'Newcastle needs a working-class alternative'

'Newcastle needs a working-class alternative'

'Newcastle needs a working-class alternative'

By Stephen O'Brien

NEWCASTLE — Following the November 21 federal Newcastle by-election, the Democratic Socialists have announced that they will nominate BHP steelworker Geoff Payne to run in the March NSW elections.

Payne told Green Left Weekly that the 625 votes (1.04%) polled by the Democratic Socialists represented a 30% increase on the socialist vote in the 1996 election, and a 90% increase on the 1993 vote. "We won this increase despite a field of 11 candidates. We mobilised more than 40 booth workers and sold more than 80 copies of Green Left Weekly on the day."

The left should learn from the way the right-wing maximised its vote, Payne pointed out. One Nation, the Christian Democrats and two right-wing independents tightly exchanged preferences to lift One Nation's two-party preferred vote to 26%.

While the Greens and the Democratic Socialists swapped preferences, the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) preferenced the ALP. The PLP's preference policy meant that PLP votes went straight back to Labor instead of flowing to other progressive candidates first, explained Payne.

The Democratic Socialists will contrast the record of the NSW ALP government with the anti-privatisation rhetoric of the federal Labor opposition, Payne said.

"The Carr government still wants to privatise electricity, just as it has sold off the TAB. The state ALP has done nothing to stop the closure of the steelworks. It does not support the introduction of a 35-hour week, and it allows the gutter press to go unchallenged as they whip up racist hysteria about so-called youth gangs in western Sydney.

"The Democratic Socialists will present a working-class alternative, one which calls for the nationalisation of BHP, the reversal of privatisation, a 35-hour week with no loss of pay and a campaign against racism."