BY LISA MACDONALD
SYDNEY — In what will be the broadest left conference held in this city for many years, activists from the growing anti-corporate movement and a wide range of local campaigns will gather at the University of Technology's Markets campus on March 24 for the "Fighting for the Future" conference.
The conference, which began as an initiative of the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), has become a major project of M1 Sydney, the group organising the blockade of the Australian Stock Exchange in Sydney's corporate heartland on May 1. The all-day conference will provide a forum for detailed discussions of the nature of and alternatives to corporate globalisation, discussions which, given the enormous organisational task M1 activists have taken on, have not received much attention in M1 Sydney meetings.
The conference agenda contains something of interest for all progressive activists, with an extraordinarily wide range of workshops run by many different activist groups on offer.
Two plenary sessions, on the topics of "Fix it or nix it: Can we reform the institutions of corporate globalisation?" and "Visions of a sustainable future: Which way forward?", will feature, among other speakers, well-known left writers Devlina Ghosh and James Goodman, long-time activists such as Jack Mundey, and speakers from political parties including the NSW Greens, the ISO and the Democratic Socialist Party.
M1 Sydney hopes and expects that the conference will facilitate many of the major discussions and debates taking place in the anti-corporate movement in Australia, and thereby help strengthen the ideas, the activism and the unity of the movement.
The conference is open to all who are interested in the issues that have generated, and those which confront, the anti-corporate movement. To register or obtain more information, phone Tom on 0408 619 152 or Lisa on 9690 1977.