BY JANET BURSTALL
The Socialist Alliance in NSW will soon have its first chance to campaign in local government elections, which have been called for March 27. What are the issues and challenges?
Inequality in Australia corresponds very closely to where people live. Swathes of Western Sydney and country NSW have high unemployment, poverty and demoralisation, along with very poor local facilities.
Other parts of Sydney, especially closer to the city and the water, are undergoing huge developments of apartments, and escalating housing prices fuelled by the negative-gearing tax regime that favours investors over owner-occupiers.
This gap between rich and poor areas has been widening since the mid 1970s. Capital, and with it production and jobs, flows to sites of higher profitability, away from areas of lower profitability.
This has an impact on what local councils can do. Councils raise most of their revenue from local residents and businesses. Councils in NSW spend around $5 billion a year in total, of which the federal government contributes about $500 million. So poorer areas are serviced by poorer councils.
This combines with another trend of seriously declining capital outlays by local governments and failure of state and federal governments to take responsibility for infrastructure. In poorer areas, the result is deteriorating facilities, buildings and local roads and even less economic activity.
This combined and uneven development going on within Australia is most evident when comparing suburbs and local government areas, and needs to be understood by socialists running in local government elections. Both capitalist development and the lack of it are affecting the lives of working-class households (not just in the narrow sense of property development).
The unfinished business of saving the Callan Park foreshores of Sydney Harbour in Rozelle illustrates the dilemma.
The state government had been going to sell a large portion of the land to have hundreds of apartments built on it. A fierce campaign by Friends of Callan Park, built by the councillors, local Greens and other residents, forced the state Labor government to back down. Now the Friends are campaigning for the state government to fund a trust to manage and maintain the park. The consequence of refusing capitalist over-development is the danger of "demolition by neglect".
The problem in many municipalities is that lack of investment means lack of production and jobs. "Demolition by neglect" is happening not just to buildings but to the lives of individuals and their communities. This is the dilemma that socialists must help working-class communities come to grips with in local government campaigns. Even more urgent than stopping bad development in many localities is the need for local facilities, services and jobs.
"Socialism in one suburb" is unattainable. But a socialist, working-class perspective can be developed. Here are seven main points worth considering in developing a local campaign.
1. Socially useful work
There is enough useful work to be done that there should be no unemployed people in any municipality. Socialist candidates can campaign for election with the same approach that we would bring to political office, by working with residents, workers and their unions to develop plans for socially and environmentally useful work, services and facilities.
2. Solidarity and union conditions for all workers
All local projects should be on union rates of pay and conditions. As a matter of principle, socialist councillors would oppose staff cuts and wage squeezes on council workers, and contracting out of council work. Local union branches and workplaces should be offered support for any demands they have for better working conditions and job security.
3. Democracy
The smaller scale of local government makes democratic decision making through local community and worker control a more immediate possibility than at state and federal levels. Full openness in all council business is essential to local democracy, and to preventing the tendency in local government for councilors to be in the pockets of developers and other business, rather than accountable to the residents.
4. Redistribute wealth
No council can raise the revenue, provide housing stock and control industry in its area to ensure that everyone is well-housed and employed. A socialist campaign needs to call for an end to negative gearing, the GST, and for a progressive income tax system that allocates needed funds to socially and environmentally beneficial purposes. Socialists oppose regressive revenue raising measures by councils.
5. Housing for all
The state government planning and development laws make it hard for councils to challenge real estate prices, and easy for developers to push them up and build homes for the most well-off, squeezing low income earners even harder with high rents, evictions, and poor property maintenance. Public housing is usually insufficient and not well maintained.
6. Know the local political economy
We can explain how local problems are caused by capitalism if we develop a picture of the political economy of the local area and connect it to the national and global context. And we can show that the principles of solidarity and the goal of equality apply at the local level.
7. Run local candidates
Local candidates, committed the local area are needed. For example, Maurice Sibelle's good vote for the Socialist Alliance in Victorian local elections in March reflected his involvement in the local community.
There are about 30 Green councilors in NSW. And the Greens have had some success at challenging development and improving the environmental management policies of councils. Environmental sustainability is being placed ahead of profitability.
Green councilors have also used their positions to speak out against state and federal government policies which socialists also oppose, against the war on Iraq and for refugees.
But the Greens do not generally advocate redistribution of wealth, reorganisation of production around social need, or organise and advocate for working-class people and households.
These are the issues where socialists can make a difference. And perhaps local government might be the level at which socialists and Greens might have the chance to work together most closely, and clarify and resolve some political differences.
Local government elections are potentially a serious starting point for building a base for improvement of the Socialist Alliance's electoral success, and to show what a working class solidarity platform has to offer that the Greens cannot, and the ALP has long forgotten.
[Janet Burstall is a member of Workers Liberty and the Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 15, 2003.
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