By Michelle Hovane
[This is the abridged text of a talk at a Perth Politics in the Pub on the topic "Prospects for a Left Alternative" on January 22. Hovane is the Democratic Socialist candidate for the seat of Perth in the WA election.]
Not even one month into a new year, already there have been two ecologically disastrous oil spills and a renewal of US aggression in the Gulf.
Last year in Rio the biggest heads of state gathering ever was given the opportunity to act on the global human and environmental issues; they resolutely turned their backs on these problems.
Here in WA, confronted with the environmental crisis, Lawrence proposes cycle paths alongside our freeways. Confronted with the well-documented gross disadvantage of Aboriginal people in this state, the coalition proposes training courses with modern domestic appliances for Aboriginal women. These are the facile solutions from what the mainstream press keeps telling us are the only credible candidates.
We in the left and progressive movements need to be emboldened by the common sense of what we are saying. We have to resist the daily message that violence, misery, hatred are part of "human nature", unfortunate but inevitable.
We have to have the courage to step outside the narrow confines of what the mainstream press allows as legitimate "election" issues, to shift the agenda away from the present no choice of which cuts and how fast.
What is so minor or wishful about ensuring that everyone in this state has the right to a living income and human dignity? to free education and adequate health care? What is so crazy about saying "We have to change the way we interact with the planet, or we and the planet won't be here!"?
We know that the mainstream parties offer non-solutions to the social crisis. We know that neither Labor nor Liberal will offer anything but pro-profit polices, and that we cannot expect either to be pro-planet or pro-people.
I don't think we should view lightly the escalation of viciousness against our communities that a Liberal government will bring. However, it would be wrong to think that the need to
prevent a coalition victory saves us the hard work of building a real alternative. It would be a mistake to think that campaigning for Labor will protect us from further attack.
We in the Democratic Socialists are standing on a platform of three main ideas: ecological survival, social justice and democracy. These are not so different from the issues other alternative candidates are standing on.
That common outlook should be our starting point. Let us recognise and acknowledge our different histories and experiences, our different language and strengths. Let us try to work out our difficulties and find the ways of talking with each other at the most basic level.
Let us sit down before the federal elections and talk about who in the left and progressive movements wants to stand and where. Let's learn from the New Zealand experience, where five parties have come together in the Alliance and they are now polling well over 30%.
But let's also look beyond parliament. Most of the important decisions about what resources we use and how are made in the boardrooms of corporations, not in parliament. Parliament is often the tool of unelected and unseen elites, so we must develop our own tools and our own organisations.
We have not only to talk to each other but to work together. The Green Left Weekly project is just one example of how we might work together and get our ideas and campaigns out to people.
We have to find the way to unity, because if we don't — as Fidel said — "Tomorrow may be too late!"