Sarah Peart, spokesperson for the O3 to CHOGM Alliance.
The O3 to CHOGM Alliance is organising a blockade of the October 3-6 Commonwealth Business Forum (CBF) in Melbourne. The media spokesperson for the group, Sarah Peart's passion about anti-corporate activism deepened when she attended the Prague protests against the World Bank and International Monetary fund in September 2000.
"I was travelling in Austria when the S11 protests [outside the Melbourne meeting of the World Economic Forum] happened", Peart remembered. "The protests were in all the newspapers, and my friends said: 'Australia is never in the papers'. So it was exciting, the attention these protests were getting."
"Then when I got to Prague the streets were full of people chanting in different languages and linking arms. Thousands of people from different countries working together to regain control of the planet. It was awesome.
"What really struck me was that Prague was a country where people had looked to capitalism, thinking anything would be better than Stalinism. But now they were looking for something else."
Currently the Melbourne assistant district secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party, Peart is a Socialist Alliance candidate for the Senate. She is used to people asking her why she thinks Marxism is still relevant.
"I joined the Democratic Socialist Party in 1995, while I was a member of the socialist youth group Resistance. I had always been a feminist, environmentalist and an anti-racist. Marxism just made sense. You could use it to explain why the world was this way and how to change it."
At 7pm on October 3, Prime Minister John Howard will address the CBF. The militant Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has called a protest at the blockade which will oppose Australian involvement in the war effort and the government's institution of an anti-union royal commission into the building industry.
"Getting joint action with the unions is a big step forward", Peart argues. "I've got a lot of respect for the gains that many of the unions have made for working people, through often difficult struggle. The anti-corporate movement is pro-worker, and involves thousands of workers. We are all fighting exploitation."
Peart has high hopes for the blockade. "The corporate heads attending the CBF will be pushing to support Bush's war. Some of the members are arms companies, who literally stand to make a killing. Our protest says that this is not a legitimate meeting — the decisions made at this meeting will have a disastrous impact on people's lives. If we all pull together, we can beat this war."