Socialist Alliance national co-convenor and Wills candidate David Glanz addressed the May 7 SA national conference launch. The following is abridged from his speech.
Glenroy, in the Wills electorate, isn't one of the poorest working-class suburbs, or one of the wealthiest. But for the first time in 20 years, they've been handing out food parcels. One place handed out 32 over Easter. This included to workers, whose wages no longer stretch far enough to feed their families.
The working poor won't get a cent of the billions of dollars [Prime Minister John] Howard will spend on the military budget.
Socialist Alliance says that for his crimes against humanity in Iraq, Afghanistan and Australia, Howard has to go. For his attacks on health and education, Howard has to go.
But we can't be complacent about getting rid of Howard — we have to drive him out, and how we do this is important.
We don't just want him voted out. We want Howard driven out and humiliated — by getting out on the streets, with the anti-war movement, industrial campaigns, and so on.
We have to raise the bar for a [Mark] Latham [ALP] government and let him know that there'll be no blank cheque: If you lie about pulling troops out of Iraq, if you continue to bully our neighbours, if you refuse to repeal the Workplace Relations Act, if you carry on Howard's bastardry, then we will fight you.
If we are out on the streets before the election, we'll be stronger to follow on from polling day.
We also need to put forward an alternative, and not just let Latham set the agenda. Latham represents a deepening of the right-wing ALP agenda and we need to convince people that we need a socialist alternative to challenge that agenda.
Our election manifesto calls for a war on domestic violence, a war on cancer, poverty, racism and global warming. We have a vision for an alternative. Every vote we get — whether 30,000 or 50,000, will be a vote for that alternative — not just in the short term, but an alternative to the whole system!
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, May 19, 2004.
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