Our Common Cause

Our Common Cause is the column of Socialist Alliance in Green Left which is widely recognised as one of the most authoritative left-wing English-language sources of news and political analysis in print and online. Green Left covers many of the issues and campaigns that Socialist Alliance members are involved in.

Members and supporters are encouraged to promote Green Left while campaigning in their communities and workplaces and to become financial supporters of Green Left to ensure its ongoing production and distribution.

It's probably no surprise that the Intergenerational Report 2023 passed without much comment. It forecasts the need for greater income revenue, and that will fall to a younger generation. Sam Wainwright reports.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's argument that long-term government is counterposed to pro-working class policies contains major flaws, argues Alex Bainbridge.

More than three decades after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, no capitalist country has made any serious effort to decarbonise. Alex Bainbridge argues for system change.

The stakes are high. “Ecosocialism or extinction” is not an empty phrase, Susan Price argues, when discussing capitalism and its rapacious drive for profit and how we win a democratic, ecologically sustainable, safe climate future.
While the Royal Commission report into Robodebt did not recommend systemic compensation to the victims, it did suggest lifting the rate for social security benefits
The Greens leadership is wrong to mainly focus on getting more MPs and believe that its someone else’s job to do the “street heat” it knows is needed, argues Sam Wainwright.

Treating housing as a commodity has made it inaccessible to people who need homes. But it doesn’t have to be like this.

Merri-bek Socialist Alliance councillor Sue Bolton argues that councils must not cave in to pressure from the homophobic far-right and cancel LGBTIQ gatherings because that enables “drag panic”.
It was notable that  Treasurer Jim Chalmers didn’t mouth the words “climate action” while spruiking the budget. That is because it didn’t contain a plan for the climate transition we need.

Labor's budget betrays renters, job seekers and people doing it tough. It leaves millions stuck in poverty while billionaires get tax cuts.

The Defence Strategic Review doesn’t contain any surprises. It abandons any pretence that military expenditure has anything to do with defence, conceding that it’s all about helping the United States project its military power into Asia.

The negotiated amendments won by the Greens improved Labor’s initial terrible climate "safeguard mechanism", but are not enough to make it worthy of support.