BY GARY MEYERHOFF
DARWIN — "No votes for ratbags" was the headline of the editorial in the March 7 Northern Territory News. The News was referring to the Socialist Alliance and its candidate for Lord Mayor of Darwin, Ruth Ratcliffe.
The same edition carried a major article on the Socialist Alliance's support for a safe injecting room in the city, the legalisation of all illicit substances and opposition to the NT Labor government's proposed "drug house" laws.
The daily NT News has carried numerous, sensationalist front-page stories about"drug houses" in Darwin to promote Labor's draconian legislation. Nevertheless, the Socialist Alliance's suggestions for alternative policies were presented in a remarkably rational way by the newspaper. The article featured a large photo of Ratcliffe and quoted her extensively.
However, what the NT News gave with one hand, it took back with the other. The editorial asserted that "those violently opposed to Ms Ratcliffe's vision splendid — and they would be in the majority — would believe that Darwin would become the haven for hard drug users under her plan". It concluded that "Ms Ratcliffe and her supporters may well have some valid ideas to improve the Territory but as long as she proposes ratbaggery, those views will never be taken seriously."
The media coverage was a breakthrough for the Socialist Alliance campaign which, unlike the other candidates, cannot afford to buy advertising. And while Ratcliffe has issued numerous press releases full of "valid ideas to improve the Territory", the big business media, including the NT News, has largely ignored them.
Socialist Alliance activists have worked hard to profile the rights of drug users, the campaign against mandatory detention of refugees and the campaign against the harassment of the "long-grass people" who live outdoors. They have rung talk-back radio, campaigned on the street and pasted up posters.
"If this is 'rat-baggery', then we're ratbags and proud", a defiant Ratcliffe told Green Left Weekly.
In a letter to the NT News sent on March 8, and as yet unpublished, Ratcliffe explained that the Socialist Alliance "does promote a very different style of politics, one that involves people in creating real social change. We campaign whether or not there's an election looming ... The real rat bags [are] the directors of HIH and Ansett who take the money and leave the workers jobless, and Liberal and Labor politicians who slash funding for health, education and other social services, while taking home huge salaries."
From Green Left Weekly, March 20, 2002.
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