BY SUE BOLAND
Governments don't mind if their policies are unpopular with the majority of the population, as long as the only reaction they provoke is passive grumbling. What they don't want is for widespread grumbling to turn into active and organised opposition.
The Western Australian Coalition government of Richard Court, seeking re-election on February 10, is certainly no exception. Like many other governments, it has even sought to restrict the organising efforts of its opponents: its backing for BHP's union-bashing attempts to introduce individual contracts in the state's Pilbara region and "voluntary student unionism" legislation aimed at gutting the student movement being but two examples.
But there is a party standing in the WA election which is committed to turning passive grumbling into organised and active opposition. That party is the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) which is standing Roberto Jorquera and Anthony Benbow in the seats of Perth and Fremantle respectively.
"Unlike mainstream career politicians who like to show their faces at demonstrations when the television cameras are around but do nothing to build campaigns, the DSP's involvement in grassroots campaigns isn't just a ruse to build a public profile in order to get elected", said Jorquera, who is the secretary of the party's Perth district.
Jorquera described the party's approach by saying, "It is not enough to wait until election time to voice opposition to government policies. An active opposition in defence of people's rights has to occur all of the time."
"It is especially ludicrous", added Benbow, "when people say that we should lobby the main opposition party, the ALP, to support a campaign, and then wait for a change of government."
Benbow, an active member of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union and a former member of the union's state council and state executive, gave the example of the dispute over individual contracts in the Pilbara: "BHP is not going to be stopped by workers waiting for a different government. If the ALP wins the state election, it will keep individual contracts for those workers."
"Our party gets involved in and initiates campaigns, because we want to reverse current injustices and prevent further injustices from happening," Jorquera explained. "We know we can't leave things to the politicians. When there is no active organised opposition, it is easy for them to ignore our views. None of our current rights were granted by politicians or employers out of the goodness of their hearts. They were extracted as a result of determined campaigns."
The DSP is different to other parties standing in the election — it is an activist, rather than a parliamentary, party. The party seeks to fight social injustice not by acting on behalf of people, but by building broad-based campaigns where people can gain confidence in their own ability to fight for their rights, without relying on fickle politicians and experts to do it for them.
"Mainstream politicians would disparagingly call this 'rabble-rousing' because they know that they can ignore public opinion when it is not organised", said Jorquera. "We call it grassroots organising."
Benbow explained, "While the parliamentary parties may have individual rank and file members who get upset about an issue and get involved in a campaign, none of the parliamentary parties seek to mobilise their own members, let alone the rest of the population, in opposition to injustices. The members of parliamentary parties are only mobilised at election time to secure votes for those parties."
Contrast this with the record of the DSP which has achieved a lot through its grassroots organising approach, its candidates say, even in spite of its small resources and lack of access to the mass media. What it doesn't have in monetary resources is made up for by enthusiastic and active members and supporters who are committed to campaigning for a more just society.
Jorquera and Benbow speak proudly of the party's record: fighting racism, supporting workers' struggles, building solidarity with the peoples of East Timor and Indonesia, fighting for the rights of women, opposing corporate power.
In 1997, the DSP initiated demonstrations outside public meetings of racist One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson in Western Australia, they related, just as the party did in other states. In July 1998, 500 Perth high school students showed their disgust with racism by walking out of school in an action, organised by the socialist youth group Resistance, which was closely backed by the DSP.
When Patrick Stevedores and the federal government attempted to destroy the Maritime Union of Australia during the 1998 maritime dispute, the party was there to throw its weight behind the wharfies. As well as supporting the picket line in Fremantle, the DSP organised public meetings, petitions, distributed information and collected money to support the locked-out unionists.
The party was also heavily involved in organising large demonstrations in Perth in September 1999, including another walkout by 1000 high school students, which called for the Australian government to end its backing of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and send troops to end the killings there.
The party has been active in campaigning for an extension of women's right to abortion in WA, for the decriminalisation of sex work and against the woodchipping of the state's old-growth jarrah and karri forests, organising public meetings and pickets and publicising the issues.
On the city's university campuses, its members have thrown themselves into student occupations at Murdoch university against course closures and campaigns at Curtin university to democratise the student union, amongst other things.
This strong record of activism continued last year — party activists were among the key organisers of a 1000-strong solidarity rally in Perth with the S11 protests against the World Economic Forum in Melbourne.
This year, Benbow and Jorquera explained, a key party project is its involvement in the M1 Alliance which is planning a blockade of the Perth stock exchange on May 1 to coincide with blockades of stock exchanges in other cities.
On January 16, party activists helped found the Refugee Rights Action Network and members have organised protests against immigration minister Philip Ruddock and against deportations of asylum seekers.
When asked why the DSP was standing candidates in the election, when its main focus of activity is building extra-parliamentary campaign, Benbow explained: "The DSP would like to get one or more of its members elected to parliament but if we get a member elected, we would be very different to the existing parliamentarians.
"If we won a parliamentary seat, we wouldn't restrict ourselves to speaking in parliamentary debates. The most important thing that a socialist MP could do is to use the platform of parliament to give voice to the extra-parliamentary struggles and help to organise and support those struggles.
"Another important role that an MP of ours could play is to expose the fundamentally undemocratic nature of parliament. That's why we need to rely on campaigns outside of parliament to change things.
"The difference between us and the other parliamentarians is that the others are career politicians whereas we will still be activists in the parliament of the streets."
[Those wishing to support the DSP's election campaign can contact the party's Perth office on (08) 9218 9608 or its Fremantle office on (08) 9433 6790. Email <perth@dsp.org.au>.]