BY JACQUI LEE
PERTH — The Democratic Socialist Party's candidates in the February 10 Western Australian state election are calling on their supporters to give their first preference votes to socialist and Green candidates and to return a Labor state government.
"There is little between the Coalition and the ALP in terms of policies", said Roberto Jorquera, the DSP's candidate for the Legislative Assembly seat of Perth. "However, because of the ALP's ties with the trade union officialdom, many labour movement activists falsely believe that having a Labor government will better for the defence of working-class interests than a Coalition government.
"While we don't agree with this view — both are for putting corporate profits ahead of working people's needs — having a Labor government will better enable socialists to convince these activists that they need to help build a working-class alternative to both of the bosses' parties."
"A genuine working-class alternative", said Anthony Benbow, Democratic Socialist candidate for the seat of Fremantle, "needs to be based on a perspective of replacing the capitalist private profit system with a society based on public ownership and democratic management of natural resources and productive wealth.
"That won't be brought about through parliamentary elections, but through mass action in the workplaces and on the streets, through a 'people power' revolution."
Why then are they standing as candidates in a parliamentary election? "We're using our election campaign to do the sort of things we do all year 'round — helping to build extra-parliamentary struggles", said Benbow. "If we're elected to parliament, we'd use the resources this brought us to do even more to help build extra-parliamentary struggles."
Jorquera and Benbow have used their election campaign to mobilise support for the May 1 blockade against corporate tyranny, the International Women's Day march and rally and the Refugee Rights Action Network.
The two Democratic Socialist candidates are calling on voters in the seat of Maylands, where Socialist Party (formerly Militant) activist Neil Gray is standing, to give Gray their first preference vote. Gray has focused his campaign on heroin reform, calling for safer injecting facilities. Gray's slogan is: "Vote for a socialist activist standing on a worker's wage".
In seats where there are no socialist candidates standing, the DSP is calling for a first preference vote for Greens (WA) candidates, and for voters to put the ALP ahead of the Coalition parties in all seats, with One Nation last.