The Socialist Alliance and the Communist Party of Australia have released the following joint statement of left organisations and individuals about the March 26 NSW elections.
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The NSW Labor Party is facing a trouncing in the March 26 elections because of the problems that have arisen from the ALP’s corporate profits-first, "economic rationalist" agenda.
In the process, it has carried out a privatisation spree, most recently selling off our state's retail electricity assets for next to nothing.
NSW Labor governments have run down public transport, public hospitals and public schools and wasted billions of dollars in disastrous “public-private partnerships” (PPPs).
Public housing has been run down even while more and more people face soaring rents and house prices.
But while many working people want to punish the ALP, a Liberal-National Coalition government will not be any better and most likely will be worse. Indeed it will take a sharp axe to already run-down public services and continue the privatisation madness.
The undersigned left and progressive parties and individuals see an urgent need to build a broad opposition to what has become a bi-partisan corporate profits-first policy of the major parties, along the principles of:
• Putting the interest of people and the environment ahead of corporate profits;
• Opposition to privatisation, including subcontracting, outsourcing, greater casualisation of work and the ongoing sale of public lands to developers;
• Opposition to cuts to public sector jobs and attacks on working conditions;
• Support for serious public investment in public transport, renewable energy generation, public hospitals, public schools and public housing;
• Opposition to racism; active support for the rights of Aboriginal people; opposition to discrimination on the grounds of religion, especially Islam, and sexuality;
• Support for full funding for the equal pay campaign of the community sector unions;
• Investment in communities not in prisons.
We call for support for left, progressive and Greens candidates in the coming election but we also urge people to use their preferences to put Labor before the Coalition and the far-right parties and candidates, including the Legislative Council ticket headed by Pauline Hanson.
Signatories:
Socialist Alliance
Communist Party of Australia
Sudanese Human Rights Association
Sudanese Communist Party in Australia (Western Sydney Branch)
Abdul Hijazi, Communist Party of Lebanon in Australia
Committee of Colombian Political Exiles in Australia
Professor Stuart Rees
Raquel Miriam Iglesias
Ray Jackson
Luis Ernesto Almario
Andrew Chuter (UNSW Mathematics teacher, IEU Council member)
Marlene Obeid
Tim Anderson
Brett Collins, Justice Action
Peter Perkins
Raul Bassi
[Any group or individual wishing to add their endorsement to this statement should email: nsw@socialist-alliance.org and cpa@cpa.org.au or phone Paul Benedek or Federico Fuentes on 02 9690 1977.]