For a peoples movement against cuts, racism and attacks on workers: 2016 federal election campaign

2016 Australian federal election

Our pledge

Socialist Alliance candidates are activists who are involved in the movements: they are workers; trade unionists; students; environmental campaigners; refugee rights activists and community organisers.

All Socialist Alliance candidates pledge, if elected, to take an average worker’s wage, and to donate the rest to the movements for change.

Socialist Alliance candidates will use their positions to be a voice for the majority, against the power of the wealthy minority, to build campaigns and empower communities, to shine a light on injustice, exploitation and cruelty, and to strengthen the movement for system change.

Liberal and Labor politicians, who govern for the big corporations at the expense of people, have overseen decades of cutbacks to social services, privatisations and attacks on our democratic rights.

The neoliberal consensus has meant that our public health and education systems have been starved of funds and semi-privatised. It has also meant that our working lives are less secure and our work rights have been undermined.

All this has made Australia a harsher, more unsustainable and unequal society.

Australia is among the highest carbon emitting countries in the world, per capita, contributing to the global climate crisis. Our forests, farming lands, reefs and water systems are under serious threat from environmental destruction caused by extractive industries.

For 14 years, governments and the corporate media have waged war against refugees — a war which has given rise to a cruel and expensive detention regime, now being promoted to the world, and the deaths of thousands of asylum seekers.

More recently, governments have starved Aboriginal organisations of funds and have begun to close remote Aboriginal communities.

This government-fuelled racism — poisonous in its own right — is part of the background to recent attempts to undermine universal rights such as Medicare, our retirement pension, unemployment benefits and other welfare rights.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Australia is a wealthy country with the resources to provide everyone with a decent, comfortable life and to provide aid to our regional neighbours. But the reality is that 60% of that wealth is in the hands of the richest 20%, while the poorest 20% own virtually nothing.

We need a radically different future: one that provides for human development, meets community need, protects our environment and guarantees a safe climate; one where our economy operates to ensure social and ecological need; one where participatory democracy means people make the decisions in society; one that promotes cooperation, solidarity and justice for all — an eco-socialist future.

As Naomi Klein said during her visit to Australia, “we have to challenge this system head-on”. To do this, we need to build a strong, active, democratic movement of the majority. We need to forge alliances between workers, communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and all those under attack — so we can take on the power of the corporations and build that future together.

Policy platform

Tax the corporations and the rich — no GST

Scrap the GST
For a progressive tax system where the wealthy pay their share
Introduce a wealth tax for the super rich
An immediate rise in company tax to 49%
Tax the big polluters
End the billions in public subsidies to mining corporations banks and energy companies
End rampant tax evasion by multinationals

Public ownership

Nationalise the mines, banks and energy companies, under community and workers’ control
Take back the wealth so that it can be used for social and environmental purposes
Oppose and reverse the privatisation of public assets and services

Real climate action

Scrap the ‘Direct Action’ fraud;
Urgent public investment and emission reduction targets to achieve 100% renewable energy within 10 years
Bring the power industries under public ownership and democratic control
Stop fracking and all unconventional gas mining
Tax the corporate polluters and billionaires
Make the shift from coal and gas to renewables with a just transition for workers
Justice for climate refugees and those displaced by climate change
Ban the logging of old-growth forests
Begin an urgent program of reforestation, sustainable farming and biodiversity protection
Enforce the rehabilitation of mine sites by companies

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights

No community closures
Treaties now to respect sovereignty and land rights
Repeal the Stronger Futures laws
Abolish racist welfare quarantining and compulsory income management
No uranium waste dumps
Close the gap in Aboriginal health, education, employment and housing
Implement all the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
Fund language and culture programs and bilingual education in schools
Aboriginal control of Aboriginal affairs — not tokenistic Constitutional recognition

Asylum seekers

End the boat turn-backs
Protect the rights of medical, teaching and security staff to speak out about abuse in detention
Honour Australia's UNHCR obligations
Close offshore and onshore detention centres and end mandatory detention
Restore all Australian territories to the migration zone
Rnd deportations and end ASIO security veto of refugees

Against racism, defend our civil rights

End the racist targeting of Muslims
Defend anti-discrimination laws
Scrap ‘anti-terror’ laws
Abolish ASIO and all spy agencies
Repeal data retention laws
Put the police under community control
Adopt a Bill of Rights

Workers’ rights

Scrap all anti-union laws
No new ABCC (Australian Building & Construction Commission)
Recognise workers’ right to strike and organise in law, including solidarity actions
Increase the minimum wage
Restore penalty rates
Recognise the right to secure work for all — reverse casualisation
Full industrial, residency and citizenship rights for all migrant workers
Expand apprenticeship programs
Guarantee retirement and access to the pension for all at age 60

Industry and jobs

Retool Australia’s manufacturing sector for the production of renewable technologies and public transport
Immediate public investment to create jobs in providing better public housing, schools, hospitals and health facilities
Create jobs by introducing a 30 hour week, with no loss of wages

Social rights

Reverse the attacks on sole parent pensions
Scrap "Work for the Dole" schemes
No compulsory income management and other forms of welfare quarantining
Aguaranteed basic income for all
Lift all welfare payments above the poverty line and index them to maintain real value
Boost funding to community-based aged and childcare services
Expand disability services and access
Restore the universal right to the aged pension

Women’s rights

Reverse the gender pay gap — for equal pay
Reverse the cuts to single parent pensions
Enshrine the right to publicly-funded abortion
Restore and expand funding to women's shelters, refuges and community anti-violence programs
Employer-funded, paid parental leave

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer rights

Full marriage equality
Full rights for trans and intersex people
Full, publicly-funded medical services for gender transition
Fully-funded school programs for non judgemental sex education and anti violence campaigns
Full adoption rights

Youth rights

Right to vote at 16; boost funding to youth services
Full pay for young people — no youth wage!
Expand youth housing programs
Expand apprenticeship programs
Eo fees for TAFE and University
Restore Austudy and Youth Allowance to a living wage

Education for all

Reverse the funding cuts to public education
Make public education free at all levels
Expand the public education sector and massively increase funding to vocational education and TAFE
End public funding to private schools, tertiary institutions and training colleges

Housing for all

Tackle homelessness and the housing shortfall with a large-scale expansion in quality public housing
Cap rents and mortgage repayments at 20% of income
Expand emergency accommodation services
Target housing provision for at-risk youth

Free healthcare for all

End the back door co-payments
Restore free, universal health care
Boost funding for preventative care and chronic disease management
Free dental care
End subsidies to private health insurers
Expand community-based health care networks
Boost funding to mental health services

Public transport in public hands

Make public transport frequent and free
Boost investment in suburban and high-speed intercity rail
Reverse the privatisation of public transport services

International aid, not war and occupation

Bring back all military forces from Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East
No participation or support for imperialist interventions
Isolate apartheid Israel
End ANZUS and US military bases in Australia
Cut military spending and boost development and climate change aid to poor countries
Reverse the cuts to Australia's overseas aid programs — for a massive increase in Australia's aid budget
End Australia’s interference in the affairs of countries in the Asia Pacific
Independence for West Papua

Democracy, not corporate dictatorship

Participatory democracy which empowers people and communities
Proportional representation at all government levels
Election campaigns for all candidates publicly funded to a fixed amount
End careerism and rorting — put politicians on an average worker’s wage
All government positions subject to recall
Scrap the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA)

Justice

Decriminalise drugs and divert policing to address domestic violence, corporate tax evasion, and other corporate crimes including environmental vandalism
End mandatory detention
For prevention programs, community-oriented rehabilitation schemes and alternatives to imprisonment
Fully fund legal aid
Maintain policing and corrective services in public hands
Reverse the privatisation of prisons