BY STUART MARTIN
WOLLONGONG — On October 26, Naomi Arrowsmith cut up her ALP membership card and put a Socialist Alliance poster in support of Margaret Perrott's campaign for the seat of Throsby in her front yard. "This is what I think of Kim Beazley", she told the assembled media.
A well known local unionist, Arrowsmith has worked as an organiser for the Australian Workers Union and currently is an organiser for the Community and Public Sector Union, campaigning to improve working conditions for call centre workers. She resigned on October 22 as secretary of the Port Kembla ALP branch.
Arrowsmith is also active in the fight against corporate globalisation. She was arrested at the 2001 S11 protest outside the Melbourne meeting of the World Economic Forum for gluing a padlock shut on the Crown Casino Helipad.
Arrowsmith cites the pro-corporate direction of the ALP as one of the reasons for her resignation. The direct attack of the NSW Labor Government on compensation entitlements for injured workers is another.
But the final straw was the ALP's support for sending troops to Afghanistan. "I am disgusted with the ALP stand on the war in Afghanistan and the refugees. I can no longer remain in a party whose leader, Kim Beazley, 'stands shoulder to shoulder with George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard'", Arrowsmith said. "My principles do not allow it. The ALP no longer represents, or even pretends to represent, the interests of working people or the poor. It has the interests of big business and US imperialism at heart."
"There is a growing movement against global capitalism, spending billions of dollars on killing people and racist attacks on those less fortunate than we", she said. "The Socialist Alliance represents this movement and is made up of activists, not politicians."