Socialist Alliance candidates say the cost of living and housing affordability crises is “a crisis of capitalism”. Sue Bull reports.
Geelong
Former Geelong Trades Hall Council (GTHC) secretary Tim Gooden has been preselected as the Victorian Socialists lead candidate for the Western Victoria Region Legislative Council electorate in the November state election.
Geelong Council was sacked in April last year by the Victorian state government. It was accused of being dysfunctional, having no long-term strategic plan and failing to respond to a highly-publicised report on bullying in the council.
As serious as some of these allegations were – particularly those regarding bullying – neither of us as Geelong residents felt they warranted the undemocratic sacking of a duly-elected council. Surely the people of Geelong should be the ones that make any such decision?
The Socialist Alliance is the first party to nominate women candidates for Geelong's upcoming local council elections.
Sue Bull, a health and safety teacher, committed trade unionist and previous candidate for Socialist Alliance has been pre-selected, along with Sarah Hathway, a Deakin University student and 2014 state election candidate.
Geelong locals, with the support of the Geelong Trades Hall Council, plan to hold a rally at 12noon on September 2 at the office of Federal MP for Corrangamite, Sarah Henderson, to ask her to cross the floor for marriage equality.
Acting Secretary of Geelong Trades Hall Council Colin Vernon said: “This is such an important issue for so many people and it would be nice if the Conservative Liberal government could stop playing party political games with people's lives for once and just get on with it.”
The rally organisers released this statement on August 31.
* * *
Geelong Trades Hall Council president Jackie Kriz gave the following speech on October 12 at a rally in protest against Geelong mayor Darryn Lyons' sexism. Kriz is also a member of Socialist Alliance.
***
We have to ask ourselves — is what the mayor did really that bad? I mean, he only wore a t-shirt depicting a naked lady with some captions.
We've heard the comments — it's only a t-shirt, or it's political correctness gone mad. What's the fuss? It's a trivial matter. We hear this rhetoric all the time, but it is not a trivial matter.
About 500 people attended Geelong’s first marriage equality rally on September 19. It was largely a young crowd with the visible presence of the local Socialist Alliance branch, the Greens, local Deakin University students, and the Geelong Adolescent Sexuality Project, a local support service for LGBTI youth.
The Socialist Alliance released this statement on May 23.
***
Ford's announcement that it will close its last vehicle manufacturing plants in Australia — in Geelong and Broadmeadows — destroying 1200 jobs is "totally despicable", said Sue Bull, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Corio, "especially as this giant multinational has collected huge public subsidies year after year supposedly to save jobs".