, abolish Australian Workplace Agreements and Sections 45D and E of the Trade Practices Act.
• Return to awards of general application and minimum standards.
• Oppose the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Bill.
• Oppose the Building Industry Taskforce and its interference in unions.
• Guarantee the right of unions to cancel a bargaining period and begin a new one.
• Oppose secret ballots on industrial action.
• Oppose all attempts to outlaw or restrict pattern bargaining, protected industrial action, picketing and secondary boycotts.
• Ban lockouts and the discriminatory sacking of union delegates.
• Remove the prohibition on striking workers receiving unemployment benefit.
• Oppose union liability to pay damages for industrial action.
• Oppose court and government restrictions on who can stand in union elections.
• Oppose government interference in the internal affairs of unions.

Make work and workers' entitlements secure

• Place limits on the use of casuals, contractors, labour hire and part-time workers. Casuals to be made permanent after a fixed period.
• The right of full-time workers to convert to part-time work when they need to because of poor health or returning to work after childbirth.
• Labour hire workers and casual workers not to receive lower wages and conditions than their permanent co-workers.
• Legislate a definite proportion of apprentices to tradespeople according to industry/trade.
• Compel companies to participate in funds that guarantee workers' entitlements.
• Place workers at the top of the list of creditors in case of company bankruptcy.
• Restore all workers' rights to civil action in the courts.

For a healthy, safe and secure workplace

• Put serious penalties into industrial health and safety legislation.
• Ensure full powers for health and safety representatives to close down unsafe and unhealthy sites.
• Impose prison sentences on employers responsible for the deaths of workers.
• Legislate full, unlimited, employer-funded injury, sick and disability pay.
• Enforce full employer liability and responsibility for incurable industrial diseases (eg asbestosis, mesothelioma etc.) and permanent injuries to workers.
• End the attacks on workers' compensation and restore the rights to compensation that have been stripped away.
• For retraining on full pay of workers in environmentally unsustainable industries.

For equality at work and an end to discrimination

• Impose equal pay for work of equal or comparable worth.
• End junior pay rates.
• Legislate 12 months' parenting leave fully paid by employer contributions to a publicly managed scheme; the right to return to the same job without losing seniority; and generous paid leave to allow parents to take time off work to care for sick children and attend school activities.
• Address the under-representation of women in traditionally male occupations with positive discrimination programs in hiring, training and access to university courses.
• Campaign for the government and/or employers to provide free, 24-hour childcare and holiday care centres.
• Return all stolen wages to Indigenous workers or their descendants.
• Legislate a program of affirmative action aimed at breaking down the concentration of Indigenous Australians, migrants and refugees in the dirtiest, most repetitive and most dangerous jobs.
• Impose heavy fines on employers who breach equal opportunity laws.
• Make sexual and racial harassment in the workplace a punishable offence.
• End the unequal workplace status of gays and lesbians.

For unity and solidarity among all workers

• End union dobbing in of "illegal" workers to DIMIA and the federal police.
• Fight for the unionisation of non-union and "illegal" workers and compel the employer to give them the full wage and entitlements. Oppose any identity card for migrant workers.
• Fight for union rights everywhere, especially in those countries where unionism is illegal or under threat.
• Promote international bargaining against multinational attempts to locate work where wages are lowest.
• Build the strongest possible links with unions in other countries.

For women’s liberation

Sexism and misogyny are also deeply entrenched in all class societies — although some important gains have been made through struggle This is because the oppression of women is institutionalised in the family system enables the transmission of private property and the perpetuation of class divisions from one generation to the next and allows the capitalists to abrogate social responsibility for the economic well-being of those whose labour they exploit.

The family system imposes a social division of labour based on the subjugation of women and their economic dependence on an individual man, their father or male partner. Upon this material foundation, an all-pervasive sexist ideology is fostered by the exploiter classes. This portrays women as physically and mentally inferior to men, and biologically unfit for roles other than procreation and domestic labour. The low status of women in class society becomes the source of anti-woman violence, including rape, domestic violence and other forms of misogynist violence. It is this oppression of women that also underpins women's concentration in lower-paid traditionally "female" occupations and makes possible the super-exploitation of women's labour by the capitalist class.

The oppression of women as a sex constitutes the objective basis for the mobilisation of women in struggle through their own organisations. While all women are oppressed as a sex, the effects of this oppression are different for women of different social classes. Women workers experience sexist oppression in its most acute forms and, unlike women of the propertied classes, have no interest in the maintenance of the ultimate source of that oppression — the private-property system.

Socialists support the construction of a mass women's liberation movement organised and led by women, and whose first priority is the fight to win and defend women's rights. However, if the women's liberation movement is to be successful, it must take up the demands of working-class women and involve them in the leadership of the movement. Only by fusing the objectives and demands of the women's liberation movement with the struggle of the working class and other progressive movements will the necessary forces be assembled to achieve the liberation of women.

The immediate steps the Socialist Alliance campaigns for includes:

Equality and justice in the workplace

• Real equal pay for work of equal or comparable value.
• Automatic wage indexation that corresponds to real cost-of-living increases.
• Increase the minimum wage to enough to support a family.
• Abolish the youth wage because it damages the wellbeing of young women, and especially that of young mothers and their children.
• All wage increases and improvements in working conditions to be automatically generalised across each industry. Enterprise bargaining and individual contracts disadvantage women workers, many of whom work in less organised sectors.
• Legislate and enforce programs in both the private and public sectors to encourage and assist more women to be trained and employed in non-traditional jobs.
• Twenty-four months parental leave fully paid by employer contributions to a publicly- managed scheme, the right to return to the same job and generous paid leave to allow parents to take time off work to care for sick children and attend school activities.
• Better enforce anti-discrimination and affirmative action legislation to assist Indigenous, non-English speaking background and disabled women to be economically independent.
• Repeal of laws that criminalise sex work. Rejection of attempts to legislate to criminalise the clients of sex workers (along the lines of the “Swedish model”). Full industrial rights for sex workers. An end to discrimination on the basis of occupation.

Independence and equality in family life

• Immediately increase all welfare pensions and benefits to at least match the national minimum wage and automatically index welfare payments to cover real cost of living increases.
• Increase the Family Tax Benefit to provide financial security to all children regardless of a biological parent's income or willingness to help with the cost of raising a child.
• Abolish the current Parenting Payment (Single) and reinstate a generous pension, to be payable until children have finished school. Reinstate cost-of-living indexation and allowances and reduce the rate of payment reductions when the recipient earns a wage.
• End social security payment assessments based on relationship status, so that everyone has access to an independent income whether they are partnered or living alone.
• Review all social security income tests to reduce the punitive marginal tax rates for casual or part-time workers receiving welfare payments and parents receiving child support payments.
• Abolish the “welfare to work” provisions, which unfairly penalise supporting parents, disabled people and the long-term unemployed.
• Abolish all Centrelink “mutual obligation” requirements and the “breach” system, which particularly adversely affect all women on benefits and precarious casual workers, many of whom are women.
• Remove the requirement for people with disabilities and illnesses to undergo repeated reviews of their eligibility for benefits.
• Lower the age of the independence test for Youth Allowance from 25 to 16 years, end youth wage rates and scrap the “earn or learn” policy under which all people under 21 years' old are denied Youth Allowance and unemployment benefits unless they are in school or full-time vocational training. Enable young people to leave home/live independently if they choose.
• A massive emergency boost to funding to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-based health and children's services, including for training more Aboriginal and TSI paediatric and other health professionals.
• No forced removal of ATSI children from their families or communities.
• End the Northern Territory Intervention and strengthen community-controlled initiatives to address violence and abuse, establish safe houses and properly resource ATSI women's centres and legal services.
• Repeal the racist Native Title Act and renegotiate ATSI land rights as part of a constitutionally entrenched treaty, binding on federal and state governments.
• Ensure all Australian government legislation is in line with the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the rulings of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
• Massively expand government funding for community/employee-controlled, good quality, free early childhood education and care services in communities and schools, and oblige big employers to fund such services in large workplaces. These services to include after-hours, vacation and occasional care.
• Abolish all taxation measures, such as the Family Tax Benefit Part B, that penalise families in which both partners have to work to survive.
• Reverse the privatisation of all utilities (such as electricity, water, etc.) and other essential services. Utilities should be provided free to households, or at a price that's affordable for all.
• Expand affordable, good quality, secure public and cooperative housing so that child-raising can take place in a stable environment. Ensure that all women, including elderly and other women who wish to live alone or independently, have accommodation security.
• Implement rent control laws in the private rental market.
• Full social, legal and industrial recognition of same-sex and gender variant relationships, including equal marriage and civil union rights.
• Equal rights for same-sex couples to adopt or foster children and access free, safe reproductive technologies.
• Enforce anti-discrimination legislation to protect lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, people living with HIV, and trans and intersex people. Remove the exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation for religious organisations, private schools, the insurance industry, the taxation system and superannuation.

Women's control over their own bodies

• Remove abortion from the criminal and civil statutes in all Australian jurisdictions, and make abortion available safely, free of charge and on demand through the public health-care system in rural as well as urban areas.
• Fully fund family planning services to make reproductive health support, advice and resources available to all women.
• Make safe, reliable contraceptives freely available to both women and men; authorise all doctors to prescribe Mifepristone (RU486) and make the “morning after” pill available free of charge.
• Enforce the law against sterilisation without a woman's consent.
• Remove discrimination based on age, sexual preference or marital status for access to reproductive technologies. All women, including women in prison and other institutions, to be able to access reproductive health care, including contraception and abortion.
• Restore Medicare bulk-billing, and massively increase funding to public hospitals and community health services, particularly in remote communities.

Provide free menstrual/sanitary products as a public health service and free medication/treatments to deal with painful menstruation.

Improve availability of woman-centred pregnancy care, including state funding and insurance for community-based midwifery and birth centres.

Give all women access to free, safe reproductive technologies, including IVF, and the right to adopt or foster children, regardless of relationship status or sexual preference.

An end to sexual violence and exploitation

• Establish comprehensive education programs for high-school students about safe, consensual sex. This includes education on healthy sexual relationships, as well as sex and gender diversity.
• Strengthen and strictly enforce laws against sexual harassment.
• Restore and increase funding for women's services to ensure ready access to health centres, rape crisis centres, women's refuges and counselling, education, training and employment services for all women and their dependents.
• A community education campaign in schools and all other public institutions to promote positive, non-stereotyped, anti-sexist images of women in all areas of social activity.
• Recognise that sex workers should have the right to refuse or withdraw consent for any sex act or client.
• Prosecute Australians who profit from any form of slavery, in any industry, including the sex industry, and give full protection and rights to the victims of slavery in Australia. No deportations of trafficking victims.
• End the big-business media monopoly that peddles sexism and racism. Increase funding for public and community-controlled media.

For the free expression of gender and sexuality

We live in a society which attempts to dictate sexual preference and gender identity through promoting the gender stereotypes and homophobic attitudes which underpin the heterosexual nuclear family, and by promoting marriage and the nuclear family as the only legitimate model for relationships. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, trans people and intersex people suffer oppression because their lives are a challenge to the nuclear family which is an economic cornerstone of capitalism.

The Socialist Alliance opposes all attempts to shoehorn people into sexual and gender conformity. We believe it is a basic democratic right that a persons’ self-definition of sexual preference and gender identity should be recognised. Heterosexism exists at almost every level in this society, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is entrenched in all of the key institutions of society - education, health, the law, the media, family, church and state.

The Socialist Alliance supports politically independent and self-organizing social movements that fight the oppression of women, lesbians and gay men, trans and intersex people, people with HIV and sex workers through mass action, public demonstrations, lobbying, voting and by building alliances with the broader working class, feminist, and anti-capitalist movements.

We oppose sexism, racism, ageism, and discrimination against people with disabilities within the lesbian and gay communities, as we do in the broader community.

The immediate steps the Socialist Alliance campaigns for include:

• Enact enforceable anti-discrimination legislation to protect lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, people living with HIV and trans and intersex people. We will remove existing exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation in relation to employment for private schools, religious organisations, the insurance industry, the tax system, superannuation etc. The Socialist Alliance will legislate for the right of trans and intersex people to be issued with passports, drivers licenses and other documents specifying the gender (or non-gender) of their choice.
• Legislate full social, legal, trade union and industrial recognition of same sex and gender variant relationships. This would include extending to same sex relationships equal status with heterosexual de factos in superannuation, immigration, taxation, family law, industrial relations and any other laws and regulations; ensure the right of gays, lesbians and gender variants to choose to marry if they so wish; provide independent incomes [Newstart, Pensions, etc] for all regardless of relationship status - this will end state-enforced economic dependency.
• Guarantee the right of gay men and lesbians to adopt or foster children and to access free, safe reproductive technology like IVF. End discrimination against gay men, lesbians, trans and intersex people in child custody cases.
• Legislate against use of non-violent homosexual “advance” as a defense of “provocation” in violent crime.
• Provide full state funding for gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans people and intersex youth programs including refuges and housing services, health services, coming out, self-esteem and suicide prevention programs;
• All public funding for education, youth, aged, health, employment and welfare to be directed though non-discriminatory government and/or secular non-profit community organisations. Education in schools to incorporate positive material on homosexuality, trans and intersex peoples.
• Support Pride Marches, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, film and video festivals and other queer community events; defend and extend gay, lesbian trans and intersex programming on the ABC, SBS and community broadcasters; work vigorously for an end to the vicious and destructive portrayal of gay men, lesbians and trans people people in some sections of the media.
• Mandatory sensitivity training and refresher courses for the police force in how to deal with LGBTI issues. This education and training must be developed with and by the LGBTI community. The selection of LGBTI liaison officers should be under the control of the LGBTI community and recallable.
• Support gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans and intersex workers; promote strong policies within unions to defend gay, lesbian, trans and intersex workers; support the establishment of gay and lesbian caucuses within trade unions.

For the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

In 1788 Australia was invaded and colonised, but the sovereignty of the original inhabitants of this country was never ceded.

For Aboriginal people, the process of colonisation and dispossession has included inter-generational trauma, enslavement, genocide, assimilation, and a loss of language, culture and identity. This legacy, along with continuing institutionalised racism, has resulted in a massive health crisis, sky-rocketing imprisonment rates and shorter life expectancy.

For Aboriginal people, this process of colonisation and dispossession has included inter-generational trauma, enslavement, genocide, assimilation, and a loss of language, culture and identity. This legacy, along with continuing institutionalised racism, has resulted in a massive health burden, sky-rocketing imprisonment rates and shorter life expectancy.

Aboriginal communities, particularly in remote areas, have been given the false choice of “welfare dependency” on one hand or “development” through allowing mining companies access to their land, on the other.

Socialist Alliance’s basic approach is to provide solidarity and support to all struggles for justice by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In particular to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to gain full political, social and economic equality we campaign for the following measures.

Reconciliation and Compensation

• Constitutional recognition of the sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the original and ongoing inhabitants of the land, and the negotiation of a treaty or binding agreement enshrining Indigenous rights in law;
• Full reparation for the Stolen Generations;
• Full implementation of the recommendations of the 1997 National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (the “Bringing Them Home” Report);
• Full and immediate compensation for the stolen wages and for traditional lands ravaged by mining;
• Full implementation of the recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

Recognition of Rights and Building Awareness

• Ensure all legislation is in line with the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the rulings of the UN Commission on Human Rights;
• Guarantee protection of sacred sites and artefacts, and the return of all stolen heritage items — both here and overseas — to their rightful custodians;
• Protect the cultural and intellectual property rights of Aboriginal Australia;
• Change planning laws and regulations so that the decision as to what is a heritage site in need of protection belongs to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people concerned;
• Make the study of the history, culture, languages and customs of Indigenous peoples part of the core education curriculum; make Indigenous studies mandatory in teacher training; and develop curricula in Aboriginal languages;
• Start a program for the reviving and popularising of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander place names to stand alongside (or replace) the place names arising from colonial settlement;
• Extend Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programming on the ABC, SBS and community broadcasting; end the racist and destructive portrayal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, organisations and communities in some sections of the media.

Social and economic equality

Health

• Implement an emergency campaign around child health. Boost funding to community-based child-care services and boosted training of more Aboriginal pediatric health professionals;
• Boost health resources in both community-run and mainstream services, including training of Aboriginal health professionals in all fields;
• Strengthen community initiatives to address violence and abuse, establish safe houses and properly resource Indigenous women’s centres and legal services;
• Implement the recommendation of the Little Children are Sacred report, the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory Emergency Response and Development Plan, as well as the recommendations in the 1997 HREOC Social Justice Report.

Housing

• As part of expanding social housing, develop and adequately fund an Indigenous housing plan to address unmet need (17% of people using homelessness services are Indigenous as against less than 2% for the population as a whole);
• Implement an emergency repair and upgrading plan for Indigenous households;
• Help Indigenous communities maintain and improve their housing stock by providing the necessary training and resources and develop local production of building materials;
• Provide housing opportunities that meet cultural and community needs.

Education

• Ensure that the Department of Education and Training has the resources, staffing and teacher-training programs adequate to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students with the necessary attention;
• Implement programs to support Aboriginal parents and caregivers with children in the formative 0 to 5 year period
• Increase the numbers of Aboriginal teachers and education administrators;
• Increase the level of community involvement in schools and TAFEs, through such programs as “in-class tuition” that brings Aboriginal parents into schools to work with and raise the awareness of non-Aboriginal teachers and children;
• Value the unique knowledge of Aboriginal people and create programs that enable Aboriginal people to transmit this knowledge through the classroom to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students to foster pride and understanding.

Employment

• Ensure that all programs and services in Indigenous communities employ qualified people, and provide training and development for community members;
• Establish affirmative action quotas in apprenticeships, TAFE and university entrance and all levels of government;
• Require government agency programs to increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation;
• Provide funds and other needed assistance for social sector economic activity by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people;
• Help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to retain and or reclaim use of traditional fisheries;
• Abolish work for the dole. Reinstate Community Development Employment Programs (CDEPs) as a transition to real employment, especially in remote in Aboriginal communities, employing all workers on locally negotiated award wages based on community consultation.

Indigenous Australians in jail

• Indigenous Australians make up less than 2% of the population, but make up 26% of the jail population. There can be no social justice and equality for Aboriginal Australians until problems that cause this situation are tackled by:
• Implementation of all the 339 recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and full investigation into the scores of avoidable deaths since;
• Full implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody;
• Boosted funding to Aboriginal Legal Services;
• No to the privatisation of prisons and prisoner transport;
• Thorough training of court officials, police and prison officers in Indigenous culture and values;
• Proper representation of Indigenous communities on law reform bodies;
• Greater Indigenous representation on juries;
• Indigenous community policing;
• Greater use of suspended sentences and circle sentencing through Aboriginal Community Justice Groups.

Sovereignty, Treaty and Land Rights

• Restore the permit system in full, under community control, not white manager control;
• No to 5-year and 99-year leases. The use of Aboriginal land for community development is possible without breaking it up and forcibly introducing individual property relations onto a communitarian culture;
• Provide support, funding and the necessary specialist training for the development of community cooperative enterprises;
• Assist communities in developing leadership and other skills, with a special focus on encouraging youth participation;
• Guarantee democratic processes in the selection of Aboriginal leadership positions
• Block the disposal of land of spiritual or cultural value without support by land councils and traditional custodians;
• Encourage and resource the development of democratic Indigenous representative bodies at regional and national levels;
• No forced amalgamations or closure of land councils;
• No to the “mainstreaming” of Indigenous services;
• Repeal the Native Title Act, abolish all racist land laws and renegotiate Indigenous Land Rights as part of a constitutionally entrenched Treaty, binding on Federal and State governments.

Against racism, for the rights of migrants and refugees

The dispossession of First Nations people in Australia and other colonised lands, and the institution of slavery in the Americas, gave rise to the ideology of racism: the view that those with white skins are superior to those with non-white skins. This ideology, and the similar forms of discrimination based on ethnic, linguistic, cultural and/or religious background where physical differences may not be so obvious, has also been used to divide the working class, particularly in Australia white working class people, from successive waves of immigration: from Chinese and Pacific Island people in the nineteenth century to people from southern Europe in the mid-twentieth century, and later people from south-east Asia the Middle East and Africa.

Socialists campaign for measures to aid the involvement of migrants from all backgrounds to participate fully in social life, and that will help break down prejudice: free English courses with paid leave; recognition of all overseas qualifications; school programs on the language, history and culture of any nationality of students’ choosing.

Socialist Alliance campaigns for full citizenship rights for all overseas workers living in Australia. This is in order to end the exploitative migration and employment arrangements they are currently subjected to which create mega profits for the capitalist class, and to ensure that all workers in Australia, whether born here or not, enjoy the wages and conditions historically fought for by the labour movement.

Since the early 1990s successive Australian governments have particularly vilified those seeking asylum in Australia from war, oppression, poverty or climate change. Socialists support the right of all to enter and live in Australia.  As immediate steps toward this aim, Socialist Alliance campaigns for an end to the policy of mandatory detention, and for equal access for asylum seekers to the full range of social security, health, housing, transport, education and employment services as other Australians.

For ecologically sustainable development

We live under the reign of a class willing to jeopardise our lives and those of future generations for quick cash.

Capitalism destroys habitat and renders species extinct, yet the survival of animal and plant life is essential for human progress and should not be counterposed to so-called "development". We are bombarded with chemicals in our food, water and air. We are assailed by poisons at work, at home and in our communities. In our hands, technology will be used for human progress; in the hands of capitalists, it is used to plunder our world. The destruction of the once-mighty Murray-Darling river system, the mobilisation of megatonnes of salt which threatens not only agriculture but many rural towns (and, in time, cities); the lunacy of open-cut and acid leaching uranium mines; the huge volume of asbestos released from decaying cement sheeting and insulation - these are disasters which may take centuries to rectify, even in a socialist Australia.

"Capitalism" and "sustainability" are mutually exclusive concepts. Only socialism is sustainable. But it is necessary to stop the destruction of our world now, as a matter of urgency. Socialist Alliance demands the commencement of a comprehensive environmental restoration and employment program, fully funded by a tax on corporate bank transactions; including full training and award wages for all workers; preference to be given to displaced timber and agriculture workers, rural unemployed, Indigenous communities and displaced small farmers. Where possible and appropriate, such restoration programs should be established in consultation with traditional owners and/or local Indigenous communities.

This restoration and employment program should include the following:

An emergency climate action plan

• Set immediate emission cut targets to reduce net emissions to zero as soon as possible, including a target to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2020. Introduce emissions reduction targets of at least 5% a year.
• Begin new international treaty negotiations aimed to get all countries to agree on a global target of at least 90% emissions cuts on 1990 levels by 2030. Make cutting rich industrial nations’ emissions a priority, and increase aid to poorer countries to help them to use clean energy for their development.
• Start the transition to a zero-waste economy. Legislate to end industrial energy waste. Improve or ban wasteful consumer products, such as those with built-in obsolescence. Engage with workers and unions to redesign their products and jobs sustainably.
• Require advanced energy efficiency measures be fitted to existing houses and subsidise owner-occupiers for the costs. Allow renters to use the same system. Install photovoltaic solar panels and solar hot water heaters on home roofs, subsidised or owned by the electricity authority. Give all commercial buildings a deadline to meet six-star energy standards within two years, and 10-star standards within 10 years. Improve mandatory energy efficiency standards for all new buildings.
• Bring power industries under public ownership and democratic control. Begin phasing out coalmining and coal-fired power immediately. Provide guaranteed jobs and retraining on full pay for affected communities. New sustainable industries should be built in these areas, with voluntary paid redundancies and free retraining offered to all workers. Run the maximum possible base-load power from existing natural gas and/or hydro power stations instead of coal until renewable energy is available.
• Bring the car industry under public control. Re-tool this industry to manufacture wind turbines, public transport vehicles and infrastructure, solar hot water and solar photovoltaic cells. Subsidise the conversion of private cars to electric power.
• Build solar thermal with storage plants and wind farms in suitable areas now. Boost research into all renewable energy sources. Create localised power grids and upgrade the national grid to make it compatible with 100% renewable energy.
• Ban the logging of old-growth forests and begin an urgent program of reforestation, carbon farming and biodiversity protection.
• Phase out industrial farming based on fertilisers, pesticides and fuel sourced from petroleum. Restrict farming areas to ensure that threatened ecosystems return to healthy states. Encourage new farming practices including organic and urban farming. This process must allow for security of food supplies, and guarantee full employment and retraining for rural communities.
• Make all public transport free and upgrade services to enable all urban residents to use it for regular commuting. Nationalise and upgrade interstate train and ferry services. Rail freight must be prioritised. All rail, light rail and interstate freight to be electrified or to run on biofuels from waste. Encourage bicycle use through more cycleways and better facilities for cyclists. Implement free or low-cost bicycle rental networks.

Forests

• End logging in old growth forests. End clearfelling in all other native forests.
• Ban the export of woodchips from native forests.
• For a publicly owned timber industry based on sustainable plantations with access to specialty timbers ensured for crafts people (subject to ecological considerations).
• Replant forests in dry-land and other salt-affected regions.

Land Management

• Phase out agribusiness farming in the Murray-Darling basin; stop all new farming and commercial development in salt-affected regions.
• No Genetically Engineered Organisms - ban all importation of GEs and their production in Australia. Compulsory labelling of all genetically engineered products.
• Strict controls on land clearing.
• No mining or mineral exploration in national parks and other areas of high conservation value.
• Reconstruction of salt-damaged infrastructure.
• Mandated humane treatment of animals and full protection of endangered species and habitats.

Water

• Replace of open irrigation channels with pipes.
• Removal of exotic species such as willow and carp from river systems.
• Reduce water use by steeply increasing prices to big companies; Mandate the use of recycled water for all industrial purposes.
• End the confiscation of Indigenous land for mining and agribusiness;

Energy

• No new coal-fired power stations. Construct renewable energy infrastructure instead.
• Subsidise solar heating and solar electricity in domestic swellings.
• Stop and reverse privatisation of energy/electricity industries.

Nuclear Issues

• No new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights (or anywhere) and shut down the HIFAR reactor currently operating; invest in cleaner, safer technologies such as cyclotrons.
• No dumping of radioactive waste; waste producers to manage their own waste in secure, monitored facilities at their own expense.
• No nuclear waste dump for international commercial use in Australia;
• Close the operating uranium mines (Ranger, Roxby Downs, Beverley) and no new mines to be approved.
• No Australian support for the US government's missile 'defence' program and renewed, active support for non-proliferation agreements in place.
• No nuclear power plants.

Waste

• Force manufacturers of electronic equipment, whitegoods and various other products to initiate recycling programs.
• Prohibit the export to Third World countries of electronic and whitegood wastes under the guise of 'recycling'.
• Establish comprehensive recycling systems for all wastes.
• Mandated container deposits.
• Remediate contaminated industrial sites.

The transition to socialism

There is no precise map or blueprint for how socialism can come about, but the long experience of the socialist movement and of a series of revolutions and near-revolutionary struggles gives us a guide to how things might unfold.

The kind of revolutionary change that begins a transition to an entirely new social system will likely come about as a result of sharpening struggles against particular aspects of the capitalist crisis.  If such campaigns develop to include the conscious and active involvement of the majority of people, they can lead to struggles for far more democratic forms of political power and new social and economic relations.

At a decisive point a new governmental power, based on mass movements of working people and popular self-organisation, can come into being and lead a process of social and economic change.

An important step in the struggle for such change might be the winning of an electoral victory within the current parliamentary system by popular forces. History has shown that in this case, the corporate rich would try to destabilise and even overthrow such a progressive government.

History has also shown, that we would have to mobilise in the streets, workplaces, schools, campuses and neighbourhoods to defend any progressive moves made by such a government.

But most importantly, to truly consolidate any meaningful socialist change — whether  a popular government elected within the present system needs to be defended from reactionary attacks, or other events spark a political crisis — we would be faced with the need to create new institutions of grassroots democracy without which the building of genuine socialism is impossible.

The Problem of Bureaucracy

Apologists for capitalism argue that socialism will never work or that it will always lead to bureaucratic dictatorship.

It is true that some revolutionary governments have degenerated into bureaucratic regimes, leading eventually to the restoration of capitalism. This highlights the centrality of the struggle for democracy as a part of the struggle to build a new society.

But it is also necessary to understand the objective conditions that contributed to such degenerations. Most revolutions in the twentieth century took place in poor countries devastated by war. They faced constant attacks from the imperialist powers that used war, terrorism and economic sabotage to undermine them. This created shortages and desperation that eventually drove many working people out of public life and allowed an increasingly unaccountable bureaucracy to usurp power and accumulate private wealth and privilege.

If these countries had not suffered blockades, war and intervention at the hands of richer countries, things may have turned out completely differently. Thus, socialist revolutions in rich countries are important, not only for their own people but also for those of the poorer countries.

Social and economic transition

The nature of the complex transition from one social system to another will vary from country to country, depending on the level of economic development, and the course of national and international struggles against capitalism.

In a rich country like Australia, the formation of a new governmental power, the taking of large private enterprises into public ownership, and the extension of economic planning may take place relatively quickly. Important measures to begin to address the material inequality and discrimination faced by oppressed groups might also be implemented fairly quickly.

A truly classless socialist society will be characterised by the distribution of goods and services by need. But it is likely that a considerable period of development, on a world scale, will be needed, during which the distribution of goods and services will still need to be determined by work performed. Unlike capitalism however, there will be a decent minimum standard of living for all, and work will be available for all and a minimum of inequality of reward. It is also likely to take some time before the individualistic and discriminatory ideas encouraged by capitalism can be overcome.

We can expect that central part of the transition from private to collective ownership and control over economic life will be the nationalisation of decisive sectors of the economy by a working peoples government. The pace of such nationalisation may depend on the need for workers to gain experience of self-management, and the nature of class struggles in the transition period. For example, some nationalisations and other anti-capitalist measures may be the result of defensive moves against reactionary attacks.

Even following extensive nationalisation, it may be optimum for economic development for many small and even medium enterprises to remain in private ownership for some time, although cooperative forms and the gradual extension of social ownership in all sectors should be encouraged. Market mechanisms may be used for some time but increasingly in a way subsidiary to and constrained by democratic planning of the economy.

The goal of democratic economic planning and popular political power in a period of transition to socialism should be to increasingly make all peoples needs freely available, to decrease the time spent in work, and to provide the conditions for the free development of all in a classless, truly humane and ecologically sustainable society.