NO to AUKUS: YES to Public Housing, Health and Education – Anne McMenamin for Port Adelaide

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Anne McMenamin for Port Adelaide

Long-time socialist activist Anne McMenamin is standing for the seat of Port Adelaide in the March SA Elections. Anne is active in the Palestine solidarity movement and is campaigning to stop AUKUS.

Campaign

No to AUKUS, weapons manufacturing and weapons research

Stop the new facility at Osborne base for nuclear powered submarines and ban the transportation and storage of nuclear waste. The nuclear submarine facility threatens Kaurna land and waters, and is a health risk to the community.

AUKUS means locking Australia in behind US foreign policy, including support for Israel and provoking a war with China. We must shut down weapons research and production, converting the facilities to civilian research and manufacturing.  

First Nations Justice

First Nations justice includes ending child removals and ensuring land rights and controls over land use. The full recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody must be implemented. We need treaties to respect First Nations sovereignty and land rights, and First Nations control of First Nations’ affairs.

Public Housing now! Affordable housing for all

South Australia’s housing market is broken. Speculation by property investors has pushed average house prices close to the million-dollar mark. Interest rate rises are threatening to put mortgagees on the street.

Rents are unaffordable for middle-income earners—let alone pensioners and those on low incomes. Meanwhile, more than 7400 people in our state are homeless. We need a massive expansion of state public housing construction.

Cost of living

Housing, transport and grocery prices are rising fast, and electricity and gas prices are out of control. The energy industry needs to be brought back under public ownership, so that the cheapness of renewables can flow to the consumer. We must make public transport free, frequent and accessible.

Right to protest

As Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues, our protest rights are being curtailed. For real and lasting “social cohesion”, we need freedom of speech and political assembly, with the repeal of all anti-protest laws.

Climate action

Global warming means South Australia faces drastic heating and drying. Real action means 100% renewables and creating a near-zero emissions economy. We must ensure that workers in the fossil fuel industry will be retrained and guaranteed jobs with no loss in pay or conditions.

Socialists have solutions

South Australia could meet people’s basic needs, and more, if priorities were changed. Our state could lead in climate action, public transport, public housing, public infrastructure and public education. However, the profits-first approach creates problems that are never solved. There are solutions, but they require a collective approach.

Socialist Alliance is committed to organising with others in communities and workplaces to challenge the power of the corporations — and to redistribute society’s wealth to meet urgent social and ecological needs. Electing socialists like Anne means these campaigns will get a hearing inside and outside parliament.

How would we pay for all this?

Creating a liveable, non-polluting, people-first South Australia won’t be cheap. Bad choices and cosy deals by capitalist governments over the years have seen to that. Meanwhile, state governments in Australia have only limited taxing power.

But South Australia has huge mineral resources. Here, the state government does have the power to levy taxes. Mining giants currently pay next to zero for these resources—they generally pay a “resource rent” of just 3.5 per cent of the value of the minerals they extract. During the first five years of operations, it’s only 1.5 per cent.

Bringing the mining industry under public control would raise huge funds that could be put towards the projects outlined in this platform, and creating a sustainable future for South Australia.

Policy platform

No to AUKUS

• Stop the new facility at Osborne base for nuclear submarines, and shut down weapons research bases and manufacturing in Port Adelaide. Convert facilities to peaceful civilian research and manufacturing
• No nuclear submarine construction or nuclear submarine decommissioning in Port Adelaide
• Ban transportation, handling and storage of all nuclear waste and uranium. An accident or spill would devastate the environment and public health. It would also threaten the Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins and other marine life in Port River.
• Oppose the Federal Government’s  AUKUS Regulations (2 Oct 2025) which override of State laws that prohibit nuclear waste storage in SA, NT and WA
• The AUKUS Osborne facility risks damage to Kaurna land and waters: we support Aboriginal peoples’ rights to say NO to siting of AUKUS nuclear waste storage on Country
• Amplify the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Article 29 (UNDRIP 2007), to “Free, Prior and Informed Consent” over storage of hazardous materials on their lands
• Push the SA government to disclose the sites intended for storage of nuclear wastes and defend the sites from this storage

First Nations Justice

• First Nations control of First Nations’ affairs, ensuring land rights and controls over land use
• Negotiate treaties to respect First Nations sovereignty and land rights
• End the disproportionate separation of First Nations children from their families
• Close the gap in First Nations health, education, employment and housing
• Implement all the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
• No nuclear submarines and nuclear waste on stolen land 
• Protect sacred Aboriginal sites from developers and mining companies like Santos
• Extend, support and increase funding to Aboriginal-controlled community organisations in Port Adelaide such as Tiraapendi Wodli, Kura Yelo, and education centres like Tauondi Aboriginal College

Ease cost of living

• Automatic wage rises to meet rising prices
• Price caps on basic necessities
• Break up the Coles-Woolworths duopoly, and enforce competition. If prices don’t fall, set up state-owned supermarkets.
• Set up community owned and operated supermarkets, community food gardens
• Cap electricity, gas and water prices
• Free, frequent and accessible public transport
• Increased active transport in Port Adelaide, and throughout the state

Housing for all

• Build tens of thousands of new public housing dwellings in South Australia
• Tough new laws are needed so that people can get housing at fair prices. Rents must be frozen until incomes can catch up; introduce rent controls and ban “no grounds” evictions
• No public housing sell-offs or demolitions
• Provide urgent maintenance and upgrade existing public housing in the SA Housing Trust stock
• Ensure all rentals homes and public housing are healthy, liveable, and energy-efficient
• No forced evictions from public housing
• End the privatisation of public housing to “social housing” run by charities
• Expand and fully fund emergency accommodation services to combat homelessness
• Cooling an overheated market requires a big increase in supply. In most Adelaide suburbs, 5-8 per cent of dwellings are vacant. Owners must be made to sell these premises, or rent them out. Let it or lose it!
• Acquire and transform private dwellings left vacant for more than 12 months for public housing
• Mandate developers to allocate 30% of all new units to affordable housing in perpetuity
• Regulate short-term rentals and Airbnbs – commit to long-term housing
• Clear out construction industry bottlenecks and fund councils to streamline the approvals process. To deal with labour shortages, sponsor qualified building tradespeople as new migrants. Boost training by funding TAFE properly, and by paying a living wage to building industry apprentices.

Community planning

• Give decision-making on planning and heritage back to local government and communities
•  Ban developers from holding unoccupied land for speculation
•  No construction on flood plains and flood-prone land

Better health

• Increase funding for public health
• Pay nurses and midwives a fair wage and improve working conditions and job safety
• Boost funding for public mental health services, especially for children and young people
• Expand community-based health care networks (community health centres, reproductive and sexual health clinics) and make paediatric care free
• Boost funding for preventative care to reduce demand on hospital and acute health services
• Make public dental care free
• Reverse public health privatisations
• Provide free long-term trauma therapy and support for survivors of sexual or domestic abuse
• Legalise cannabis, decriminalise drug use, and treat addiction as a health issue
• Provide safe injecting facilities and pill testing

Boost public education, safety

• Reduce teacher-to-student ratios and teacher workloads by employing more counsellors, teachers and education support staff
• Ensure all education sites and building infrastructures are safe and functional
• Fully fund public schools
• Ban NAPLAN and all standardised testing
• Increase wages for public educators, including early childhood and pre-primary
• Expand funding for more emergency services workers, firefighters, nurses etc
• End the militarisation of schools: end weapons and military-based education programs (such as naval engineering programs) that provide “pathways” to naval and military jobs
• End education programs in partnership with weapons manufacturers
• Universities must divest from Israel
• Universities must cut ties and divest from weapons manufacturers, and the US and Australian militaries.
• Universities must cut ties with fossil fuel and gambling industries

Public and active transport

• Return all transport to public ownership and expand regional networks
• Make it free, 100% accessible for all
• Decarbonise public transport: extend, upgrade and electrify bus and train fleet
• Expand safe cycling infrastructure

For a safe climate, affordable energy

• Put energy back into public (community) hands
• Bring SA Power Networks (formerly Electricity Trust of South Australia) back into public control
• Boost investment for 100% renewable energy by 2030
• Phase out the use and export of fossil fuels 
• South Australia exports 80% of its gas: phase out the export of gas
• Ban unconventional gas exploration and fracking. Cancel the recently opened gas, petroleum, hydrogen exploration in Otway Basin and Polda Basin
• Guarantee new, well-paid jobs for workers transitioning from the fossil fuel industries
• Protect access to clean and safe water supply
• In the electrical grid, peaking gas plants must be replaced by battery storage
• New housing developments must be electric-only. Elsewhere, householders should be offered subsidies to shift to all-electric operation.

Ecosystem protection and climate action

• Properly address the algal bloom crisis, restore the damaged marine habitat
• Protect the Adelaide Parklands and South Australia’s National Parks 
• Create more parks and green space in urban areas, including wildlife corridors
• Boost sustainable recycling of waste, including plastic bags, and food waste

Women’s and LGBTIQA+ rights

• Expand funding for women’s refuges and community-anti-violence campaigns
• Expand access and make abortion free
• Oppose discrimination, including transphobia, Islamophobia
• Reinstate safe schools, LGBTIQA+ spaces
• Support the LGBTIQA+ community, including free gender affirming healthcare
• Fund programs targeting gendered poverty
• Fully decriminalise sex work and the sex industry

Invest in jobs and skills

• Fully fund TAFE and university students’ education
• Increase incentives for health workers, disability support workers, teachers and education support staff, including: free tuition; wages for students doing placement; permanent jobs for those who want it; reduced workload; and increase wages
• Legislate apprenticeship ratios
• Provide services for those who miss out on NDIS funding

Refugees and asylum seekers

• Support asylum seekers and refugees without access to Medicare, Centrelink payments or work rights
• Provide newly- arrived refugees access to services, including housing and transport
• Expand and fully fund services for refugees

Justice

• For rehabilitative, not retributive, justice
• End the privatisation of prisons such as Mount Gambier Prison and the Adelaide Remand Centre
• End the human rights abuses in SA prisons like Yatala Labour Prison, and hold those responsible to account
• End mandatory sentencing and for non-violent offences redirect people to community service
• Raise age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 and no detention for children under the age of 16
• Stop police investigating police: Establish an independent misconduct investigation agency
• End the militarisation of police and ban their use of guns
• Repeal punitive bail laws
• Guarantee funding for the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Ombudsman
• End over-policing and racial profiling of some communities
• Increase funding to free legal services and  Community Legal Centres

Democratic rights

• Scrap anti-democratic anti-protest laws which criminalise people of conscience, such as those speaking out against genocide, and in solidarity with Palestine
• Scrap anti-worker and anti-union laws which restrict unions’ ability to take industrial action and organise on the job
• Stop police busting up union picket lines

Animal welfare

• End live animal exports
• Abolish the use of animals for sport, recreation or entertainment, ban greyhound racing
• Fast-track the Animal Welfare Act 2025 (SA) 
• Ban trophy hunting of all animals, including native water birds
• End the inhumane intensive factory farming of animals
• Support comprehensive and enforceable standards for free-range farming practices for all animals

Gambling reform

• Fund an education campaign on the gambling industry’s predatory practices
• Ban all gambling company advertising
• Ensure electronic gambling products do not increase risky gambling behaviour, such as poker machines that turn themselves off to break “the zone”
• Phase out poker machines and electronic gaming machines from clubs and hotels; restrict them to casinos
• Provide communities, especially regional towns where poker machine venues are significant employers, with alternative job creation schemes