Socialist Alliance preselected Rachel Evans to contest the seat of Sydney, and a state-wide meeting on February 8 preselected Peter Boyle and Andrew Chuter for the NSW Senate.
All three activists have devoted their lives to building community-based campaigns to fight for peoples’ rights and to stop the climate emergency.
Evans is known for her work in the LGBTIQ community and public housing, currently focused on saving boarding houses and preventing public housing from being demolished. She is a disability support worker and is active with Action for Public Housing and City of Sydney for Palestine.
Boyle has been a socialist activist since the 1970s and writes for Green Left. He co-founded Rojava Solidarity — Sydney, which builds solidarity for the Kurdish-led revolution in north-east Syria, and helped initiate the campaign against Aboriginal deaths in custody in the 1980s.
Chuter, a mathematics teacher at the University of Sydney, is active in the Friends of Erskineville and the National Tertiary Education Union. He also campaigns for public housing and public and active transport.
Evans said Sydney MP environment minister Tanya Plibersek “has gone conspicuously quiet” on reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act after WA Labor objected.
She has also “said nothing about Woodside’s controversial North West Shelf gas expansion project” despite “promising to deliver real climate action”.
Australia is only meeting its very weak targets because its fossil fuel exports are not counted, Evans said.
Evans was arrested in November for taking direct action, along with 170 others, at the Rising Tide blockade of the world’s largest coal port in Muloobinba/Newcastle.
“We need real zero carbon emissions and 100% renewable energy by 2030, not Labor’s net zero by 2050,” Evans said.
“We live in dangerous times,” Boyle added. “The billionaire class has become even richer at the expense of society and the environment.
“People are hurting and angry at governments, so the billionaires are backing right-wing populist politicians, like Donald Trump, to spread racism, misogyny and bigotry in an effort to hang on to power through divide-and-rule politics.”
Boyle said Peter Dutton and Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart are “cheering Trump on and, as a consequence, Anthony Albanese is moving further to the right”.
“If we want to break this dangerous trend we need to take the economy out of the billionaires’ hands and put it in public ownership,” Boyle said.
“This is the only way society’s resources can be used to address urgent social and environmental needs.”
Chuter said the critical housing shortfall and affordability problem needs to be tackled at multiple levels.
“Not only does the government need to step in and build more public, affordable homes, it should detail states and councils to find emergency accommodation for the most vulnerable.”
Chuter said the Greens’ are correct to focus on the structural problems preventing the next generation from ever owning a home.
“Ending negative gearing and capital gains tax — both policies which benefit those with properties — has to happen if society is to provide secure and affordable housing for those needing it.”
Chuter said wages and welfare payments need to rise to help address the cost-of-living crisis. “Nearly one in five children in Australia live in poverty. This is outrageous in a wealthy country.”
[For more information visit Socialist Alliance.]