"How many more innocent lives is Howard prepared to destroy in the name of fighting a war on terror?", asks Socialist Alliance candidate for the Victorian federal seat of Gellibrand, Ben Courtice, following Dr Mohamed Haneef's release from three weeks of hell in police custody.
Courtice, a metalworker and member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, and an activist with the Justice for Jack Thomas campaign in Melbourne, said: "The sad but somewhat predictable reality is that, in his desperate attempt to win office, Kevin Rudd has been unconditionally backing the Coalition government's despicable framing of Dr Haneef."
According to Courtice, the ALP is not a genuine alternative for working people. "Rudd is not only agreeing with Howard on the anti-terror laws, he has given no commitment to tear up all of Work Choices, has pledged to keep the Australian Building and Construction Commission, will not commit to withdraw all the troops from the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan, and is prepared to destroy old-growth forests in Tasmania."
Courtice is one of five Socialist Alliance candidates preselected in Victoria to challenge the neoliberal consensus of the two mainstream parties and put forward an alternative with real solutions to the environmental and social crises facing people in Australia.
Ballarat University National Tertiary Education Union branch president Jeremy Smith and Margarita Windisch, an anti-war activist and the Socialist Alliance state convener, have been preselected for the Victorian Senate team.
Chris Johnston, a long-term social justice and women's rights campaigner in the Geelong area, will be contesting the seat of Corio, and Zane Alcorn, a young worker and environmental activist, will be standing in the seat of Wills.
Socialist Alliance federal election candidates will be campaigning very hard to scrap the federal "anti-terror" laws, which have been used to lock up 13 Muslim men for thought crimes and persecute three Tamil men on trumped up charges. The Socialist Alliance is also calling on the ALP to back the Greens' proposal to block the federal government's plan to give the Australian Federal Police increased powers.
Other key campaign issues for these candidates include the abolition of Work Choices, the setting of serious targets to reduce global warming, the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and stronger Indigenous land rights and massively increased funding for Indigenous services.
Alcorn and Windisch will be travelling to Sydney to join the September 8 national protest against US President George Bush and PM John Howard when they attend the APEC conference.
For more information about these campaigns or how to get involved in the Socialist Alliance election campaign, phone (03) 9639 8622 or Margarita on 0438 869 790.