Decisions of Seventh

National Conference

January 2-5, 2010

Women’s College
University of Sydney
2
 Decisions of Seventh National
Conference
January 2-5, 2010
Women’s College
University of Sydney
3

Introduction
This booklet contains the decisions of the Australian
Socialist Alliance’s Seventh National Conference, held
at the Women’s College of the University of Sydney,
from January 2-5, 2010.
The full minutes of the conference are available on
the Socialist Alliance’s wiki site, at http://socialist-
alliance.wikispaces.com/
Contents Page
A. The Socialist Alliance’s perspectives for struggle in 2010 6
B. New and updated policy
Superannuation 16
Housing (interim) 18
Bill of Rights 25
Built-in obsolescence 25
Climate campaigning and policy 26
Coal and Steel 27
Paid parental leave 32
Youth 34
Refugees 40
Latin American revolution 43
Public transport (interim) 46
Population and climate change 56
Agriculture (interim) 56
Afghanistan 62
Palestine 64
Child care 65
Equality for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender and intersex
people 66
Sex workers 69
Marriage and civil unions 69
Intersex 70
Transgendered people 71
 C. Resolutions on political campaigning
Environment
Socialist Alliance tasks in the climate action movement 74
A ‘Green Ban’ for Caroona 74
Resolution on Lake Cowal 75
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights
On the Socialist Alliance’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
rights work 77
Trade union movement
Socialists in the union movement 82
Pay equity 89
Occuptional Health and Safety law ‘harmonisation’ 89
Anti-war and international solidarity
5 On the Socialist Alliance’s Latin America solidarity work 91
Afghanistan anti-war work 94
Palestine solidarity work 95
Tamil solidarity work 95
Coordinating anti-war work 96
Women’s rights
On women’s rights 97
D. Resolutions related to the merger of the Democratic Socialist
Perspective and its assets into the Socialist Alliance
On Green Left Weekly copy and campaigning 102
On financial arrangements 103
On socialist ideas and education 103
E. Extraordinary resolution
Solidarity greetings to Ark Tribe 105
 A. The Socialist Alliance’s perspectives for struggle in 2010
Preamble
A. Two years of Rudd Labor
1. After two years Rudd Labor government support for Labor in opinion polls
remains very high. In its first year of office, the Rudd government took certain
steps to ameliorate the worst policies introduced by the Coalition government
led by John Howard including the ratification of the Koyoto climate change
agreement, the abolition of Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs –
individual employment contracts) and delivering an official apology to the
Aboriginal Stolen Generations.
2. Nevertheless, the Rudd government has left many of the underpinning
policies of the Howard era intact. Most of the anti-worker/anti-union
provisions of Howard’s Work Choices were incorporated into Labor’s Fair
Work Act. The Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC)
continues to persecute building workers like Arc Tribe. It has continued and
deepened the racist Northern Territory intervention into Aboriginal
6
communities as well as Australia’s participation in the Afghanistan war. The
ALP government continues to lock-up refugees and deny same-sex couples and
gender varied couples the right to marry.
3. While rhetorically attacking neoliberalism, and blaming it for causing the
Global Financial Crisis, Rudd has continued to implement a socially
conservative, anti-worker agenda that has primarily benefited the wealthy at
the expense of the most disadvantaged.
4. This Rudd agenda has prompted opposition, including from sections of the
trade union movement, the environment and climate movements and other
social movements. This opposition has been reflected in a growth of support
for the Greens at an electoral level. While this organised discontent remains
relatively small, the Socialist Alliance is committed to working with others to
build this incipient challenge, both electorally and at a grass-roots level.
5. Labor is in crisis in many states. In NSW and Queensland, Labor is deeply
unpopular owing to its failure to provide a reasonable standard of services for
working people and its program of mass privatisation of state assets. Labor
 faces electoral tests in South Australia, Tasmania and federally in 2010, which
may open opportunities for the left.
B. Global warming, the Rudd government strategy and politics
1. The threat of runaway climate change caused by rising carbon emissions
emanating from human industrial and agricultural activity is the greatest
threat to the continued existence of human civilisation of our era. Increasingly
alarming scientific predictions only further dramatise the urgent need for
governments internationally to take immediate action to move to a zero-
emissions economy and reduce greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
2. The response of the Rudd government to the threat of climate change has
been to attempt to introduce a carbon trading scheme (the Carbon Pollution
Reduction Scheme, or Emissions Trading Scheme), which would incorporate
billions of dollars in subsidies for big polluters (such as the coal, electricity
and aluminium industries), while imposing a massive tax on working
Australians. It is also unlikely that such a scheme would make any significant
cuts to Australia’s carbon emissions or make a positive contribution to the
7 global carbon economy (e.g. stopping Australia’s coal exports).
3. In presenting the CPRS as its only response to the climate change threat,
the Rudd government has given an opportunity to right-wing forces to paint
action on climate change as being an attack on the living standards of working
people.
4. The Socialist Alliance applauds the Greens for their opposition to the Rudd
government’s carbon trading scheme. It condemns the Liberal/National
Coalition, for its opposition to taking any concerted action on reducing
Australia’s carbon emissions. The Socialist Alliance rejects the unsafe,
insecure nuclear power option being advanced by the Coalition. The Socialist
Alliance also calls for an immediate end to uranium mining.
5. The Socialist Alliance supports the campaign launched at the 2009 Climate
Summit for the transformation of the economy to 100% renewable energy by
2020, as as one essential component of the effort needed to prevent run-away
climate change. The Socialist Alliance also demands that the governments of
Australia and other rich nations prepare to receive the millions of climate
refugees from the Third World who will be displaced by climate change.
 6. The Socialist Alliance calls for a just transition to a zero emissions
economy, including the phasing out of Australia’s coal industry. Workers
employed in carbon intensive industries should be retrained on full pay and
redeployed to socially and environmentally useful work, without loss of pay or
conditions.
7. The Socialist Alliance recognises the growing discontent of a number of
farmers with the slavish pro-coal mining policies of both Labor and the
Coalition and welcomes greater dialogue with these communities, as
witnessed in the Just Transitions tour conducted through effected communities
in NSW in November 2009.
8. The Socialist Alliance joins with eminent NASA climate scientist James
Hansen in condemning the framework of international discussions held at UN
Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen in December, and condemns
the role played by the Australian government in failing to contribute to a
genuine solution to climate change.
C. The Rudd government’s response to the global economic crisis
8 1. The impact on the Australian economy of the Global Financial Crisis that
began in the United States and spread across all parts of the world economy
has not been as catastrophic as feared or predicted. The $52 billion ploughed
into the economy by the two “stimulus packages” sufficiently increased
economic activity to prevent the Australian economy contracting in the year
since the crisis began.
2. While the economy has largely been sheltered from the crisis, many working
people have paid a price. Unemployment has increased from a low of 4% in
February 2008 to 5.8% in October 2009. In that time, an extra 229,000 people
joined the unemployment lines, which grew to 670,100 in October.
3. Australian workers are increasingly either underemployed or overworked.
Official labour underutilisation in October (the sum of unemployment and
underemployment – those who have a job, but want more hours) was 13.6%,
while Australians work 2.14 billion hours of unpaid overtime each year,
according to the Australia Institute.
 4. Real wages are stagnating and declining. Wages increased by only 0.7% in
the September quarter of 2009, less than prices, which rose by 1%, according
to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
5. Continuing strong mining exports to China, along with the Rudd
government’s stimulus packages and the quick lowering of interest rates by the
Reserve Bank of Australia, have sheltered the Australian economy from a
major downturn to date. Nevertheless, the US economy remains in severe
recession and growth in China is reliant on massive government spending. The
threat of a new global downturn is very real.
6. The international financial system is returning to its pre-crisis reliance on
speculative financial investment, which risks the conditions for a further crisis
reemerging at a global level. Any “recovery” promises to be shallow and
accompanied by government austerity, including in Australia where the Rudd
government has promised to cap any new spending at 2% until its budget
deficit is paid off.
7. Rising unemployment, rising interest rates, rising inflation and stagnating
9 wages threaten working people in Australia with paying for the “recovery”.
The Socialist Alliance is committed to building resistance to attempts by
government and employers to make working people pay for a crisis they did
not create.
C. The unions and Labor governments
1. Tensions between the union movement and Labor governments have grown
since the election of the Rudd government on the back of the anti-Work
Choices “Your Rights at Work” campaign in November 2007. Federal Labor’s
refusal to “rip-up” Work Choices, replacing it with the Fair Work Act (“Work
Choices lite”), which preserves many of the anti-union aspects of the Howard
legislation, its insistence on preserving the ABCC in some form and its plan to
water down occupational health and safety laws (so-called “national
harmonisation”) are straining the relationship between Labor and some union
leaderships.
2. At a state level, the NSW and Queensland governments’ attempts to
privatise public assets has also met with some resistance from the union
movement. The campaign in Queensland, which has been led by the Electrical
 Trades Union, has been more broad-based than that in NSW, where it led to a
compromise supported by much of the union movement. The decline in the
organising strength of unions is being exploited by Labor machines.
3. While hours lost to industrial action continue to decline, important
struggles have been had. Over 2009 the National tertiary Education Union has
waged an important fight against federal government attempts to further
casualise and privatise the higher education sector. The Victorian branch of
the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has successfully fought
employer attempts to use Labor’s mandatory “flexibility” arrangements o
introduce individual contracts through the back door.
4. Socialist Alliance members continue to play an important role in helping to
build resistance in a range of unions. A significant challenge to the class-
collaborationist union leaderships will not be built without a new rise of rank-
and-file action for workers’ rights in unions, and of a new generation of union
activists. The Socialist Alliance is committed to contributing to that process.
5. The Socialist Alliance condemns the uncritical support given to the Rudd
10 government’s carbon trading scheme by the Australian Council of Trade
Unions. The Socialist Alliance recognises the crucial importance of building
the climate change movement within unions, both at a policy level, but also at
a grass-roots activist level. Such a movement must emphasise the need for a
just transition to a zero emissions economy, with workers in carbon intensive
industries (such as the coal industry) retrained on full pay and redeployed to
socially useful work, without loss of wages or conditions.
D. Other social resistance and politics
1. Social resistance against the neoliberal, warmongering, racist and socially
conservative agenda of the Rudd Labor government continues in a range of
areas. The Socialist Alliance commits its support to these campaigns and
pledges to continue to build these campaigns by all possible means.
2. Despite delivering an apology to the Aboriginal Stolen Generations, the
Rudd government has continued, and intensified, the racist Northern Territory
Emergency Intervention into Aboriginal communities begun by the Howard
government. The Socialist Alliance condemns the intervention, and calls for
the end to welfare quarantining, and for full funding of social services to all
 Indigenous communities, without strings attached. The Socialist Alliance
supports the walk-off by the Ampilatwatja community.
3. While having dismantled the Howard government’s temporary protection
visa system for refugees arriving in Australia by boat, and dismantling
detention centres at Nauru and Manus Island, the Rudd government has
maintained the mandatory detention of refugees, and the excision of coastal
islands from Australia’s immigration zone. It has also advanced an
“Indonesian solution” of detaining refugees in Indonesian detention centres.
The Socialist Alliance calls for the end of mandatory detention, the end of the
excision of parts of Australian territory for the purposes of the Migration Act
and the closure of the Christmas Island prison and all detention centres. Let
the refugees land! Let the refugees stay! No “Indonesia solution”!
4. Labor has continued Howard’s war in Afghanistan, sending an additional
450 troops in April 2009. The Socialist Alliance recognises that the US-led
occupation is opposed by a majority of Afghans, and majorities around the
world. We also note that the occupation is not improving the lives of Afghans.
The Socialist Alliance calls for the immediate and complete withdrawal of
11
Australian troops from Afghanistan and that war reparations be paid.
5. The Rudd government has continued to support the right-wing Likud
government in Israel despite its flouting of UN resolutions to leave occupied
Palestinian land, stop building settlements and lift the siege of Gaza. The
Socialist Alliance will continue to work with the Palestinian community and
their supporters in Australia to pressure the Rudd government to stop giving
legitimacy to the Israeli apartheid regime.
6. Rudd Labor has continued to support Howard-era “anti-terror” laws,
which have restricted civil liberties and have been used to intimidate Islamic
communities, among others, in Australia. The Socialist Alliance calls for the
repeal of all “anti-terror laws”. Hands off our civil liberties!
7. The Rudd government has maintained the ban on same-sex marriage,
introduced by the Howard government in 2004. It has previously suppressed
legislation in the ACT which allowed for the legal recognition of same-sex
civil unions. The Socialist Alliance calls for the repeal of the ban on same sex
marriage. Marriage should be legal between any consenting adults.
 F. The Greens
1. The Greens’ opposition to the Rudd government’s carbon trading scheme,
their opposition to privatisation and consistent support of the rights of
refugees (among other issues) have won them increased support. Greens
Senators and state parliamentarians are seen as the political voice of the
social movements.
2. The Socialist Alliance welcomes the role played by Greens
parliamentarians in opposing the Rudd government’s conservative agenda.
The Socialist Alliance commits itself to the closest possible collaboration with
Greens’ members in the social movements and electorally, where possible.
3. There are many different political positions within the Greens, including
those that look to market-based solutions to social and environmental
challenges. The Socialist Alliance recognises that there are strategic political
tensions within the Greens and seeks to support and strengthen the left within
the Greens.

12
Resolution
1. Building the Socialist Alliance
a. The Socialist Alliance continues to urge its members to become active in a
wide range of social movements. The Socialist Alliance members play an
important role in building the movements, ensuring their democratic
functioning and arguing for strategies that mobilise the largest numbers of
people in campaigns for progressive reforms.
b. The Socialist Alliance, as a campaigning organisation, continues to play an
important role in giving voice to dissent against government attacks. By
organising stalls, writing for and distributing Green Left Weekly and through
informational forums organised by branches, The Socialist Alliance can help
galvanise opposition. An important case in point is the Rudd government’s
recent attack on the rights of refugees and asylum seekers.
c. The Socialist Alliance welcomes the collaboration that it has built with other
left–wing and socialist organisations and communities. It seeks to build on its
 collaboration with a range of migrant communities, including the Latin
American, Tamil and Sudanese and other Arabic-speaking communities.
d. The Socialist Alliance welcomes the election of Comrade Sam Wainwright
as councillor for the Hilton Ward of Fremantle City Council, as its first elected
councillor, and the first socialist elected to Fremantle Council. The Socialist
Alliance recognises that this success rested on collaboration with a range of
activists from the local community, including the Greens and the left of the
ALP. The Socialist Alliance seeks to build similar left unity in other election
campaigns, wherever possible.
e. The Socialist Alliance seeks to build a strong national network of branches
currently in all states and the ACT. We recognise the uneven state of branch
functioning around the country and seek to strengthen our organisation and
political effectiveness.
2. Political opportunities for and responsibilities of the Socialist Alliance
a. The Socialist Alliance recognises that right-wing Labor governments in
power do not serve the interests of working people, but reinforce the class
13 domination of capital. The increasing gap between the expectations of working
people and the real action delivered by Labor governments continues to open
political space to Labor’s left.
b. The Socialist Alliance recognises that the largest part of the electoral space
to the left of Labor is being filled by the Greens. The Socialist Alliance seeks
the greatest possible political collaboration with the Greens, but also
understands that it has an important responsibility to present a socialist
alternative at elections. The fact that there are two socialists who have been
elected to local councils over recent years, shows that there is some electoral
space which socialists can fill.
c. The Socialist Alliance will also continue to relate to rising disaffection
within the ALP, among its ranks and even some sections of the unions
affiliated to Labour (such as the Queensland branch of the Electrical Trades
Union). The Socialist Alliance looks to collaborate with all ALP members who
resist the neo-liberal trajectory of Labor in government (for example, over the
privatisation of public assets and services).
 d. The Socialist Alliance will continue to build and strengthen grass roots
movements for change. The Socialist Alliance will also continue to support
class-struggle unionism and to seek the greatest possible collaboration with
unionists committed to consistent class struggle, regardless of their political
affiliation.
e. The Socialist Alliance continues to offer support for the independent
newspaper Green Left Weekly. The Socialist Alliance will continue to
encourage its members to write for the paper, help distribute it, and help
fundraise for it.
f. The Socialist Alliance encourages states and branches to organise and hold
socialist ideas forums when practicable, to facilitate a wide-ranging discussion
of socialist ideas. The Socialist Alliance commits its resources to building the
Climate Change/Social Change conference to be organised in Melbourne on
November 2010.
g. The Socialist Alliance recognises and supports the role of Resistance in
recruiting, educating and mobilising young people around socialist politics.
14 h. The Socialist Alliance seeks to make maximum political use of local, state
and federal elections.
3. Building a more united left red-green movement
a. The Socialist Alliance continues its commitment to greater unity of
socialists and other left-wing activists, at a national and international level.
The Socialist Alliance supports the Caracas Commitment, adopted by
delegates to the International Encounter of Left Parties, held in Caracas,
Venezuela over November 19-21, 2009. The Socialist Alliance agrees to
participate in the preparatory meetings for the founding of the Fifth Socialist
International in 2010.
b. The Socialist Alliance is committed to building the maximum unity possible
among socialist and other left-wing groups and individuals in Australia. Left
unity is a necessary step to building the largest socialist alternative possible
and crucial to convincing the mass of working people to break with Labor.
c. The Socialist Alliance looks to build the strongest “red/green” unity
between socialist and climate/environmental organisations and activists as
 possible. The Socialist Alliance seeks the greatest possible collaboration with
environmental and climate activists at a grass-roots level, but also at a political
level, including the greatest possible collaboration with the Greens. The
Socialist Alliance looks toward building a “red/green” alliance at all levels.
d. The Socialist Alliance seeks the greatest possible unity with all forces to the
left of Labor. We are open to discuss how unity can be advanced, without
precondition. The Socialist Alliance would welcome the decision of other left
groups to affiliate to the Socialist Alliance, based on agreement with its
democratically-decided platform.
4. Strengthening the Socialist Alliance
a. The 7th National Conference of the Socialist Alliance looks forward to the
political challenges of the coming year as an opportunity to build support for
socialism in Australia. The Socialist Alliance recommits itself to a greater
projection of socialist politics, to a better organisation of our resources, and a
larger role in Australia politics.
b. While some branches have declined since our last national conference,
15 others have grown. Recognising the political space to the left of Labor, the 7th
national conference of The Socialist Alliance commits itself to “Campaign
1000”, whereby we aim to build the national Socialist Alliance membership to
1000 or more by the end of 2010.
 B. New and updated policy
Superannuation
Preamble
For 20 years we have had employer-contributed compulsory superannuation
(ECS), currently at the rate of 9% of gross income. This was “sold” as part of
the social wage and as an expansion of the provision of enhanced retirement
benefits for Australian workers beyond those then limited to public sector and
management in the private sector. It is another example of the ALP-ACTU
Accord betrayal of Australian workers.
Workers, in negotiating their terms of employment, sacrificed wage increases
in exchange for employer-contributed superannuation incrementally
increasing to the 9% that exists today.
It should be noted that the Australian Office of Taxation, as the administrator
of the ECS, has failed miserably to enforce this provision on employers and
many workers, particularly casual workers, as are an ever-increasing
16 percentage of the workforce, are being robbed of their super entitlement.
Given the name “Superannuation Guarantee” it is anything but a
“guarantee” other than a guarantee that as a worker you will “lose your
money”.
The promise of the ACTU in negotiating this employment “benefit” has failed
to meet expectations.
Initially, when introduced, with Union-Employer Industry Superannuation
Funds being established all looked rosy. Especially for the ACTU executive
members and senior union officials who found seats for themselves as well-
remunerated trustees of these funds. A former right wing assistant secretary of
the ACTU Gary Weaven is still the CEO of the “Industry Super Funds
Association”. You’ve seen their ads on TV accurately extolling the superiority
of their funds over those provided by the non-union finance industry version.
As is well appreciated, the regulatory system imposed on the finance sector in
Australia would be laughable if it wasn’t such a cruel fraud.
 The super funds of Australian workers have been purloined by the finance
industry as a lucrative source of commissions and charges, suffering poor
investment strategies and likely negligent or criminal behaviour on the part of
those charged with administering their funds.
Paul Keating as Treasurer had teased us all with the prospect of the national
cumulative pool of super funds being licensed by legislative exemption to be
used at a lower than market interest rate to be used for national infrastructure
investment. This has never happened.
The election of the laissez-faire Howard government didn’t help but witness
the behaviour of Rudd’s finance minister Lindsay Tanner recently offering our
national “Future Fund” to the “market” on its terms free from government
“interference” or oversight. Score: People nil – Oligarchs 1.
It has become evident that the value of our super fluctuates wildly from year to
year, depending on the state of the capitalist economy. In times of crisis, super
funds suffer huge losses, and hence are not a reliable source of income for
retired workers. The capitalists gamble with our money, and we suffer both
17 from the poor decisions of particular capitalists and from the irrationality of
the system as a whole.
Workers sacrificed cash-in-hand for what for many has become the chimera of
an income in retirement. The superannuation guarantee is no guarantee at all.
The greedy, profligate “Super Industry” is even lobbying hard to get the
percentage increased to 12%!
Since government mandates the payment and collection of 9% of workers
wages in super funds, government should guarantee that the indexed value of
those contributions are maintained. If private banks can be given government
protection, then Australian workers should expect nothing less.
This requirement may even motivate government to regulate this industry
stringently. At the moment it’s a thieves picnic.
As the mid-wife of this fraud the ACTU has a responsibility to act to protect
Australian workers from being exploited by finance capital.
Trillions of dollars are at stake here. Workers’ funds are being squandered by
a privileged minority.
 Proposal
1. An adequate national retirement “pension” should replace workplace and
voluntary superannuation. All would enjoy this entitlement, commensurate
with their individual needs and social responsibilities.
2. As an interim measure the current super scheme needs to be tightly
regulated to minimise the incompetence and profiteering we are witnessing.
3. Within 12 months only union-industry super schemes will be licensed to
operate with workers constituting 75% of the trustees of each Fund.
4. National legislation will provide a government guarantee of the value of all
worker contributions and protecting the real value of their wages that have
been committed by law to superannuation.
5. National legislation will provide preferential access to a pool of the
combined super funds as social capital for workers’ housing (the Socialist
Alliance will legislate in government for the elimination of Australia’s housing
debt, investing superannuation socially to achieve this), public education,
18 public health, and other social, environmental and economic investing of
benefit to the working class. Further, we will establish, and ask all
governments within the Federation to support, a Public Social Partnership
(PSP) to build the new, needed, green housing stock.
6. The trade union movement and fraternal political groups be encouraged to
take up this issue as a matter of urgency.
7. All superannuation funds adhere to the UN Ethical Sustainable Guarantee
and be proactive in Principals of Responsible Investment in filtering
companies not meeting the UN PRI. This includes all investment funds
offering the individual shareholders company AGM voting or proxy rights in
the shares owned.

Housing
Context
1. Not all Australians have access to decent, affordable and secure housing.
Aside from homelessness, people battle to keep a roof over their head and are
 forced to live in locations inconvenient to work, education and social
participation.
2. This social crisis is a result of inadequate incomes combined with increased
housing costs, and a lack of affordable housing. Over the past 40 years, house
prices have risen at a far greater rate than household incomes, creating
barriers to home ownership and putting greater pressure on rental
accommodation.
3. “The average house price in the capital cities is now equivalent to over
seven years of average earnings; up from three in the 1950s to the early
1980s. Only a third of transacted dwellings would have been accessible to the
median young household in 2006–07, compared to a long-run average of
almost a half. Around two-thirds of households in the lowest 40 per cent of the
income distribution with a mortgage or renting were spending over 30 per
cent of their income on housing, the established benchmark for ‘housing
stress’. As house prices have increased, so too have rents and there are many
more renting households in stress than home buying households. As many as
100 000 Australians are currently homeless.” (Commonwealth of Australia:
19
2008/1)
4. The availability of public and private rental properties has declined. The
public housing sector has shrunk under the neo-liberal agenda of ALP and
Liberal governments. Capital funding for public housing under the
Commonwealth State Housing Agreement has been in absolute decline for
decades and has barely been enough to replace old stock, let alone meet
growing need. The government’s policy shifted from providing low-income
earners with a genuine alternative to private rental and home ownership,
towards welfare housing instead.
5. In response, state housing authorities have tightened eligibility criteria for
public housing to people with high needs like mental health problems or
homelessness, and eliminated security of tenure. But, even with the far-tighter
eligibility criteria, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimated in
January that more than 200,000 people remained on public housing waiting
lists.
6. Private owners buy and sell houses for speculative purposes, encouraged by
generous tax benefits. (The capital gain on the sale of a principal residence is
 exempt from capital gains tax, unlike all other capital gains.) This speculation
inflates house prices and makes housing unaffordable for lower income
people, trapping us in a lifetime of renting.
7. Eligibility criteria for public and community housing has a dramatic effect
on the degree of social disadvantage and stigmatisation associated with social
(public and community) housing. Narrowing eligibility criteria to only people
with the highest socio-economic need has the effect of entrenching socio-
economic disadvantage. Such policies exacerbate social disharmony and
community dysfunction in public housing areas and undermining community
development.
8. The combined total of capital gains tax arrangements, land tax exemption
and negative gearing arrangements is estimated to be in the order of $50
billion per year. That reflects against the $1.5 billion in the Commonwealth–
State Housing Agreement and the $1 billion spread over four to five years
proposed for the new National Rental Affordability Scheme and the Housing
Affordability Fund. These tax concessions also mean that the overall support
to wealthy homeowners is greater than that to low income renters. The
20
Industry Commission (1993, p. 21) cite estimates that in 1990-91 subsidies to
homeowners in the top quintile of income earners averaged $3180 while those
to private renters in the bottom quintile were less than half as much, at
$1440.” (Commonwealth of Australia: 2008/1)
9. These tax concessions are popular with homeowners and home buyers, who
make up 70% of Australian households. “By pushing up the price of homes it
makes it that much harder to attain the state of being a home owner, but makes
the benefits of home ownership even greater if you manage to make it. The
jackpot’s bigger, but harder to win. And a system that is biased in favour of
owner-occupiers is a system that is biased against renters. That’s unfair to
people who spend all their lives as renters, as well as making it harder for
would-be home owners to make the leap.” (Gittens: 2007)
10. Close to 600,000 private renters are in housing stress, but ineligible for
public housing. It is estimated that there are 400,000 units of affordable
housing Australia-wide. The National Housing Supply Council said in 2006
there was a shortfall of 250,000 affordable rental properties for low to
moderate income earners on $643 to $771 a week. For those on less than $256
 a week, there was a shortfall of 110,000 rental properties. The council
recognised a shortfall of 202,000 for those earning between $257 and $385 a
week.
11. Low cost housing is not produced due to market failure. Not enough low-
cost housing is built as it is not profitable enough, compared to investment
housing. Private landlords succeed in renting expensive housing to tenants as
the cheaper, affordable houses do not exist. The federal government housing
inquiry found that, “There is often inadequate housing for those looking to
downsize and for those with limited means seeking less expensive private
rental housing or social housing”. (Commonwealth of Australia: 2008/1)
12. The Commonwealth-State Housing Agreements that have provided funding
for public and community housing in the past has been largely replaced by
market subsidy models like the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS).
While this is a big increase in funding, it is one-off and encourages the role of
for-profit players in the provision of low cost housing, who have an interest in
profit about their interest in the social goals of affordable housing.

21 13. The National Rental Affordability Scheme provides 10-year subsidies for
new properties rented at 20% below market rent. The aim is to increase the
number of affordable dwellings by up to 50,000 by mid 2012. The flaw in this
scheme is that it is a market-based solution to a crisis that has been brought
on by a failure of the market. The solution needs to be longer term than 10
years, and in public control not vulnerable to market forces of for-profit
providers.
14. Housing supply must be well located and well serviced with supporting
jobs, public transport and social and community infrastructure. “The way to
improve housing affordability is not to build cheap houses on the outskirts of
cities away from employment, services and public transport links. This simply
shifts costs from housing to the cost—in dollars and time—of transport.
Rather, the aim must be to build affordable housing in areas where
infrastructure can provide for and attract new residents. In considering
longer-term changes in the housing stock, thought must also be given to it
being environmentally sustainable for it to be truly ‘affordable’ in a broader
sense.” (Commonwealth of Australia: 2008/1)
 15. Affordable housing needs to take advantage of energy efficiency to reduce
living costs for residents.
16. The construction industry argue that they a shortage of skilled labour and
that this contributes to the shortage of affordable housing. Rather than
investing in skills development in Australia, one of the solutions they propose
is a “more flexible and streamlined utilisation of temporary overseas workers
on section 457 skilled worker visas.” (Commonwealth of Australia: 2008/1)
References
Commonwealth of Australia (2008/1) A good house is hard to find: Housing
affordability in Australia
Commonwealth of Australia (2008/2) The Road Home
Gittens, R (2007) "Renters can’t Home in on Jackpot", Sydney Morning
Herald, 19 September, 2007
Policy
Housing is a basic human right that should not be reduced to a commodity
22
only available at the whim of the market. We aim for housing that is
affordable, secure, good quality, appropriately located, for all.
In the long-term:
1. Establish a publicly-owned and controlled not-for-profit housing finance
corporation to:
• Finance maintenance of current public housing stock, including retrofitting
for energy efficiency with insulation and solar hot water;
• Provide low-interest home loans for those in need;
• Establish a large-scale building program to make good quality, creatively
designed, energy efficient, appropriately located, affordable, long term
social housing with a low carbon footprint, to suit a wide variety of
domestic arrangements, including the needs of people living communally,
in extended families and in Aboriginal communities, available for all who
choose it; and
 • Invest in social infrastructure to support housing - local health services,
education, employment and other services and access to quality public
transport.
2. Fund the corporation from developer contributions via local and state
government planning laws, taxation, superannuation funds.
3. Work with construction unions to implement the construction and
maintenance program and include an investment in apprenticeships and
training to meet the labour needs.
4. All overseas workers to work under the same award conditions as
Australian workers.
5. Prioritise Aboriginal housing needs.
6. Eliminate capital gains tax exemptions and negative gearing, which inflate
the market and keep lower income people out of home ownership.
7. Community control of public housing through democratically-elected
housing boards comprised of tenants and housing workers.
23
In the interim:
1. Address spiralling rental price increases by implementing rent control laws
similar to those in place in Los Angeles and New York, which limit the
amount that rent can be increased and all rents to be capped at a maximum of
20% of income.
2. Mandate high standards for private accommodation and require landlords to
fix problems and maintain private housing stock in good condition. Nationalise
and renovate all substandard landlord holdings.
3. Expand funding to, and support the development of, resident controlled
housing co-operatives.
4. Extend rent assistance to low income home buyers for mortgage assistance.
5. Extend rent assistance to those receiving Austudy payments.
6. Increase funding to the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program
(SAAP) to a level sufficient to provide crisis accommodation for all who need
it, as well as to maintain support services to assist homeless persons into
 independent accommodation and preventive programs for those at risk of
homelessness. Ensure a continuum of support from crisis accommodation
through to long-term stable accommodation.
7. Provide high quality, community-based, supported accommodation for
people with disabilities or other special needs. Fully fund refuges and other
secure emergency accommodation for women and children escaping domestic
violence.
8. Provide outreach workers to seek out service providers who may qualify for
SAAP to guide them through the funding process, in order to ease the onerous
bureaucratic requirements that these service providers have to endure in order
to get and retain funding.
9. Provide additional funding to community organisations to enable them to
provide education, training and housing assistance packages to young
homeless people.
10. Provide additional funding for programs which provide support services
for the aged homeless including additional funding to ensure greater access to
24 aged care accommodation.
11. State and local governments planning frameworks to legislate for
developer allocations of 30% of housing for low rent tenants in major new
developments
12. State and local governments planning frameworks must force private
developers to allocate 30% of housing for low-rent tenants in every
development.
13. Strengthen legislation covering the rights of both public and private
tenants, including the right to long-term leases.
Process: Conference resolves to adopt the above policy provisionally and as a
draft for further elaboration. Conference resolves to publish the draft in
Alliance Voices, to invite Socialist Alliance members to comment and to
participate in a housing working group to rework the draft in the light of
feedback.
 Bill of Rights
That the Socialist Alliance, through Alliance Voices, wiki discussion and
discussion in branches, develops a bill of rights to elaborate on the democratic
rights that should be enshrined in the constitution. This will include the right to
food, health, housing, education, employment, welfare and other rights. The
Bill or Act will outlaw discrimination against oppressed groups whether they
be migrant groups, Aboriginals, LGBTI, disabled or other groups. We would
distribute this widely and call for public debate and input.

On built-in obsolescence
In a world where resources are being rapidly devoured, inbuilt obsolescence is
a crime and a useless waste not only of resources, but of time, energy and
human life. Why should people waste their lives slaving away at dreary jobs to
produce these goods for wages, which go on replacing obsolescent goods? If
goods are made to last as long as possible, there can be massive gains in
saving resources and reducing pollution. Redirected human employment,
effort and saved time could be used in the massive battles to save the
25
environment, produce more renewable fuel and food and improve health
treatment and prevention.
Companies should be compelled to design products so that they can be
repaired, recycled, re-used and disassembled for recycling. Manufacturers
should be compelled to take back their used products (cars, TVs, computers,
etc) and re-use the components.
Products should be designed in such a way as to minimize inefficiencies and
waste both in their production and manufacture, and during and after their
service life.
Process: Referred to the National Environment Committee for incorporation
in climate charter.

Climate campaigning and policy

1. The Socialist Alliance promotes a comprehensive environmental strategy, as
outlined in our climate charter and other policy, to create a climate emergency
government.
 2. The Socialist Alliance generally supports campaigns that will reduce
greenhouse emissions or build the capacity of the renewable energy industry,
even if they are less than ideal or only partial in their ability to prevent climate
change. We will critically consider support for such campaigns and policies as
carbon taxes and feed-in tariffs on this basis.
3. In the debate between carbon trading and a carbon tax, we support the latter
in preference to carbon trading, provided that it is regulated, and does not
include elements of carbon trading such as offsets. A sufficient portion of the
revenue raised by a carbon tax would need to be allocated to protect domestic
consumers from the higher energy prices that would result. This protection
should be available to low to medium income earners on a means-tested basis.
Further revenue from the carbon tax should be provided to low/ medium
income earners to “green” their houses and transport.
These provisions do not commit the Socialist Alliance to support any carbon
tax regardless of its detail, nor do they indicate that the Socialist Alliance
supports a carbon tax as the definitive or main measure to address climate
change, but indicate that the Socialist Alliance can support a carbon tax over
26
carbon trading if we judge it politically useful.
The Socialist Alliance will initiate a debate in Green Left Weekly and Alliance
Voices on the possible merits and uses of carbon taxes and encourages all
branches and members to participate.
4. We support the campaign for an industrial scale renewable energy feed-in
tariff (FIT) to encourage medium and large-scale renewable energy projects.
We are against increasing energy bills for low-income households to pay for
the FIT.
5. The Socialist Alliance acknowledges that a massive rollout of renewable
energy, as proposed in our campaign work, will all occur on Aboriginal land.
The Socialist Alliance will seek to build consciousness of Indigenous struggle
within the climate movement, and highlight the fact that any major rollout of
wind farms, solar thermal plants, etc, must occur under the direction of the
traditional owners of the land upon which such plants are proposed to be built.
 6. The Socialist Alliance supports community efforts such as the Hepburn
Wind Co-operative in Victoria which aim to acquire/ build renewable energy
generation capacity for the community.
7. The Socialist Alliance notes the “Eureka’s Future” project of the
Earthworker Social Enterprise Association, currently an initiative of the
Victorian District of the Mining Division of the CFMEU. This will see a social
enterprise manufacturing solar hot water units for exchange, providing a range
of options for workers to purchase, including through their EBA.
The Socialist Alliance supports the establishment of such enterprises as a
social sector of the Australian economy, owned and controlled by working
people. The Socialist Alliance will pro-actively support the existing project
and future such projects by direct participation of Socialist Alliance members,
and by promoting and defending this initiative in other areas of our work. We
will particularly seek to integrate this example as an important part of our
“green jobs” campaigning and literature in the union and environment
movements.

27 Coal and Steel

Scientists are telling us we must phase out coal quickly or risk an
uninhabitable planet. Coal burning now accounts for around 36% of
Australia’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; mining and handling coal adds
even more—all subsidies to the coal industry must end.
Phasing out thermal coal – used for power generation – should begin
immediately. With direct government investment in a publicly owned
renewable energy sector, jobs and retraining on full pay would be guaranteed
for coal-mining and power-station communities. But what about coking (or
metallurgical) coal – used in the production of steel? Is it part of the problem
or part of the solution?
Steel still necessary
The transition to a low-carbon economy will require the use of steel, in the
production of train rolling stock or wind turbines for example. Coking coal is
used to extract iron from iron ore, in a blast furnace, to make steel and can
therefore be socially useful. The process does pollute however. Oxygen from
 the iron-ore bonds with carbon from the coal to make carbon dioxide. A
tremendous amount of energy is required to separate the oxygen from the iron.
Electric Arc furnaces are used to recycle steel from old scrap steel, avoiding
the need for coking coal. Recycling steel in an electric arc furnace is much less
GHG intensive than manufacturing new steel from iron ore in a blast furnace.
Imagine melting down military hardware to manufacture train lines and wind
turbines, for example. However, recycled steel alone is not sufficient to meet
current demand for steel worldwide. If we plan to continue producing steel at
the same rate, we can’t simply end the mining of coking coal overnight.
However, the extent of the climate crisis demands we reduce our GHG
emissions across the board. This means rapidly decreasing our reliance on
polluting industries and materials that are energy intensive to produce,
including steel. We need to radically rethink the way we produce and use such
materials.
Transparency and democracy
But for starters we need to know exactly what’s going on. Our major
28 steelworks are subject to government audits to assess carbon emissions but
these are difficult to access. Audits need to involve and be made available to
the public and independent environment groups. They need to be transparent
and open to scrutiny. If companies refuse to cooperate they should be brought
under public ownership and democratic control.
Steelworks are big polluters. For example BlueScope Steel’s Port Kembla
plant on the NSW south coast emits about 11 million tonnes of GHGs into the
atmosphere each year - about 7% of NSW’s total greenhouse output. An
independent assessment needs to be made of the clean up cost.
We support the ‘polluter-pays’ principle. If companies cry poor they should
have to open their books and let the community decide if they can afford to
clean-up. For example, every steelworks should be using co-generation to
recycle heat and flare gases for electricity generation. Climate change won’t
negotiate with the peaks and troughs of the market, such measures should be
mandatory.
 For the six months to the end of December 2008, BlueScope posted profits of
$406.9 million. Imagine if those millions were going back into the public
coffers to clean-up the industry.
Making steel greener
Destructive coal-mining practices should end. Longwall mining for example is
used because it massively increases production and profitability but at great
cost to the environment. We support the demands of groups such as Rivers
SOS who call for a one kilometre buffer zone between coal mines and key
water sources such as rivers and reservoirs.
More funding and research is needed into finding a replacement for coal in
steel production. The CSIRO is investigating the use of oil mallee trees and
other native hardwoods for example. They argue steel production could be a
net zero-emissions process as each new generation of trees absorbs the carbon
emitted from the production process. This research should be continued but
significant questions remain. It may be more useful to turn the wood into
biochar or leave the trees as a carbon sink. Researching this though would be
29 much more valuable than continuing research into discredited “clean coal”
technologies. Another possible alternative is the use of hydrogen gas as a
reductant in the blast furnace instead of coking coal. This technology is still
under development but has the potential to result in a significant decrease in
emissions.
The steel-making process has the potential to be made more efficient by
paying close attention to the manufacturing process. This can involve things
such as: implementing more modern technology into an older steelworks or
minimising internally generated waste by implementing by-product recycling
schemes into the steelworks. Every steelworks in operation should be
committed to operating at maximum efficiency and where necessary existing
facilities should be modernised to ensure this.
Steel is expensive and energy intensive to transport. We call for massive
investment in heavy rail and bulk freight to facilitate a shift “from roads to
rail”. Diversifying the production of steel – reversing years of specialisation –
should also be encouraged to reduce the need to transport large amounts of
finished steel around Australia and the globe.
 Planning the big picture
More importantly we need strategic planning to reduce our reliance on steel.
Steel producers should be compelled to increase the recycling of steel which is
much cleaner than blast-furnace steel (only 65% of available scrap metal is
recycled in Australia each year). Steel producers should have to maximise the
end of life recyclability of products, and governments should encourage scrap
availability programs, especially in the electrical and domestic industries
where recycling is minimal.
Steel producers should have to source more of their energy needs from
renewables, aiming for 100% by 2020. Mandatory targets must be set in these
areas.
Manufactured products should be redesigned to reduce the amount of steel
necessary in their production, e.g. light weighting. Furthermore, the products
that we design and use should be made to last. The government should outlaw
planned obsolescence. This is particularly important in the industries that place
the most demand on steel production, like the automotive industry for
30 example.
Manufacturers should be required by law to commit to such plans or else be
placed in public hands. We can’t allow our planet to be held hostage to the
private profits of the big polluters and the industries that demand energy
intensive inputs.
The potential of less energy intensive alternatives to steel, such as carbon-fibre
composites, need to be explored. Other energy intensive alternatives, such as
aluminium, could be utilised if power was sourced from renewable energy.
We need to rethink the things that we are making with steel. Wind turbines,
electric trains and solar panels are socially useful, but what about bombs,
warships and Joint Strike Fighters?
If society took these approaches to lower the amount of steel we use and
increase the quantity of recycled steel used in production, we could
significantly reduce the rate of extraction of coal from the earth.
 Steel for development
Underdeveloped countries have the right to better living standards and the First
World should support and resource their development. At this stage,
development necessarily requires the use of steel. While living standards in
those countries must be improved, this should not occur at the cost of ruining
the environment.
Australia should support and resource Third World development along
sustainable lines. Firstly, because of the debt of colonialism and imperialism
and the fact that First World industrialisation created the climate crisis.
Secondly, because it is both necessary for the survival of the planet and
because we are the ones with the resources to do so.
What does this mean for the export of coking coal?
The vast majority of coking coal exported from Australia goes to industrialised
countries. For example, 52% of NSW coking coal goes to Japan. Further, it is
not all used for steel making, with much used for energy production.

31 A great deal of this export, and indeed steel production, is also driven by
commercial opportunity and marketing from the steel industry, not human
need. The “development” currently needing steel may be new coal-fired power
stations, mega-dams that cause internal displacement, or cheap export
industries that service Western consumers. Thus sourcing steel (or the means
to produce it) does not necessarily even mean better living standards.
So the export of coking coal cannot be used to support current modes of
unsustainable development, and must be carried out along selective lines.
To facilitate this, the coal export industry must be brought under public
control. The revenues should be used to establish sustainable alternative
industries in communities currently reliant on the coal industries.
Jobs and a ‘just transition’
The “Greenhouse Mafia”, powerful lobby groups represented in the coal, steel
and other industries, will fight moves to put the planet and people before
profit. Many workers and their communities are being told that they must
choose between a safe climate future and their jobs, their livelihood.
 But the transition to a low-carbon economy isn’t the main threat to jobs. The
unquenchable thirst for profits is, and it threatens to destroy life on Earth as we
know it. The climate movement needs to unite with working people and
demand the government assist communities to move away from coal. In fact,
it’s likely the scale of changes needed for the transition will require more
workers than are currently employed in Australia.
Australia’s response to climate change must include the phasing out of coal,
including the planned phase out of coking coal. But the only possible
alternative has to include massive job creation in the renewable energy sector
and in the manufacturing of sustainable alternatives to energy intensive
materials such as steel. Importantly, communities currently relying on coal-
mining and steel production need to be prioritised for infrastructure investment
and job creation in the new, sustainable sectors.

Paid parental leave

32 This conference:
1. Reaffirms that Paid Parental Leave (PPL) is an industrial entitlement for
women, which should be funded by employers and not a welfare measure
funded by tax payers.
2. Replaces each reference to “paid maternity leave” with “paid parental
leave”, in recognition that such leave should be extended to the primary
carer, whether female or not, and whether that person has given birth to or
adopted a child.
3. Reaffirms our call for a fund to be legislated and managed publicly, which
employers pay into according to a sliding scale and according to the
number of employees regardless of sex.
4. Resolves that:
a. the current The Socialist Alliance policy of 12 months PPL be
extended to a legislated period of two years to enable sharing of leave
between parents if they wish, establishment of breastfeeding patterns,
recovery from birth and adequate care of the child/ren.
 b. Any PPL scheme contain an additional period of leave up to three
months for the non-birth parent on a use it or lose it basis, which can
be taken in conjunction with leave by the primary carer or separately,
either in a block or in shorter periods over two years.
c. a PPL scheme be fully portable for workers across the workforce.
d. eligibility for PPL not be dependent on length of time in the workforce
or with any individual employer.
e. Such a scheme protects the right for parents to:
i. full income maintenance;
ii. return to their jobs with no loss in job security, permanency or
classification for a period of five years from the date at which
PPL is taken;
iii. return to work part time or to access other flexible work
arrangements if they wish for a defined period of up to five
years;
33
iv. continuity of service and the continuing accrual of all
entitlements such as long service leave, severance, recreation
and sick leave while on PPL;
v. superannuation entitlements that are maintained at the rate
payable to the employee at the time of taking PPL or better;
vi. be consulted about any changes in the workplace while on
PPL.
5. While recognising that both parents should have access to PPL, any
scheme should protect a woman’s choice in deciding when to commence
PPL leave and how long to take it for, with respect to it being shared with
a partner, and to their physical recovery from birth, which may differ from
woman to woman. Women must not be forced to stay at work longer than
necessary prior to the birth of a child or return to work any earlier than
necessary after the birth of a child.
6. In addition to PPL, all workers should have legislated access to Carers
Leave as a separate entitlement to sick leave, adequate to the needs of
 parents and children, and parents should not have to dip into sick,
recreation or long service leave to care for children and other family
members (within a broad definition of “family”).
7. The PPL scheme currently proposed by the Rudd government is a
taxpayer-funded welfare scheme, guaranteeing only the minimum wage,
with no employer top ups to income or superannuation legislated. As such
this scheme does not maintain the level of income of employees prior to
them accessing PPL. The scheme is also not transportable, and has
eligibility requirements, which make it out of reach of a significant
number of women in particular and parents in general.
8. However, while this current scheme falls way short of the kind of scheme
required to ensure women’s full participation in the workforce and their
access to PPL, we call for the immediate implementation of the proposed
PPL scheme which has been delayed since the recommendations of the
Productivity Commission, but we commit to continuing to campaign for
the kind of scheme outlined above.

34
Youth policy
Young people occupy a unique position in society. They face both formal and
informal discrimination, as well as disproportionate social and political
exclusion. They are often the first to be hit by, and are more affected by,
homelessness and the housing crisis, violence, poverty, social exclusion,
attacks on workers and students and other social problems.
But young people have the power to play a radicalising and explosive role in
the struggle for a better world and it is from them that the socialist movement
and the Socialist Alliance will be strengthened and renewed.
As such, the Socialist Alliance seeks to involve young people in the struggle
for socialism.
To this end, the Socialist Alliance recognises the importance of the socialist
youth organisation and affiliate Resistance. As an independent youth
organisation, Resistance plays a specific and complimentary role in the
struggle for socialism. It enables young people to work together and lead
 struggles around their own demands wherever these struggles take place, to
acquire political and organisational responsibility and experience and learn
their own lessons.
As such the Socialist Alliance is committed to working with and building
Resistance among young people by:
• Discussing youth work on the Socialist Alliance leadership bodies;
• Collaborating with Resistance to work out initiatives, priorities and how
we use our combined resources;
• Supporting and working closely with Resistance members to assist in their
political development; and
• Encouraging Resistance members to join and get active in the Socialist
Alliance
Young people should have access to the decisions that affect their lives. They
should have opportunities to reach their full potential, free from exploitation,
oppression and discrimination.
35
To this end, the Socialist Alliance also stands for:
1) A political voice for young people
No political process can be truly democratic without the direct input of young
people.
The Socialist Alliance calls for the lowering of the voting age to 16, to give
greater formal equality to young people. At 16, young people are considered
old enough to pay taxes. However, they are currently excluded from having
any say in how that money is spent.
To fully combat the formal and informal discrimination faced by young people
however, the self-organisation and mobilisation of young people themselves is
needed. To this end, the Socialist Alliance stands for the provision of resources
to democratically-controlled organisations of young people for young people.
These resources should be provided directly to young people and organisations
they control, and used to whatever ends these organisations see fit.
2) Affordable and accessible housing
 Housing is a basic human right. Yet, the housing crisis affects thousands of
people across Australia, and young people are among the worst affected.
Indeed, youth homelessness is a major problem in Australia, with 44,500
young people going homeless every night, according to a 2006 Australian
Bureau of Statistics report.
But all people should have access to affordable and accessible housing. And
addressing the problem of youth homelessness and the housing crisis among
the young will have to be part of a broader solution to housing. The Socialist
Alliance housing policy can be found at http://www.socialist-
alliance.org/page.php?page=208.
3) Mental wellbeing for young people
About 75% of diagnosed mental health problems occur before the age of 25.
These mental health problems, including depression, are a major factor in a
decision to commit suicide.
The Socialist Alliance calls for adequate funding for mental health services.
This should include establishing specific multi-disciplinary youth mental
36 health teams that cover the 16-24 year age range, to work across community
youth and adult mental health services and across inpatient and community
services. This already exists in some areas, for example EPPIC and Orygen
youth health services in Melbourne. They are very effective at providing early
intervention, assisting young people with mental health issues and preventing
the development of chronic mental illness.
Without dedicated teams like this, early intervention does not happen in a
generalised way. Mental health services are busy dealing with people who are
very unwell, and turn young people away if they don’t present as too serious.
Young people who do end up being admitted into hospital are often discharged
with no follow-up care. A dedicated team could intervene before or during
their hospital admission, and provided education and support during and after
their discharge. Young people would be able to manage better and have a
better chance of avoiding further admissions and episodes and of avoiding
suicide and self-harm. Peer support workers and group programs also need to
be funded and supported to this end.
 The Socialist Alliance also stands for well-funded social awareness campaigns
to raise understanding of the common mental illnesses, to break down stigma,
improve understanding of what to watch out for and where to seek help, and
assist with integrating people with mental illnesses into workplaces and
communities.
4) A universal, free, quality secular education system
The vast majority of people engaged in formal education are young people.
Thus, it is young people who will largely be affected by the dismantling of the
public education system. And it is young people who will be the main actor in
struggle for change in education, for a universal, free, quality secular
education system, open to all those who need and want it.
The Socialist Alliance education policy can be found at http://www.socialist-
alliance.org/page.php?page=195.
5) Public space for young people
Inadequate public space infrastructure and activities exists to support the needs
37 of young people. They are largely limited to activities and use of spaces that
they must pay for or where they are the targets of aggressive corporate
marketing. Even cultural events are used by corporations to positively project
their brands at young people. The limited communal spaces that can be used
by young people are, in large part, commercial spaces that encourage
consumerism and commodity art or co-opt youth culture for commercial gain.
In order to create and participate in their own independent youth culture,
public spaces, infrastructure and activities must be created, funded and made
available to young people. This must happen independently to corporate
sponsorship, be initiated and controlled democratically by young people and
their organisations.
6) A safe climate future
Climate change will have a huge impact on the lives of all young people. They
will face the consequences from decisions not of their making. However,
young people are playing a leading role in the struggle for a safe climate
future, helping to build a mass environment movement strong enough to win.
 The full list of the Socialist Alliance’s environment and climate change
policies can be found at http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=190
7) An end to violence and discrimination
Young people experience greater alienation as a result of discrimination and
social and political exclusion. This discrimination does not only affect young
people as young people, but among them. Discrimination that already exists in
society is more intense among the young who are under increased pressure to
“fit in”. Overt racism, sexism and homophobia, for example, are heightened
among young people. Violence – that takes many different forms - is a direct
product of this and it is the vulnerable who suffer most, such as young women,
LGBTI people, and non-Anglo people.
The social pressures experienced by LGBTI youth hold particular significance
reflected in the terrible statistic that LGTBI youth are 14 times more likely to
commit suicide than non-LGBTI youth. One third of homeless youth are
queer, and face life on the streets due to family prejudices and structures
promoted by capitalism.
38 The Socialist Alliance recognises the heightened suffering and distress
experienced by youth coming to terms with not being heterosexual in a
capitalist system, that holds heterosexuality as the only natural and normal
sexual preference.
We reject “law and order” solutions to youth violence. Jailing or punishing
young people won’t stop or reduce violence because it doesn’t deal with the
reasons it exists. We support educational campaigns but recognise that they
aren’t, by themselves, enough. So too, must governments stop applying
discriminatory policies that lay the social basis for violence and discrimination
to occur. So all discriminatory laws must be repealed whether they apply to
women, migrants, Aborigines, queers, international students etc.
Ultimately, however, the broader problem of alienation under capitalism,
caused by the separation of people from the decisions that affect their lives and
the socially owned products of their work, must be addressed, to put an end to
violence and discrimination.
 8) Newstart and Youth Allowance
Newstart and Youth Allowance benefits should be raised to a living wage, well
above the poverty line. Age should not affect payments and the age of
independence test should be lowered to 16 years, the age at which a young
person can move away from home. No young person in Australia should have
to live in poverty while they are looking for work or while they are studying.
This policy must be combined with government creation of satisfying jobs at a
living wage, available for all.
9) Satisfying jobs at a living wage
Youth unemployment and underemployment is a structural problem of the
capitalist economy. The percentage of unemployed young people sits at about
double the rate of the rest of the population at any given time. Those young
people who can find work are largely employed in casual, insecure and low-
paid jobs. These factors ensure that young people are less likely to look for
work and have a major impact on young people’s standard of living and ability
to afford basic necessities.
39
That young workers are currently disadvantaged comes, in part, from the lack
of organisation in their workplaces. The Socialist Alliance believes that unions
should pay special attention to involving young people in their unions and also
play a role in ensuring that wage justice is achieved for young people.
If the market is unable to provide young people with work and a living wage,
the government should step in and provide socially useful jobs for young
people on full pay. For example, the biggest problem we face is the climate
crisis. The government should implement a sustainability plan that creates jobs
to meet the needs of communities and makes an inhabitable planet possible.
The Socialist Alliance also stands for an end to youth pay rates. Youth wages
mean that young people get paid less for doing the same of work.
The employment situation of youth is amongst the worst of any social group in
capitalist society. Coupled with discriminatory and unliveable youth wages is
the systematic violation of the employment rights of young people. Tis
includes abuse and intimidation, provision of false information about work
rights, unpaid training and overtime, illegal pay rates and docking of pay, and
 unsafe working environments. Working life of young people should be a
national scandal.
Young people need stronger union representation, particularly in the retail and
services sectors. The Socialist Alliance fights for the rights of youth at work,
active and strong support for young workers by unions, the independent
organisation of youth to defend and extend their rights, and strong sanctions on
employers who violate young people’s rights at work.
10) Scrap ‘Earn or Learn’
In May 2009, PM Kevin Rudd announced “earn or learn”, a policy that all
Australian youth under the age of 21 would be denied Youth Allowance and
unemployment benefits unless they are in school or in full-time vocational
training.
The Socialist Alliance rejects this as discriminatory and recognises that this
threat of poverty will not benefit young people. Rather, it is a strategy that
blames young people for the failings of the capitalist economy, and trains them
for a role in the system that is not of their choosing. “Earn or learn” restricts
40 the freedom of young people to make decisions for themselves. It places
thousands of disadvantaged youth in an untenable position.
It also fails to tackle the fundamental causes of youth unemployment:
homelessness and domestic problems, alienation, discrimination, mental
illness, lack of rights at work and lack of jobs.

On refugees
1. End the Liberal and Labor bipartisan policy of keeping refugees out of
Australia under the guise of attacking “people smuggling” and “border
security”. Ending this policy would include the following measures:
a. Abolish the concept of a “safe third country” which is used to screen
out those who would otherwise be assessed as refugees;
b. Return Christmas Island, Ashmore and Cartier islands and Cocos
(Keeling) islands to Australia’s migration zone;
 c. Immediately resettle all UNHCR-assessed refugees stranded in
Indonesia and Malaysia, neither of which is a signatory to the UN
refugee convention;
d. End the deals with the Indonesian, Malaysian and Sri Lankan
governments to stop refugees coming to Australia under the guise of
“stopping people smuggling”.
2. End the policy of mandatory detention, close all detention centres and free
all asylum seekers imprisoned within them. Allow asylum seekers to live
in the community while their claims are being processed.
3. Establish a category of complementary protection for those not found to be
refugees under the UNHCR definition, but who face persecution if they
were to be returned to the country they fled from.
4. End all deportations of asylum seekers
5. Immediately restore the annual refugee resettlement quota to at least its
pre-1990s level of 20,000.
41 6. Recognise as grounds for refugee status gay and lesbian discrimination,
discrimination against trans people and intersex people and violence
against women, where the government in question condones or permits it.
7. Institute a program for accepting climate refugees, especially from
countries in the Asia Pacific region, and that this program not result in any
reduction in the number of humanitarian refugees.
8. Expand the definition of refugee to include people fleeing economic
hardship e.g., where Australian multinationals have destroyed the
environment that people depend on for their economic livelihood.
9. No biometric testing of asylum seekers
10. Establish contact with asylum seekers who have been deported by
previous governments to assess whether they are still at risk and in need of
asylum
11. Abolish the Refugee Review Tribunal; replace with a fully independent
merits review tribunal for refugees to appeal against adverse decisions.
 12. Restore access to all levels of judicial appeal; allow adverse decisions to
be appealed on matters of substance as well as matters of law.
13. Extend and ensure adequate funding for specialist services for settlement,
including assistance with recognition of skills
14. Equal access for asylum seekers to the full range of social security, health,
housing, transport, education and employment services as other
Australians. Access to post-trauma counselling for asylum seekers
15. Free and widely-available English classes for all migrants and refugees
16. Abolish the pro-business points system which favours skilled and wealthy
migrants.
17. Abolish the requirement for sponsors to pay an up-front bond.
18. Abolish the two-year waiting period for new migrants to access social
security payments.
19. End unequal treatment for gay men, lesbians, trans people and intersex
people in immigration; recognition of same-sex relationships.
42
20. Withdraw the requirement to pass a health check-up in order to get a visa.
21. Give preference to places for migrants from poor countries, especially
countries in the Asia Pacific region.
22. Abolish all family reunion waiting lists and remove the quota restriction so
that partners, siblings, parents and extended families can be reunited in
Australia if they choose. End deportations that are likely to result in
families being split up.
23. Ensure that no family unit is forcibly separated by Australian immigration
assessment processes.
24. End policy of deporting permanent residents who have committed a crime
after serving their sentence.
25. Abolish the citizenship test.
26. Abolish the 457 visas and allow workers who come to Australia
temporarily or permanently to have the full rights of citizenship.
 27. End the practice where the immigration department automatically rejects
the majority of visitor visa applications from people in Third World
countries.

Support for the Latin American revolution

Preamble
In recent years, mass movements of the oppressed across Latin America have
arisen to challenge neoliberalism and US corporate domination. These
movements have exploded in response to the brutal neoliberal polices enforced
in the 1980s and 1990s by the US government, international financial
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These
polices, known as the Washington Consensus, led in the 1990s to an increase
in the number of poor in the region by 14 million, while US banks and
corporations secured US$1 trillion in profits between 1990 and 2002. In the
1990s, more than US$178 billion-worth of state-owned industries were
43 privatised.
Since the 1990s, popular resistance has grown across the region. Mass
movements of the oppressed have successfully stopped the implementation of
neoliberal polices that would have greatly worsened the conditions of the
oppressed. In a number of countries, pro-US neoliberal governments have
been overthrown by popular uprisings.
In some cases, the popular movements have put in power radical governments
that seek to implement, to varying degrees, popular demands. This
governments, which include Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, have linked up
with the Cuban government to spearhead a Latin America-wide push for pro-
people regional integration and unity.
This has led to the internationalisation of the pro-poor social missions in
Venezuela, established with Cuban assistance, to other nations such as Bolivia
and Ecuador. It has led to the creation of a range of new regional institutions
to challenge US and corporate domination, such as the Bolivarian Alternative
for the Americas (ALBA); PetroCaribe; Bank of the South (Bancosur); and the
Union of South American Nations (Unasur).
 In other countries, pro-US right-wing governments face resistance from
powerful movements of the oppressed. This includes the Alan Garcia
government in Peru, facing sustained resistance from a range of social
movements, spearheaded by the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and the
Felipe Calderon government in Mexico, facing mass resistance spearheaded
by electricity workers.
US imperialism and the local oligarchies are carrying out a counter-offensive
aimed at rolling back the social gains for the oppressed and the moves
towards regional integration and unity. This includes through the military
coup in Honduras that overthrew the elected, left-wing government of Manuel
Zelaya in Honduras; the seven new US military bases in Colombia; the
continued US government funding of pro-US political parties and groups to
help destabilise and overthrow popular governments; the use of sanctions
against popular governments (most notably Cuba, but also less extreme
sanctions against Bolivia and Venezuela); a sustained black propaganda
campaign against popular governments and movements in the corporate
media; among many other tactics.
44
All of these tactics, which aim to promote war in the region, are aimed at
destroying the revolutionary movement that has risen to challenge corporate
domination. Mass struggles, such as the heroic resistance of the Honduran
people, are resisting this offensive. The future of the continent is being fought
over in a series of running battles between the powerful and the oppressed.
Policy
1. The Socialist Alliance welcomes the Latin American revolutionary
movements challenging corporate exploitation, foreign domination and
neoliberal policies. The successful example of popular power winning
important gains for the oppressed provides inspiration to those struggling
everywhere. We welcome the success of mass movements in countries, such as
Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia that seek to implement policies that strengthen
popular democracy and social justice for the oppressed, and weaken foreign
domination by increasing national independence and regional unity.
2. The Socialist Alliance welcomes the call, first promoted in 2005 by
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, on the need to construct a “socialism of
the 21st century”. This call, emerging from Latin America’s mass
 revolutionary movements, is of great importance for the socialist movement
internationally and all movements struggling against the destructive polices of
the capitalist system.
3. The Socialist Alliance supports every step forward that strengthens the
independence and unity of Latin American nations against imperialist
domination. We support all struggles and measures that seeks to meet the
needs, and increases the rights, of the oppressed peoples in Latin America. We
support initiatives, such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA),
that strengthen regional unity and integration to challenge corporate
domination and advance the interests of the oppressed. Other such policies
include nationalisations debt cancellation, land reform, government-funded
social programs and measures to increase popular participation in decision
making.
4. The Socialist Alliance opposes all attempts by the United States, other
foreign powers or the Latin American elite to reverse the gains won by the
mass movements of the Latin American oppressed. We condemn all attempts
by foreign powers or the local elite to overthrow sovereign governments by
45
whatever means. We condemn the funding by the US government and
associated organisations of political parties and other organisations inside
sovereign Latin American nations in order to advance US and corporate
interests. We condemn the militarisation of the region and the push to war by
the US and its allies in Latin America.
5. The Socialist Alliance supports the creation of broad-based movements in
solidarity with Latin America, that seek to defend democracy and national
sovereignty, and oppose attempts by the US or other powers to attack and
destroy popular movements and governments.
6. The Socialist Alliance condemns the mainstream media’s distorted and false
coverage of the popular struggles and governments in Latin America, which
seeks to create support for attempts by US imperialism to reverse the popular
gains, defend corporate interests and re-establish US domination over the
region. The Socialist Alliance supports all attempts to counter this “media
terrorism” by the alternative media and solidarity organisations.
7. The Socialist Alliances calls on the Australian government to reject the
policies of the US government that seek to undermine the sovereignty of Latin
 American nations and protect its domination of the region. We call on the
Australian government to take an explicit stand in defence of democracy and
the right to sovereignty of Latin American nations, and to pressure the United
States to cease its policy of seeking to undermine and overthrow sovereign
governments.

Public transport
Preamble
The following draft of a public transport policy for The Socialist Alliance
expands and extends existing national policy, by incorporating work done for
the NSW state elections in 2007, articles for Green Left Weekly and other
research. It attempts to both illustrate the problems with the existing situation,
where inadequate provision of public transport disadvantages poor
communities and the environment and point the way to an socially and
ecologically sustainable alternative.
46 Provision of adequate public transport to service all communities is a social
and environmental imperative. Private road transport (both cars and trucks
carrying freight) are a major contributor to carbon pollution, while lack of
access to public transport places a huge burden on poorer communities in
particular.
Reliance on private transport costs at least $39 billion a year, according to
Rapid and Affordable Transport Alliance (RATA). Of this, $21 billion is lost
due to road congestion and $18 billion for traffic accidents. The Socialist
Alliance believes that immediate government action — at a federal, state and
local level — must be taken to reverse the heavy reliance on private transport
in Australia.
1. Car dependence — a recipe for poverty
Griffith University researchers Jago Dodson and Neil Sipe published Oil
Vulnerability in the Australian City in December 2005. The study attempted to
determine the potential social impact of increasing petrol price rises on
residents of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, based on their dependence on
cars and their socio-economic status.
 “Clearly, outer-suburban areas, locations that contain low socio-economic
status populations, and suburbs which have high levels of car dependence will
be most affected by [petrol price] increases”, Dodson and Sipe argue.
Their study found that because of the relatively poor provision of public
transport in outer-urban areas of Australia’s major cities, particularly
“circumferential” public transport (i.e. public transport that links suburbs with
each other, rather than the city centre), residents were forced to rely more
heavily on private cars than more affluent, inner-city residents.
Part of the problem is that provision of public transport does not meet greatest
need, Dodson and Sipe found. “The major capital cities each have extensive
metropolitan rail networks but the numbers of services running on them are far
below system capacities. There is typically little integration between modes
particularly between the rail and bus networks and the use of local buses as
feeders to the higher capacity rail systems is underdeveloped”, they argue.
What public transport is available in cities does not generally help the most
economically disadvantaged. For instance: “In Sydney the high socio-
47 economic status households of north Sydney have been able to capture among
the best quality public transport services in the city, while lower socio-
economic status groups in fringe areas receive much poorer services”, Dodson
and Sipe argue.
In August 2008, Dodson and Sipe updated their research in Unsettling
Suburbia: The New Landscape of Oil and Mortgage Vulnerability in
Australian Cities, with information drawn from the 2006 Census (conducted
by the Australian Bureau of Statistics), which showed that the situation had
grown worse. In Melbourne, “42.3% saw their oil and mortgage vulnerability
worsen during the 2001-06 period”, the report found. In Sydney, the figure
was 41%, while in Perth the figure was 39.5% and Adelaide 38.5%. Only in
Brisbane was the situation “largely static”.
In Roads, Railways and Regimes: Why some societies are able to organise
suburban public transport — and why others can’t, published in October 2007,
Griffith University researcher Chris Harris said the neglect of public transport
had been a “policy of contrived ‘state failure”‘.
 The failure is most common in English-speaking countries going back to the
1950s and 1960s. “It is clear that the rise of ‘automobile dependency’ to the
levels seen in the English-speaking world — where there is often not a public
transport alternative, or only a ramshackle one — was a policy choice”, Harris
said.
“To paraphrase the tag line to Doctor Strangelove, it was as if policymakers in
all the English-speaking countries simultaneously ‘learned to stop worrying
and love the automobile’.”
Lack of public transport has also been found to be a serious impediment to
finding a job. The Urban Research Centre of the University of Western Sydney
(UWS) was commissioned by the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of
Councils to prepare a report on job prospects for western Sydney until 2031. It
assessed the state government’s target of creating an extra 235,000 jobs.
The UWS study, North west and west-central Sydney employment strategies,
was published in November 2008. It found that one of the major barriers to job
creation was the lack of public transport in western Sydney.
48 “It is clear that public transport in Western Sydney has suffered from chronic
under-investment,” the report said.
“The region’s rail network has remained largely unchanged in coverage since
the 1930s, while over 120 kilometres of motorway have been developed at a
time when Western Sydney’s population has increased dramatically. As a
result the region is heavily car-dependent. “Journey times for commuters on
key parts of the rail network have actually increased over the last twenty
years.”
2. The real cost of private transport
In his Thirty Year Public Transport Plan for Sydney, University of Technology
Sydney researcher Garry Glazebrook estimates the environmental costs of
private car transport, including greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, noise
and water pollution to total over $2 billion a year. All this cost is born by the
community.
“Cars are thus our most expensive mode, costing 86c per passenger-km
compared with 47c for rail and 57c for bus (all figures include externalities
 and for 2006)”, Glazebrook argues. “Our current transport system is too
heavily weighted to cars, the most expensive and least sustainable mode.”
According to RATA, “Transport is Australia’s third largest source of carbon
pollution providing 14 per cent of total emissions. It is the fastest growing
sector and accounts for about 34 per cent of household greenhouse gas
emissions.
“Road transport (cars, trucks, light commercial, buses) accounts for about 90
per cent of total transport emissions. Emissions from road transport were 30
per cent higher in 2007 than in 1990 and even with the implementation of
abatement measures these emissions are projected to be 67 per cent higher in
2020 than 1990 levels.”
This effective privatisation of transport options also comes at a significant
environmental cost. Under the federal government’s proposed carbon trading
scheme, such costs would largely be passed onto individual commuters.
The University of Western Sydney Urban Research Centre argues that: “As
climate change mitigation efforts continue and an emissions trading scheme is
49 introduced, the residents of Western Sydney will face increasing financial pain
as the inequities in decades of transport investment in Sydney become even
more apparent”.
3. Freight transport
According to the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Two-
thirds of domestic freight uplifted in Australia is hauled by road and 26 per
cent by rail. Road transport accounts for 80 per cent of freight movements
when the distance travelled is less than 100 kilometres.”
Greenhouse gas emissions from road freight haulage are projected to rise by at
least 27% in the next 10 years. In its 2006 policy statement Moving On, he
NSW Rail Tram and Bus Union argued that the NSW government had to
reduce reliance on road freight by increasing the use of rail freight. The report
says:
“At a metropolitan scale, the NSW government needs to have a strong focus
on increasing the proportion of freight transport by rail to reduce
 environmental impacts and congestion. This means providing new rail freight
infrastructure and multi-modal terminals in appropriate areas.
“At subregional and local scales, the NSW government should explore
innovative freight delivery options that provide an alternative to road transport
as well as implementing measures to reduce the environmental impact of road
freight transport (e.g. through improvements in vehicle technology and
efficiency).”
According to RATA:
“Rail uses two-thirds less fuel than road per tonne of goods carried and has
more than three times the environmental efficiency of road haulage.
“Some 27 per cent of Australia’s containerised imports arrive at Port Botany
each year and 90 per cent of these end up in western Sydney. Road transport
accounts for 86 per cent of Sydney’s freight task and this is increasing.
“Rail freight capacity must be increased faster than increases in the total
freight capacity to alleviate road congestion, reduce land and resource use
50 wasted by additional roads and reduce air and water pollution. Melbourne has
similar issues but with the added burden that the container port has become a
de facto truck park due to inefficiencies of service.”
In order to facilitate a transition from road-haulage to rail transport of freight,
the Socialist Alliance advocates:
• Extend the rail freight network with dedicated freight-only links in order to
remove heavy vehicles from local roads.
• Introduce and enforce penalties to stop unauthorised heavy vehicle access
to local roads.
• Nationalise all privatised tollways and abolish tolls for light vehicles and
buses.
• Make business pay for its transport by introducing electronic tolling for
heavy freight vehicles on all major roads and freeways, and discounted,
volume-based charges for rail freight.
• Replacing semi-trailers and “B-doubles” as the major inter-city freight
mode.
 • Electric and hybrid vehicles to replace commercial trucks and vans for the
urban transport of freight
• Fund the retraining of long-distance truck-drivers at full-pay, for
ecologically sustainable work, as demand for road-haulage declines. The
cost of this to be paid by a special levy on freight companies.
• Phase-out the use of coal trains as the coal-mining industry itself is phased
out. Use these lines for freight and/or passenger services.
4. Strategic planning
The poor provision of public transport in Australia is not simply the failure of
any particular government, but a failure of strategic planning over many years.
As cities have grown, public transport infrastructure has generally failed to
keep pace.
Ron Christie, a former head of NSW State Rail and the Roads and Traffic
Authority presented a report to the NSW government in June 2001, Long-term
Strategic Plan for Rail. The report outlined a 10-year strategy for increasing
51 the geographic spread, capacity and reliability of the Sydney suburban rail
network.
“Unless the ‘reach’ of the rail system is extended in this way, Sydney will be
doomed to a future under which more than half the urbanised metropolitan
area, and especially those areas at more distant locations, will not be serviced
by the rail system, creating and reinforcing significant inequalities in access to
employment, education and other community facilities”, Christie said.
The “Christie report” was shelved by the NSW Labor government.
“Switching the balance of new infrastructure provision towards public
transport, walking and cycling would not only assist to achieve currently
relevant planning objectives but would hedge our urban systems against
potential impacts of rising fuel costs”, Dodson and Sipe argue in The New
Landscape of Oil and Mortgage Vulnerability in Australian Cities.
“Continuing the present model of road-driven urban transport policy may only
make any eventual adjustment to accommodate higher fuel prices more
painful, complex and fractious. The pain of such adjustment would invariably
fall most heavily on the more disadvantaged members of our communities.”
 The Socialist Alliance advocates that public transport be subject to a long-term
strategic plan, which is prepared through extensive community consultation.
Such a plan must stipulate that all new development incorporate extension to
the existing heavy rail corridors where possible, or the construction of new
lines to service population growth areas where necessary. Such a plan would
include:
• Making all new urban development dependent on the provision of
adequate public transport
• Provision of adequate cycleways and walking paths must also be
incorporated into all plans.
• Provision of buses and light rail must be seen as an adjunct to the
provision of heavy and light rail only, and not a less costly, less effective
alternative.
• Expanding bus priority programs and strategic bus lanes
• Upgrading railway stations, light rail and bus stops, ferry wharfs and
52 interchanges to provide adequate seating, shelter, bicycle storage and
decent facilities for the disabled.
• Planned integration of taxis and taxi cooperatives into the system
• All plans must be presented to residents and workers of a given area for
amendment and approval before implementation and must be subject to
ongoing scrutiny and approval from the affected community.
• Provision of road transport must be a secondary consideration to the
provision and continual upgrade and improvement of public transport
options. No new motorways.
5. Solving the public transport crisis
As a critical measure to reduce Australian carbon emissions and as a urgent
priority to reverse social and economic equality, The Socialist Alliance
advocates a massive short-term increase in government spending on the
provision of public transport infrastructure.
 Such spending must be socially accountable to residents and workers (see 4.
Strategic planning, above). In order to make-up for 50 years of neglect, such
public spending must guarantee the following:
• A complete overhaul of suburban and intra-urban passenger rail systems.
Capacity of tracks (line amplification), rolling stock and stations must be
increased to meet current demand and expected demand over 10 years.
• The extension of the heavy-rail suburban network in all major cities, to
accommodate the existing population and projected population growth
over the next 30 years.
• Upgrading the interstate and country rail network to allow trains to travel
more quickly
• The provision of light rail on high-density suburban bus routes (such as
central Sydney), to replace buses and private vehicles where feasible.
• The construction of European ‘metro’ rail only as an adjunct to heavy rail
services, and only on shorter routes.
53
• Fully staff the networks-staff on every station and a guard/conductor on
every train and tram. End government attacks on public transport workers.
• End the unfair impost on island communities by fully funding passenger
and light vehicle ferries, in particular to and from Tasmania; fully fund air
transport to remote outback and island communities.
• Re-open closed rural rail lines where the infrastructure still exists and
provide passenger rail services to communities which need them.
Alternatively provide a replacement bus service to meet community needs.
• Use bus services only for short trips, from transport hubs to population
centres and shopping centres. Bus and train timetables must be properly
synchronised.
6. Public transport – not for profit
Public transport is a public service. Whether it is allowing workers to get to
and from work, or individuals to travel to shops, hospitals, to see
family/friends or for recreation, it is a social obligation of government to
 provide it. Giving communities access to adequate public transport also tends
to reduce private car use, which reduces carbon emissions.
The Socialist Alliance believes that government must seek to provide the most
modern, fuel efficient, low-carbon impacting and most far-reaching public
transport possible.
Public transport must not be run for profit, but in the interest of commuters and
residents.
In order to keep public transport public, the Socialist Alliance advocates the
following:
• Re-nationalise all privatised public transport and rail freight;
• Stop the privatisation of suburban and outer suburban bus routes. Public
ownership of bus companies should be the norm and private routes in
major cities should be taken back into public ownership.
• An end to public-private partnerships

54 • Reverse the “corporatisation” of state-run public transport authorities.

Public transport must be run to minimise ecological impact and maximise
service delivery, not to make profit.
• Public transport must be run by boards elected at a regional level from
among public transport workers, commuters and residents, with full power
to approve/reject all management and planning decisions. Members of
such boards to be accountable and recallable by their constituencies at any
time.
7. Make it frequent, make it free
In order to encourage as many people as possible to make the switch from
private car transport to public transport, the Socialist Alliance believes that a
three-month trial of free public transport should be conducted across all urban,
regional and rural areas. If the trial confirms a significant increase in public
transport patronage, it should be made permanent.
In 1996, the Belgian city of Hasselt made public transport free. Between 1996
and 2006, usage of public transport increased by as much as 1300%. It is likely
that such a step would have similar results in Australian cities.
 Public transport in most Australian cities is already heavily subsidised. In
2008/09 alone, the NSW public transport system absorbed grants totalling $4.2
billion, according to the NSW Department of Transport.
The June 10 2009 Sydney Morning Herald reported on findings in a report
commissioned NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART). It
showed that for every train journey taken, the broader community saves $6 in
lower air pollution and less road congestion. When the alternative of
commuters taking their cars is factored into the equation, the real social saving
goes up to $15.80 for each train trip.
The average subsidy paid for such trips is $4.20. Each train trip represents a
big social saving.
In Sydney, making public transport free would cost the state government about
$1 billion a year.
When compared to the massive social and environmental savings from
increasing public transport use and decreasing private car use, this spending is
more than justified.
55
The extra costs of proving free public transport should be paid by those who
would benefit most — employers. The Socialist Alliance supports a payroll tax
on all employers of over 10 employees and a special levy on developers ho
benefit from development near transport hubs.
The Socialist Alliance advocates:
• Free public transport
• Free carriage of bicycles on public transport
• Ending all tax concessions for company and company-purchased cars
• The imposition of a public transport levy on all CBD employers with more
than 10 staff, along the lines of the French versement de transport.
• Special levies on developers who gain access to commercially profitable
sites close to railway stations and bus interchanges.
 • The reclassification and redeployment of all public transport staff whose
job has been the sale of tickets to passenger assistance/security functions,
with no loss in pay or conditions.
• Rebuilding public transport staff numbers to ensure safe, comfortable and
efficient services.
The Socialist Alliance supports free public transport and will set up and run a
national free public transport campaign which seeks to resource and support
actions at the local level.
Process: To adopt this draft (as amended by conference) as the Socialist
Alliance’s interim public transport policy, but to solicit suggestions for
improvement from Socialist Alliance members, with the incoming National
Executive to adopt an updated text before the forthcoming federal election.

On population and climate change policy

The Socialist Alliance rejections simplistic populationist theories to explain
56
climate change.
The Socialist Alliance will facilitate a debate in Alliance Voices, Green Left
Weekly and branches in order to develop a policy on population and climate
policy.

On agriculture
The problem
Since the introduction of modern agriculture, the quality of Australia’s soils
has dropped dramatically. Inappropriate agricultural practices and methods
have led to ongoing soil loss, salinity and soil structure collapse across the
country, threatening the viability of many rural communities, and endanger
Australia’s future food security.
In many areas, irrigation water is dangerously over-allocated, frequently
wasteful and used on inappropriate crops, and is becoming more and more
scarce, threatening the viability of agriculture in many parts of Australia.
 Access to water has been turned into a tradeable commodity, allowing
speculative trading in “water rights” that has led to over-allocation, severe
financial pressure on family farms, and serious damage to ecosystems as vital
ground water and river systems are depleted.
At the same time, agricultural profits have increasingly gone to non-productive
commercial sectors. In 1900, 40% of the food dollar went to farmers; now it is
less than 15%, as farmers are forced to receive lower and lower prices under
threat of cheap imports. Farm workers, many of them casual labourers, are
amongst the worst paid and suffer some of the worst working conditions of
Australian workers, and unemployment and poverty in rural Australia continue
to rise. As a result, the average farming age continues to rise because young
people are put off by the economic and environmental challenges of farming.
Australian agriculture is also threatened in the most fundamental way by
climate change. The present global trend of greenhouse emissions will, if
continued, make most agricultural production in this country impossible by the
final decades of the century. Emissions from the rural sector, primarily of
enteric methane from cattle and sheep but including nitrous oxide from
57
synthetic nitrogen fertilisers, are meanwhile the second-largest element in
Australia’s greenhouse accounting.
The Socialist Alliance believes that the long-term sustainability of agriculture
is an essential component of the well-being of Australia’s economy, society
and environment, and must be reformed in order to save it, and the
environment, from the catastrophic effects of current practices.
Sustainable Agriculture
The term “sustainable agriculture” is profoundly misused by governments and
corporate agribusiness, while current agricultural research and education is
overwhelmingly geared – not to developing truly sustainable agriculture – but
to increasing farm outputs and corporate profits at the expense of the
environment and farming communities.
The sustainable agriculture that The Socialist Alliance stands for means
farming based on natural processes, requiring the development of well
functioning agro-ecosystems both above and below ground, and providing
nutritious for people’s needs while causing no degradation to the natural
 environment, and adequate income and working conditions for farmers and
farm workers.
The Socialist Alliance will:
• Phase out corporate agribusiness farming in the Murray-Darling basin and
regulate for sustainable water use in irrigation, including changing land-
use practices and water efficiency practices in line with long-term water
sustainability.
• Review the allocation of free irrigation water licences to wool, lamb and
beef farming enterprises, and review irrigated rice and cotton growing
licences.
• Reverse the process of water privatisation and put all water allocations
under public control. Private ownership of water resources is inimical to
sustainable agriculture and the public good and cannot be allowed to
continue.
• Reduce reliance on synthetic pesticides and fertilisers by harnessing
58 biological capture of carbon and nitrogen, and reprocessing urban waste,
including sewage, into organic fertilisers.
• Encourage mulching, composting, and no-till and reduced-tillage farming
through development grants and incentives.
• Ensure effective management and removal of invasive species.
• Encourage pest and disease minimisation by reliance on factors such as
enhanced natural immune systems of plants, integrated management and
related ecological principles.
• Prevent use of genetically modified organisms until exhaustive,
independent, testing can definitively prove they do not have potential to
cause harm to people, livestock or the environment, and introduce strict
laws and fines against contamination.
• Increase and maintain crop diversity
• Extend public funding of agricultural research and education to ensure the
further development of sustainable agriculture.
 Sustainable Farming Communities
Unsustainable farming practices, environmental degradation, economic
pressures and the effects of drought and climate change are seriously
threatening the viability of our rural and agricultural communities.
The Socialist Alliance believes that most existing farming communities can be
made economically and socially viable again, but only through a drastic
overhaul of the agricultural sector and its practices. We will consult and work
alongside communities in finding solutions to the problems they face,
encouraging public participation in both creating and implementing specific
the measures needed.
The Socialist Alliance will:
• Provide funding, resources and training to farming communities to make
the transition to sustainable agriculture.
• Launch a massive, publicly-funded, sustainable agriculture conversion
program in combination with sustainable agriculture organisations and
59 farming communities.
• Rewrite farm employees’ industrial awards to ensure that farm employees,
including casuals, receive comparable pay and conditions to other
workers.
• Prevent the forced sale of indebted farms and provide alternative funding
on the basis of ongoing agricultural viability.
• Encourage national agricultural self-sufficiency, minimising the need for
food imports and strengthening the Australian farming sector.
• Encourage farming cooperatives, local farmers markets, and state or
cooperative marketing authorities.
• Encourage producer cooperatives to ensure all farmers receive a fair price
from processors and retailers.
• Increase Landcare funding assistance for farmers to increase the
sustainability of local farms and farming communities.
 • Food processing and trading practices that reduce transport, packaging and
waste, including encouraging processing in productive regions.
• Support the research, development and production of farm machinery,
chemicals and biological products that supports better, safer and more
affordable farming practices.
• Increase research and development of more efficient agricultural water use
practices.
Food Security—at home and abroad
There are few things more important than maintaining a secure and reliable
supply of healthy food. In a world where over a billion people are starving, the
deliberate destruction of food crops is criminal. Food should be produced and
distributed to satisfy need, not to make profits.
Australia is more than capable of providing for most of the food needs of its
population, and should assist our neighbours in the region – especially in the
developing world – by sharing our sustainable agricultural practices and
60 surplus food in order to improve the well-being of humanity as a whole.
The Socialist Alliance will:
• Increase and redirect agricultural research into improving the sustainability
of agricultural ecosystems and regions.
• Restrict the use of prime agricultural land for urban development or
mining.
• Increase the scope of agricultural education, including at a primary and
secondary school level.
• Encourage the creation of urban and peri-urban “city farms”, community
and “permaculture” gardens to maximise the proportion of food produced
in cities and large towns, improving both food quality and reducing
emissions from unnecessary transport.
• Expand on projects like Food Bank, redistributing “excess” food to meet
social needs, preventing food wastage and ensuring public access to
nutritional food sources.
 • Increase foreign aid aimed at developing self-sufficient sustainable food
production practices in developing countries and seek to prevent “food
dumping”.
• Develop “fair trade” policies with like-minded countries and increase
foreign food aid programs in order to help prevent starvation and
malnutrition.
Agriculture and Climate Change
Agriculture accounts for around 16% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions,
and current agricultural practices – from fertilisers to food transport – consume
huge quantities of fossil fuels. Land clearing and outdated forestry practices
account for a further 6% of our greenhouse emissions.
Preventing climate disaster will require that net emissions from the rural sector
be ended. At the same time, carbon dioxide must be removed from the
atmosphere through reforestation, including farm forestry, and improved
farming practices.

61 Soil carbon levels need to be enhanced through encouragement of no-till and

organic farming methods. Land currently used as low-grade pasture, or which
climate change renders too dry for cropping, must be returned to native
vegetation or employed in an environmentally responsible way for tree
farming.
The Socialist Alliance will:
• Encourage a shift away from fossil-fuel based chemical pesticides and
fertilisers.
• Encourage “Carbon farming”: increasing the amount of carbon locked in
the soil and the ecosystem through methods such as permanent
reafforestation and the use of sustainable farming practices such as
composting.
• Expand research on the production and use of biochar in order to increase
crop yields, water retention, and plant nutrient availability, to enrich soil
biota and to reduce reliance on synthetic fertilisers.
 • Prevent industrial biofuel or biochar production or broadscale carbon
“offsetting” through unsustainable plantations that lock up prime farming
land.
• Permit land clearing only in exceptional circumstances and only when
offset by the reforestation of equal areas of similar native vegetation.
• Promote the restoration and remediation of native vegetation and
ecosystems, reducing the release of greenhouse gases and limiting serious
soil degradation.
• Develop sustainable grazing practices, in order to improve soil stability
and water availability.
• Sharply reduce cattle and sheep numbers and improve stock management
to minimise methane emissions per head.
• Drastically cut the numbers of feral ruminants, especially camels.
• Risk management for climactic changes that minimise the effects of
weather extremes – require agricultural practices to adapt to climactic
62
limitations.
Process: Resolution adopted as interim policy. To be published in Alliance
Voices with a view to soliciting comment and with the National Executive
having the power to adopt a final version.

On Afghanistan
The Socialist Alliance recognises that there was never any legal or moral
justification for the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001: this is not a “good war”.
The war is being prosecuted by the US-NATO forces as part of the US
imperialism’s long-term strategic political and economic interests in the region
under the guise of being a “war on terror”.
Bipartisan Australian support for the invasion and occupation is both a product
of the US-Australia war alliance and Australia’s own economic interests in
that region.
 Australia’s military presence does not act as a positive counterweight to the
US military: not only does it provide political legitimacy to the US-NATO
command. Australian troops have been involved in the shooting of civilians,
including children.
It’s clear from all the social and development statistics that after nearly nine
years of war, life for ordinary Afghan civilians has dramatically deteriorated.
Women have not been liberated.
The increasing number of civilian causalities, including women and children,
is another feature of this war.
We also note the increasing number of US-NATO military casualities and
applaud those soldiers who have taken a stand against the war.
The Socialist Alliance believes that there can be no democracy, or significant
economic and social development, for peoples subjected to an occupying
power.
Further, laws instituted by puppet regimes, at the behest of those occupying
63 powers, do little to further the political and economic rights of the vast
majority in Afghanistan.
We also oppose this war being spread into Pakistan, and support the brave
efforts of democratic forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan to build a political
current to counter the reactionary fundamentalists and the occupation forces.
Therefore, the Socialist Alliance calls on the Australian government to:
• Immediately withdraw the Australian troops.
• Pay war reparations and send aid for civilian-based reconstruction efforts.
• End support for the US war plans in the region. This includes any
extension of the war into Pakistan and any US plans to attack Iran, and
Yemen.
The Socialist Alliance condemns the use of private contractors, including
mercenaries, in Afghanistan and other war zones. We call on the Australian
government to cease using private contractors and to protest against countries
such as US, British interests using these contractors.
 On Palestine
The Socialist Alliance condemns the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the state
of Israel. This oppression takes different forms including— the occupation of
Palestinian land, hi-tech military assaults on the impoverished Palestinian
population, the blockade and siege of Gaza, the breaking up of the West Bank
into isolated ghettos and systematic violence and discrimination against
Palestinian citizens of Israel and those exiled as refugees.
The Socialist Alliance condemns Egypt’s policy of maintaining the siege on
Gaza through the policing of Gaza’s border region and the operation of the
Rafah border checkpoint. This policy amounts to complicity with Israel’s
ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands, which denies Palestinians the right of
free movement as well as free access to many basic goods.
The Socialist Alliance also condemns Egyptian plans to build an “underground
wall” on the border between Egypt and Gaza. This plan will only increase the
problems faced by Gaza residents who use border tunnels to gain access to
basic necessities.
64
The Socialist Alliance supports:
• Ending the occupation of Palestine by Israel.
• The Palestinian right to self-determination.
• Withdrawal of all Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank and
East Jerusalem and dismantlement of the apartheid wall
• Equal civil and democratic rights for all inhabitants of historic Palestine.
• Right of return for Palestinian refugees to all historic Palestine.
• An end to Israeli aggression against other countries in the region.
• Ending the siege and blockade of Gaza. Free movement of people and
supplies (including medical supplies) around historic Palestine and
between Palestine and Israel.
• The Israeli refuseniks and pro-Palestine Israeli human rights activists.
 • Prosecuting Israeli military and political leaders for war crimes – in
particular, those committed in the December-January 2009 assault on the
people of Gaza
• Ending the criminalisation, in Australia, of Palestinian and Lebanese
organisations that resist Israeli occupation using the misnamed “anti-
terrorism” laws.
The Socialist Alliance recognises the essential role that international
(including Australian) imperialism plays in supporting the Israeli system of
apartheid and occupation through massive political, economic and military aid.
Therefore, the Socialist Alliance condemns the Australian government’s links
with and uncritical support for the criminal Israeli state and supports the
international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israeli
apartheid.

On child care
65
Preamble
Over the past two decades, the childcare sector has become increasingly
corporate-dominated. This shift began when in 1991 the federal Labor
government ended public subsidies to non-profit childcare centres and instead
began providing payments to individual parents to use at a childcare centre of
their choice.
The escalating crisis in childcare availability and the inability of many
families to afford exorbitant childcare fees led to successive governments
furthering this system, with the Howard government’s introduction of the
Childcare Benefit, and the Rudd Labor government’s increase in the Childcare
Tax Rebate to 50%. As a result, private childcare providers are now reaping
massive government subsidies.
This means that childcare fees have sky-rocketed, provision of quality services
is held hostage to the private companies’ efforts to increase their profits and
childcare workers remain among the lowest-paid workers in the country.
 Just how problematic this set-up is was exposed in late 2008 with the collapse
of childcare giant ABC Learning. Yet instead of bringing the childcare centres
under public control, the government gave the company a massive bailout
package and the least profitable centres were closed down or taken over by
other companies.

Resolution
The Socialist Alliance calls for:
• An end to the massive public handouts to private childcare companies
• For the establishment of an adequately funded, not-for-profit, community-
run childcare sector that is free and accessible to all
• For employer-funded, worker-controlled childcare services in larger
workplaces
• For the services to provide before and after hours and occasional care
In the lead up to the federal election and in the update to the Gender Agenda,
66 The Socialist Alliance will produce a comprehensive childcare policy which
expands on resolutions passed at this conference.

On equality for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender

and intersex people
We live in a society which attempts to dictate sexual preference and gender
identity through promoting the gender stereotypes and homophobic attitudes
which underpin the heterosexual nuclear family, and by promoting marriage
and the nuclear family as the only legitimate model for relationships. Lesbians,
gay men, bisexuals, trans people and intersex people suffer oppression because
their lives are a challenge to the nuclear family which is an economic
cornerstone of capitalism. The Socialist Alliance opposes all attempts to
shoehorn people into sexual and gender conformity. We believe it is a basic
democratic right that a persons’ self-definition of sexual preference and gender
identity should be recognised. Heterosexism exists at almost every level in this
society, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender
 identity is entrenched in all of the key institutions of society - education,
health, the law, the media, family, church and state.
The Socialist Alliance supports politically independent and self-organizing
social movements that fight the oppression of women, lesbians and gay men,
trans and intersex people, people with HIV and sex workers through mass
action, public demonstrations, lobbying, voting and by building alliances with
the broader working class, feminist, and anti-capitalist movements.
We oppose sexism, racism, ageism, and discrimination against people with
disabilities within the lesbian and gay communities, as we do in the broader
community.
In government the Socialist Alliance will:
• Enact enforceable anti-discrimination legislation to protect lesbians, gay
men, bisexuals, people living with HIV and trans and intersex people. We
will remove existing exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation in
relation to employment for private schools, religious organisations, the
insurance industry, the tax system, superannuation etc. The Socialist
67 Alliance will legislate for the right of trans and intersex people to be
issued with passports, drivers licenses and other documents specifying the
gender (or non-gender) of their choice.
• Legislate full social, legal, trade union and industrial recognition of same
sex and gender variant relationships. This would include extending to
same sex relationships equal status with heterosexual de factos in
superannuation, immigration, taxation, family law, industrial relations and
any other laws and regulations; ensure the right of gays, lesbians and
gender variants to choose to marry if they so wish; provide independent
incomes [Newstart, Pensions, etc] for all regardless of relationship status -
this will end state-enforced economic dependency.
• Guarantee the right of gay men and lesbians to adopt or foster children and
to access free, safe reproductive technology like IVF. End discrimination
against gay men, lesbians, trans and intersex people in child custody cases.
• Legislate against use of non-violent homosexual “advance” as a defense of
“provocation” in violent crime.
 • Provide full state funding for gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans people and
intersex youth programs including refuges and housing services, health
services, coming out, self-esteem and suicide prevention programs;
• All public funding for education, youth, aged, health, employment and
welfare to be directed though non-discriminatory government and/or
secular non-profit community organisations. Education in schools to
incorporate positive material on homosexuality, trans and intersex peoples.
• Support Pride Marches, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, film and
video festivals and other queer community events; defend and extend gay,
lesbian trans and intersex programming on the ABC, SBS and community
broadcasters; work vigorously for an end to the vicious and destructive
portrayal of gay men, lesbians and trans people people in some sections of
the media.
• Mandatory sensitivity training and refresher courses for the police force in
how to deal with LGBTI issues. This education and training must be
developed with and by the LGBTI community. The selection of LGBTI
68 liaison officers should be under the control of the LGBTI community and
recallable
• Support gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans and intersex workers; promote
strong policies within unions to defend gay, lesbian, trans and intersex
workers; support the establishment of gay and lesbian caucuses within
trade unions.
Resolutions
• That the Socialist Alliance support the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, trans
people, intersex (LGBTI) community in their fight for full marriage
equality, and assist with organizing rallies, forums, events, around the
2010 Year of Actions for the Marriage Equality campaign.
• That the Socialist Alliance phases out the slogan “Same-sex marriage
rights” and promotes “Equal Marriage Rights”, which can more readily
include the demands of the trans people and intersex community.
• That the Socialist Alliance builds and supports International Day to End
Violence Against Sex Workers events, in whichever way is appropriate.
 That the Socialist Alliance, where possible, and where events are organised,
builds and supports Trans and Intersex Remembrance Day events.

On sex workers
Sex work is still on the criminal code in all states and territories except NSW.
Having sex work on the criminal code means increased police harassment for
marginalized groups such as Aboriginal street-based sex workers, Asian and
migrant sex workers, HIV positive workers, and trans people sex workers.
Criminalizing sex work means significantly lower health and safety standards.
Decriminalisation in NSW combined with other health and sex worker “peer
education” community support measures, has resulted in better sexual health
outcomes for sex workers and improved access by community outreach and
support agencies.
The Socialist Alliance demands of the government:
• Decriminalisation of sex work
69
• Demand an end to discrimination on the basis on the basis of
occupation
The Socialist Alliance supports the work of sex worker organisations in their
decriminalisation campaigns and for health, and safety on the job.

On marriage and civil unions

The Socialist Alliance supports the right to marry regardless of gender or
sexual orientation.
In other countries civil unions have been offered to the LGBTI community to
placate the movement for equal marriage rights. This is not the situation in
Australia, where even civil unions have been suppressed by the federal
government because they “mimic marriage”. It is for this reason that the
Socialist Alliance supports civil unions but will continue the campaign for
marriage . Civil unions are not a substitute for marriage rights.
 The Socialist Alliance demands of the government:
1) Equal marriage rights for LGBTI people.
2) Civil unions legislation in each State and Territory, as well as on the federal
level. Civil unions legislation should allow official, legally recognised
ceremonies, and it should be open to everyone regardless of gender or
sexuality.

On intersex policy
Intersex people are people born with physiological differences that may be
seen as being both male and female at once, not wholly male or female or as
neither male nor female.
Intersex people are subjected to discrimination in employment, in housing, in
the provision of medical services, and the provision of government services.
There are no laws preventing discrimination against intersex people.
Intersex children may be subjected to non-consensual surgery so that their
70 bodies conform to dominant ideas of what constitutes a ‘male’ or ‘female’
body. Non-consensual genital surgery is particularly controversial and where
there is little debate against prohibitions on female circumcision, similar
procedures on intersex people happen with little community comment.
The Socialist Alliance rejects pathologising definitions of intersex such as
“disorders of sexual development”. The difficulty for Intersex is not
differences in anatomy but rather how those differences are perceived by the
community. Social prejudice against non conforming bodies such as intersex,
are the issues that needs attention. Intersex people should not be compelled to
change their bodies, their behavior, or themselves to meet mainstream social
expectations.
The Socialist Alliance demands of the government
1) That non-consensual surgery on children, where the child is denied the
informed and cognizant right to consent or reject) cease immediately save for
those cases where surgery is life preserving.
 2) That children are able to declare their sex, even if that is none, when they
are fully informed and able to understand those concepts.
3) That any individual may have their passport marked with X rather than sex
or gender if they so desire.
4) That there is an affirmative action policy in public housing, work
opportunities, education, the provision of medical and government services.
5) That education campaigns are conducted in schools and wider society that
debunk the myth of sex and gender binaries, that inform individuals about sex
and gender diversity, and oppose bigotry because of perceived sex and gender
differences.
6) Intersex athletes like Caster Semenya should not be publically outed. That
there are no compulsory sex testing procedures in sport.
7) Legislation that provides protection against discrimination and vilification
and promotes equal opportunities for intersex people.
8) Access to appropriate medication and surgery when and if required based
71 on the needs of the individual and not on the expectations of diagnostic
protocols. This includes the abandonment of the diagnosis of “gender
dysphoria” for those intersex who reject their birth assignment.
9) All people, particularly legislators and medical professionals, must
acknowledge that sex and gender is more than men and women , male and
female.

On transgendered people’s rights

Governments have to ensure that services and laws are in place that provide
for those who do not fit prevailing ideas of sex and gender binaries and by
unshackling the community from the need to conform to and enforce those
ideas, allow each individual to participate in society as themselves.
Trans people are a diverse group of identities, including transsexual,
transgendered, crossdressers, gender queers, and gender variants of all kinds.
Their common ground is that they do not conform to society’s expectations of
how someone of their physiological sex assigned at birth is supposed to be in
 the culture they live in. Most trans people do not seek sex reassignment
surgery, although many seek hormone therapy. Trans people suffer hate
crimes, murder, being sacked from jobs, discrimination in renting and buying
houses, and high rates of suicide because of the bigotry they face.
In Australia, trans people face barriers in changing their sex. To access any
medical transition
technologies, such as hormone therapy or surgeries, on Medicare they have to
be diagnosed with “gender identity disorder”. This is a psychological disorder
according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM
IV). This pathologising terminology is rejected by the trans movement.
Free, quality surgery is unavailable in Australia. Therefore trans people are
forced to access expensive surgeries in the private sector. Hormone therapy is
only free to people on the pension. Otherwise, it is very expensive.
Trans people are not granted legal recognition of their gender without surgery.
This is a major problem for many trans people who either cannot afford
surgery or do not want it. Potential loss of sexual function is one reason why
some people do not want surgery. A major problem with the requirement of
72
surgery is that it coerces trans people into sterilisation.
Even after hormones and operations trans people are not granted automatic
government recognition of their sex. Expensive passport and birth change
processes add to the trauma and humiliation trans people are forced to
endure. The Socialist Alliance supports the work of transgender and
transsexual rights organisations in their campaigns.
The Socialist Alliance demands of the government:
1) Free access to hormones, if requested, without being diagnosed
with ’gender identity disorder’
2) Free, quality sex change operations and access to other medical needs such
as electrolysis.
3) Full legal recognition of gender identity regardless of whether or not a
person gets surgery. This includes but is not limited to passports and birth
certificates. A person’s legal identity should be “male” or “female” as they
choose, or they should also have the option of marking an “X” or “trans”,
or something else, if they choose.
 4) Anti-discrimination laws that support trans people in fighting off
discrimination in jobs, housing, schooling.
5) Affirmative action in public housing and employment, including crisis
accommodation to cater specifically for the needs of trans people.
6) Anti-bigotry campaigns in schools and wider society that teach people
about trans rights.
7) The repeal of all legislation discriminating against trans people.
8) government funding for services run by and for the trans community, such
as Gender Centres. There should be a Gender Centre in every capital city
at least.
9) Specific units in hospitals to cater to the needs of trans people.

73
 C. Resolutions on political campaigning
Environment
Socialist Alliance tasks in the climate action movement
Resolution 1: That the Socialist Alliance prioritises building the climate
emergency movement. We will continue to work with local, state and national
climate groups and networks to build the grassroots climate movement. We
seek to build a movement which can rapidly shift the mass of the population
from ignorance, despair and passivity to enable the emergency action by the
mass of ordinary people necessary to preserve a safe climate future.
Resolution 2: That the Socialist Alliance recognises the disproportional
negative impact of climate change on Third World countries, which has
already led to mass displacement and the deaths of thousands of people. The
Socialist Alliance will promote practical solidarity between the Australian
climate change movement and climate activists from other countries,
especially from the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, The Socialist Alliance
74 will advocate that the climate movement publicly oppose the Australian
government’s threat to withdraw aid from Pacific nations such as Tuvalu,
which is campaigning internationally for stronger targets.
Resolution 3: That the Socialist Alliance continues to oppose the CPRS, or
any other emissions trading scheme for Australia, because such schemes delay
the structural changes urgently needed to de-carbonise the economy.
Resolution 4: That The Socialist Alliance supports the 2010 Climate Summit
and will provide full support in order to make it a success.
Resolution 5: That in its campaigning work, the Socialist Alliance continues
to advocate fundamental social change as a necessary answer to the threat of
climate change. This includes campaigning for our current policy positions,
including the need for public ownership of key sectors of the economy.

A ‘Green Ban’ for Caroona

A group of farmers at Caroona, near Gunnedah in NSW, are currently fighting
to protect their farmland from being mined. This is the “frontier” of the current
massive expansion of coal exports. Caroona is home to a giant flat valley with
 deep, rich soil and vast underground aquifers, meaning the land is extremely
productive and ostensibly drought proof.
The Socialist Alliance calls upon the unions whose members would be
employed to work in Caroona, most predominately the CFMEU, to place a
“green ban” on the project. The loud opposition to this project is broad and
deeply felt within the community and this action would set an important
precedent for community/ union campaigning.
The Socialist Alliance recognises that this action would be a brave one on the
part of the unions. We call upon the ACTU and Farmers Federation Fighting
Fund to extend the legal assistance, currently being used for legal action
against the project, to defend the unions involved against any legal actions
taken by them during this campaign.

On Lake Cowal
The Socialist Alliance calls upon the NSW government to order the closure of
the Lake Cowal open pit goldmine. The mine is operated by Canadian
company Barrick gold.
75
The mine uses in sodium cyanide and other process chemicals which end up in
a tailings dam. The tailings dam subsequently has the potential to release
poisonous dust containing cyanide, arsenic and cadmium into the air which
could contaminate agricultural land in the region. Lake Cowal is itself an
ephemeral lake, which is periodically subjected to major flooding.
The lake is a wetland of international significance – home and breeding
ground to thousands of water birds when full, including numerous endangered
species.
There exists a very real danger that during a flood season the tailings dam may
burst its banks and contaminate the Kalara/Lachlan and Murrumbidgee rivers
and ultimately a major section of the Murray Darling Basin. The mine itself
draws vast amounts of water from underground aquifers, however the Murray
Darling basin is strained and cannot support unnecessary thirsty projects such
as the mine.
 The Mooka and Kalara families of the Wiradjuri nation are custodians of the
lake and are vehemently opposed to the mine. The Mooka and Kalara people
have waged a sustained campaign to have the mine stopped and closed.
Lake Cowal is described as the “sacred heartland” of the Wiradjuri nation and
is home to culturally significant artifacts.
The Socialist Alliance supports the Mooka and Kalara peoples quest to assert
their sovereignty over Lake Cowal, and calls for the mine to be closed and a
full rehabilitation of the site to be carried out at the expense of Barrick Gold,
under the direction of the traditional owners.

76
 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights
On the Socialist Alliance’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander rights work
The Socialist Alliance Seventh National Conference acknowledges the
important historical role socialists have played in major struggles for
Aboriginal rights throughout the last century. Through our Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Rights Charter, we commit ourselves to continuing in
this tradition, supporting and championing Aboriginal self-determination and
Aboriginal control of Aboriginal affairs, while linking Aboriginal struggles to
other movements, especially the trade union movement. The Socialist Alliance
also recognises the times where the left historically failed to adequately
support Indigenous struggle.
Aboriginal affairs constitute one of the moral weaknesses of the Rudd
government. Actions speak louder than words and hopes raised by the apology
on February 13, 2008, have been betrayed by the continuation and expansion
of the Northern Territory intervention. The National Congress of Australia’s
77
First Peoples, a national representative body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people, is being established from above and does not have any
credibility amongst Aboriginal activists who denounce it as a toothless waste
of time without a legitimate mandate. This representative body and recent
“consultations” with Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, which
did not allow those attending to properly voice their opinions, are just two
examples of how government policy has turned back to assimilation.
The federal government is coming under increasing fire, including growing
international criticism, for its expansion and continuation of racist policies of
the previous Coalition government. In August, UN Human Rights Rapporteur
Professor James Anaya said measures like compulsory income management,
imposition of compulsory leases and community-wide bans on alcohol
consumption and pornography “overtly discriminate against Aboriginal
peoples’’.
A statement released by another UN Human Rights Rapporteur in December
finds that equal access to primary healthcare facilities is lacking, sometimes
due to lack of transportation and communication infrastructure, but more
 often due to direct discrimination and culturally inappropriate services being
provided.
Conference recognises the emergence of new national Aboriginal leadership,
especially through the campaign against the Northern Territory intervention.
Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory and across the country have come
together to condemn the intervention, and this new leadership is slowly
consolidating. The Socialist Alliance pledges to provide support, space and
resources for further development.
The Socialist Alliance’s Work in 2010
Aboriginal Rights Coalitions
Branches in cities with existing and healthy Aboriginal rights coalitions will
assess whether they have the resources to participate in these and do so if
possible.
Trade union work
We recognise the importance of the union movement becoming more involved
78 in the Aboriginal rights movement, and will use our presence in unions and on
union bodies to strengthen this relationship. The Socialist Alliance will take
the opportunity provided by the interest unions have displayed in the
Ampilatwatja walk-off, for example, to get in touch with, or work closer with,
unions and unionists we weren’t otherwise working with.
Climate Emergency Movement
The Socialist Alliance recognises that an important alliance exists between
Aboriginal and environmental activists, especially in the context of the climate
crisis. The Socialist Alliance commits to consciously strengthen this alliance.
International solidarity
Through Green Left Weekly, and our contacts among the international left, we
will seek to establish links between Aboriginal people involved in the various
campaigns and revolutionaries and Indigenous activists around the world,
especially across Latin America.
 Education
Launching the new book by Terry Townsend and our Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Rights Charter provides an excellent opportunity for
educationals and discussion with guest speakers in branches.
Where appropriate and possible, the Socialist Alliance will campaign, through
state education unions, for the provision of plaques to the placed within public
schools that highlight the Indigenous community and language groups for their
school.
Branches should engage with the local Aboriginal community to host
“Aboriginal Local History” education forums about culture, language and
struggle in the local area and state.
Campaign Priorities
End the intervention
The Northern Territory intervention continues to be the pointy end of Rudd
Labor’s Aboriginal affairs policy: in fact it is Labor’s policy - the measures
79 introduced as part of the intervention are quietly being rolled out across the
country.
For this reason, The Socialist Alliance sees the campaign to end the
intervention as crucial, and we will continue to prioritise it.
Concretely, we will:
• Build and participate in the national day of action on February 13, 2010,
and the one on June 21, 2010 and any other mobilisations;
• Continue to support and publicise the Ampilatwatja walk-off and protest
house project, through taking motions of solidarity and pledges for
donations to unions, talking it up in our publications, websites etc,
building any future national speaking tours and other publicity events; and
• Help strengthen union opposition to the Northern Territory intervention
through taking motions to meetings, actively seeking union endorsement
for and participation in any mobilisations, getting articles into union
journals etc.
 • Initiate and participate in a “Macklin Watch” campaign, whereby The
Socialist Alliance and other groups, where possible, hold actions, speak-
outs, and protests, alongside awareness-raising campaigns, whenever
Labor Aboriginal Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin makes an appearance,
with the aim to explain about Labor’s rotten Indigenous rights policies.
The Socialist Alliance (in conjunction with Resistance and campus solidarity
and Aboriginal Rights Coalition groups where appropriate) will approach the
Alyawarra people about the possibility of organising a “Bus Freedom Ride” in
solidarity with the Ampilatwatja walk off to build the broadest solidarity with
the Indigenous resistance to the Northern Territory Intervention.
Stop Black Deaths in Custody Campaign
The Socialist Alliance pledges our continued support and involvement in
campaigns demanding justice for Mr Ward, Mulrunji, T.J. Hickey and others.
In particular, The Socialist Alliance calls for:
• The full implementation of the 339 recommendations of the 1987-91
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody;
80
• Termination of the prison service contract between GSL/ G4S and the
state of Western Australia, and a complete end to privatisation of custodial
services;
• Compensation for the families of Mr Ward, Mulrunji, T.J. Hickey and all
victims of deaths in custody;
• A new Royal Commission into the death of Mulrunji and other recent
deaths in custody, in order to expose the role of the police, and help build
momentum for serious charges against those involved in, or who
attempted to cover up, a death in custody.
• An end to government policies and judicial system practices that result in
criminalisation and over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander communities in prisons.
• The Socialist Alliance supports the work and demands of the Western
Australian Deaths in Custody Watch Committee. The Socialist Alliance
also supports the call for a February 14 National Day of Action for justice
for T.J. Hickey.
 Campaign to stop the Brighton Bypass in Tasmania
The Socialist Alliance supports the campaign to stop the Brighton Bypass in
Tasmania. The project, which goes through one of the richest areas of
Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage should be stopped immediately and the
demands of the Aboriginal community should be met to save the 15,000 year
old heritage.
Other campaigns
Bilingual Education
On October 14, 2008, then NT Minister Marion Scrymgour announced that the
first four hours of education in all NT schools would be delivered in English,
putting an end to 34 years of Bilingual Education (B.E.) in the Northern
Territory. Ten B.E. programs have been discontinued. The Socialist Alliance
supports the campaign to reintroduce B.E. programs in NT schools as this is a
critical educational, human rights, and survival of culture issue.
Muckaty waste dump
81 The Socialist Alliance also supports and will get involved in campaigns
against the siting of a nuclear waste dump in Muckaty (120 km north of
Tennant Creek). The traditional owners have expressed their opposition to
such a waste dump yet the Labor government seems set to continue this
proposal which the Howard government set in train.
There may be other campaigns, such as around stolen wages in Queensland or
new government attacks on ATSI rights, t hat emerge/gain momentum. The
Socialist Alliance will be ready to assess these campaigns, support them and
participate in them according to our assessment and resources at the time.
 Trade union movement
Socialists in the union movement
Preamble
Role of trade unions
The role of the trade unions is to defend the basic interest of the workers, such
as working conditions and wages. Unions have come into being with
capitalism itself as working class organisation of resistance to the exploitation
workers faced by the bourgeoisie. The existence of unions also highlights a
fundamental conflict of class interests inherit in the capitalist mode of
production that strives forever for increasing profits at the expense of workers.
Regarding industrial issues, the main tasks facing union militants in the
movement are:
1. To achieve legislative change in favour of workers’ rights through mass
campaigns
82 2. To fight attacks taking place at individual workplaces
The Rudd government and Industrial Relations
The election of the Rudd Labor government in 2007 on the back of the “Your
Rights at Work” campaign and with the promise to rip up the Coalition
government’s infamous Work Choices legislation (2005) has not brought any
significant change in favour of workers and trade unions.
The ALP’s new industrial relations regime “Fair Work Australia” (FWA) is a
continuation of Work Choices with the aim to make unions redundant as
representatives and bargaining agents for workers. FWA contains strict
limitations on the right to organise, bargain and strike and has failed to
restore unfair dismissal provisions to those prevailing before Work Choices.
FWA still outlaws industry wide (pattern bargaining).
Under FWA’s process of award modernisation, many awards are being
stripped of hard-won conditions and entitlements, clearly putting many
employees, especially women, at a disadvantage. All awards must include a
‘flexibility clause’ that allows for individual contracts.
 FWA is designed to atomise the work force and isolate trade unions through
secondary boycott legislation; is very costly to members and criminalises
industrial action through the Australian Building and Construction
Commission (ABCC).
To date, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has supported FWA.
The notorious Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC)
continues to exist and persecute building workers like Ark Tribe for refusing to
answer questions about industrial action. In 2010 the ABCC will be replaced
by a new building industry inspectorate, which will essentially retain many of
the coercive powers of the ABCC.
Labor’s plans to harmonise all Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) laws
into one set of new laws poses a serious threat to current OHS legalisation in
Victoria and New South Wales in particular. The new set of laws is designed to
take away some hard-fought-for rights and minimise the power of OHS
representatives to make important and potentially life-saving decisions. At the
same time negligent bosses get away with murder because of the absence of
83 industrial manslaughter legislation
Global Economic Crisis
The Global Economic Crisis (GEC) has been very effectively used for a range
of anti-worker measures by employers and the government. Pressure has been
put on individual workers and unions to accept wage restraint, reduce their
working days (“down days”) and annual leave—at their own expense. The
ACTU has supported the “down-day” model “to save jobs” when in fact this
short-sighted measure helps save businesses, not jobs.
There has been minimal resistance to this pressure by most union leaderships
due to a combination of their inability to counter the boss’s arguments; their
class collaborationist position; their fear of job cuts and their inability to
envisage how a militant campaign could win.
Wages and Equal Pay, parental leave
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 1999-2000, the
richest 20% of income units received 48.5% per cent of total income. The
poorest 20% of income units received less than 4% of total income.
 The situation for women is even worse. In May 2009, the Australian Bureau of
Statistics calculated that women earn 7.4% less then men for full time
employment; in industry sectors this gap can be as large as 30%. Taking into
account part-time and casual work, the total gap is actually 35%.
Australia is one of only two OECD countries without some form of paid
maternity leave. We have witnessed a back pedalling by the Rudd government
on the question of parental leave (citing the Global Economic Crisis), leaving
Australian women and parents with a highly inadequate scheme
Minimum wage
The current minimum wage is set at $543.78 a week before tax. On July 7, the
Australian Fair Pay Commission (FPC) ruled out a pay increase citing the
Global Economic Crisis as the key factor. Adjusting for inflation and a rise in
living costs, the “wage freeze” imposed by Harper amounts to a pay cut in
real terms for workers.
In its submission to the FPC, the federal government did not advocate an
increase in dollar terms but warned that a higher minimum wage increase is
84 likely to encourage higher wage claims and outcomes in workplace bargaining
negotiations, and hence flow-on to a greater number of employees.
The Federal government was referring to a number of large certified
agreements due to expire in 2009 in car manufacturing, construction and the
retail sector. It is highly likely that a decent minimum wage increase would
also increase the bargaining power of these workers and lead to a better wage
outcome.
Unions and the ALP
The Your Rights at Work campaign was rapidly demobilised after Rudd’s
election victory in 2007, which weakened the ability to fight Labor’s unfair
FWA. Sections of the union movement thought that Labor would get rid of
Work Choices. It is only now that Labor’s Fair Work Act is in place that the
union movement is beginning to realise how inadequate it is.
Trade unions’ traditional links and affiliations to the ALP have undermined
and compromise union leaderships ability and willingness to fight for workers
 interests. The election of a federal Labor government has put this into a new
light.
Most trade union officials are reluctant to criticise the federal ALP and
therefore also to mobilise against its industrial relations regime. They do not
want to embarrass the party (although this is not always the case at the state
level). With some notable exceptions, unions have focused their energy on
lobbying politicians with little positive outcome for their members.
In the meantime attacks have continued and intensified, such as against the
Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) in Victoria. These attacks
not only come from the bosses but also government officials and agencies and
also other unions.
This union orientation to the ALP, combined with the leaderships’ lack of a
strategic view on the way forward, has led to some demoralisation among the
more militant officials and union members.
The ACTU has been increasingly exposed as a simple mouthpiece for the ALP.
85
Union resistance/responses to Rudd
However, tensions between the union movement and Labor governments have
grown over the last two years with Rudd’s refusal to break with Howard’s anti
worker regime.
At a state level, the NSW and Queensland government’s attempts to privatise
public assets has met with some resistance from the union movement. The
campaign in Queensland, which has been led by the Electrical Trades Union,
has been more broad-based than that in NSW, where it led to a compromise
supported by much of the union movement. The decline in the organising
strength of unions is being exploited by Labor machines.
We have also seen important struggles take place, such as the National
Tertiary Education Union’s fight against federal government attempts to
further casualise and privatise the higher education sector. The Victorian
CFMEU and AMWU took on construction giant Holland during the “Westgate
Bridge’ dispute over critical employment standards and the right for those two
unions to organise on Holland’s site. The Victorian branch of the AMWU has
 also successfully fought employer attempts to use Labor’s mandatory
“flexibility” arrangements to introduce individual contracts through the back
door. The national campaign to abolish the ABCC and drop charges against
Ark Tribe is also still continuing.
Militant unionism and independence from ALP
Most workers would today question the value and the point of being affiliated
to the ALP if given the chance by their unions. Some unions have cried foul in
NSW over government selections of cabinet members etc, and have announced
they will not pay party fees. The ETU in Victoria has already started to fund
election candidates other than ALP picks. But these moves still fall short of
even the limited steps made by some British unions to break with Labor and
re-establish a political voice for workers.
Workers are still prepared to take action and follow their union leadership
when it leads. Two recent examples in Geelong where workers took action
were over the sacking of council workers and at the Geelong Hospital where
24 workers were to be sacked before Christmas. In both case workers walked
86 off the job in wild cat strikes and won their demands within a day or two. It is
not always as simple as this but it does demonstrate that where unions lead
and train their members action is possible and victory for workers is more
often than not the result.
Unionists and climate change
A CSIRO study indicated that 2.7 million jobs could be created in Australia
over the next 15 years in any switch to a low-carbon economy and the
deployment of renewable energy; and this is a conservative estimate. The
majority of union leaderships have, in general, not taken up climate change in
a serious way with its members.
Australian Workers Union secretary Paul Howes and CFMEU mining and
energy division president Tony Maher are outspoken in their support for the
bosses’ and the government’s go-slow agenda on climate change. Howes’
push for a nuclear option as a solution to climate change might well get a
hearing amongst many workers.
 Yet, while the ACTU as given uncritical support to the Rudd government’s
carbon trading scheme (CPRS), many individual union leaders unofficially
support green jobs and a transition to renewable energy.
Resolution
1. The Socialist Alliance recognises the important role socialists play in the
trade union movement to defend and extend workers interests and is
committed help build resistance in a range of unions.
2. The Socialist Alliance recognises the limitations of trade unions vis-a-vis
building a working class alternative beyond capitalism. The Socialist Alliance
is committed to fight alongside fellow workers for industrial and immediate
economic rights plus engage in the political struggle to build consciousness
beyond reformism.
3. As part of this political struggle the Socialist Alliance members commit to
introduce and support non-industrial issues, such as Indigenous rights, climate
change, women’s rights and anti-war – building solidarity with broader
sections of the community and also internationally
87
4. The Socialist Alliance recognises that the balance of power within the trade
union movement favours ALP politics, class-collaboration and narrow national
interests. At the same time we recognise that a substantial section of trade
union activists either feel betrayed by Labor or are opposed to Labor. The
Socialist Alliance is committed to keep working with and strengthening the
militant class struggle wing of the union movement.
5. The Socialist Alliance opposes Fair Work Australia and will actively
promote and support actions that contest its legitimacy including participating
in workplace struggles and union campaigns which work towards the abolition
of all anti-worker laws and which strengthen the ability of workers to organise
independently.
6. The Socialist Alliance continues its opposition to the Australian Building
and Construction Commission, and the task force, and calls for the abolition of
all coercive and penal powers over workers. We also condemn the broadening
of these powers to other industries and strongly reject the discrimination
against honest working people.
 7. Members of the Socialist Alliance commit to arguing for industrial action
by unions and their members in the event of any convictions arising out of
these unjust powers (including fines and/or imprisonment, e.g. Ark Tribe).
8. The Socialist Alliance recognises the crucial importance of building the
climate change movement within unions, both at a policy level, but also at a
grass-roots activist level. Our task is to win workers and union leaderships to
understand the necessity of taking action on climate change to help this
movement win its demands for public ownership, green jobs and sustainable
renewable energy. To this end, The Socialist Alliance commits to developing a
policy on green jobs before the end of February 2010.
9. The Socialist Alliance will work towards establishing a Trade Union
Training College, initially providing a yearly union summer school.
Building the Socialist Alliance
1. The Socialist Alliance will continue with its task to build rank-and-file
bases in unions to draw rank-and-file activists towards class struggle activism
and socialism. We also project to provide leadership and rank and file
88 organising within unions as workplace delegates and where strategically
useful, to stand as elected officials and to contest leadership positions
2. The Socialist Alliance is committed to encourage members to get jobs were
we can do effective trade union work and help build a class struggle wing, (for
example in the education sector)
3. The Socialist Alliance is committed to continue organising on a union
sectoral basis and coordinate our activity on a national level
4. The Socialist Alliance pledges to use Green Left Weekly in the trade union
movement as a tool to inform workers and union activists of government
industrial relations policy, workplace and unions struggles and in order to
promote the solutions put forward by the Socialist Alliance.
5. The Socialist Alliance will update the Charter of Workers Rights in light of
the continuing attacks on working people since the election of the Rudd ALP
federal government. We will also prioritise the development of a brief leaflet
outlining our class struggle approach to unionism for use in campaigning for
the coming federal election.
 Pay equity campaign
1. The National Trade Union Committee of the Socialist Alliance will
facilitate the co-ordination of the Socialist Alliance members working in the
Social and Community Services (SACS) industry into an Australian Services
Union (ASU) Caucus.
2. The Socialist Alliance branches and members in regional areas will support
campaigning activity by local ASU campaigning committees, e.g. by
distributing printed material, petitions on the Socialist Alliance campaigning
stalls, providing forums for discussion etc
3. Collectives organising activities for International Women’s Day are urged
to include pay equity as a demand for IWD 2010 and to have ASU speakers
leading the campaign included on platforms for IWD Rallies and Marches
around Australia.

Occupational Health and Safety law ‘harmonisation’

The Socialist Alliance believes that the process of Occupational Health and
89 Safety (OHS) Legislation “harmonisation” initiated by the ALP government is
likely to lead to a substantial reduction in health and safety protections for
thousands of Australian workers. The review is intended to develop a single
“optimal structure and content of a model OHS act” that is capable of being
adopted in all jurisdictions, thereby replacing existing State and Territory OHS
Acts.
The draft model legislation released in November 2009, undermines key
aspects of some existing State and Territory legislation.
The Socialist Alliance believes that all Australian workers should have the
same level of OHS protection regardless of the industry and State or Territory
they work in. However the harmonised of OHS system should not leave any
worker worse off and must deliver Australian workers the highest standards.
The draft model legislation attacks health and safety rights in the following
areas:
a) It complicates and frustrates the rights of occupational health and safety
representatives on the job. Their legal liabilities will be increased and there is
 no guarantee of paid training. Despite the fact that they are volunteers and
workplace representatives, bosses will have the right to apply for their
removal, and in certain circumstances they may have to front court to pursue
OHS claims. The capacity for on the job delegates to identify issues, seek
remedy and order a stop work where safety is compromised, is fundamental to
ensuring a safe workplace.
b) The onus of proof—which at present falls on the employer—is to be
reversed in the proposed legislation. It will be up to prosecutors from Safe
Work Australia to prove that employers failed to take reasonable action to
prevent a workplace injury or death, rather than the responsibility of bosses to
show that they did. By reversing the onus of proof, the draft legislation
encourages bosses to frustrate investigations, cover up accidents and stay
silent.
c) Unions are critical in enforcing health and safety standards. The proposed
regime for Right of Entry under the Model OHS Laws will serve to frustrate
site entry by union representatives by creating complicated processes, which
will undermine the capacity for union officials to address OHS concerns
90
quickly. In high-risk industries this will cost lives. The 24 hours’ notice will
have to be given before inspecting sites or documents related to an OHS
breach. This could allow time for a boss to cover up the evidence.
d) Union and victims’ ability to initiate litigation. The draft legislation means
that the power to prosecute breaches of the law rests solely with the regulator.
The capacity for unions and victims to prosecute is essential because
regulators have proven to rarely pursue prosecutions in “near misses” or
breaches that result in non-catastrophic injuries. The NSW and ACT
legislation currently allows for private prosecutions. Removal of this right is
also inconsistent with the criminal law in most jurisdictions where citizens can
prosecute criminal offences. It also serves to handcuff unions from bringing
proceedings for breaches under workplace laws.
The capacity for unions to prosecute where the regulator has failed to do so is
essential in deterring employers ignoring OHS considerations.
 Anti-war and international solidarity
On the Socialist Alliance’s Latin America solidarity work
1. Preamble: The development of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela is a
leading factor in the growing anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movements
across Latin America. As such, building solidarity with the Venezuelan
revolution under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez is a centrepiece of
socialists’ Latin America solidarity activity. In Australia, the Australia-
Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN), as a broad coalition of organisation
affiliates and individual activists organised through local committees, is
currently the most effective vehicle for extending and strengthening solidarity
with the Bolivarian revolution.
Resolution: That the Socialist Alliance help to build the AVSN by actively
supporting its national projects, including speaking tours, conferences and
solidarity brigades to Venezuela, and strive to help set up or build AVSN
committees in each city where there is a Socialist Alliance branch and the
resources available. Socialist Alliance branches should affiliate to AVSN
91 where possible.
2. Preamble: The construction—led by the Cuban, Venezuelan and Bolivian
revolutions—of a strengthening anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist bloc in
Latin America through regional integration projects such as ALBA, the Bank
of the South, etc, is an important development in world politics that must be
reflected in the left’s approach to building Latin America solidarity today.
This developing cooperation between left and revolutionary governments and
peoples in the region is a major challenge to imperialist domination in Latin
America and globally, and is provoking an imperialist counter-offensive (e.g.,
Honduras coup, new military bases in Colombia, etc).
Resolution: That the Socialist Alliance strive to strengthen united action in
solidarity with all progressive forces and processes in Latin America by
participating in or initiating campaigns in solidarity with specific
peoples/governments under attack by imperialism, and participating in or
initiating broader Latin America solidarity coalitions wherever possible, such
as the Latin America Social Forum in Sydney, the Latin America Forum
 Melbourne, Canberra Latin America Forum and the Latin America Solidarity
Conferences, as well as LA organisations such as the FMLN and URNG.
3. Preamble: In addition to helping to build independent Latin America
solidarity organisations and networks, The Socialist Alliance, as the largest
socialist organisation in Australia, has an important role to play in linking the
struggles and advances for socialism in Latin America and the anti-capitalist
struggle in Australia. The processes taking place in Latin America are not
separate from the struggles of the working class and oppressed in Australia,
and through its activities in many progressive campaigns and movements in
Australia, as well as in Latin America solidarity networks, the Socialist
Alliance can build links between these struggles. This will strengthen both the
Latin America solidarity campaigns and the left in Australia. We also need to
look to take Latin America solidarity work into other areas, such as the
mainstream media.
Resolution: That this national conference endorse the formation of a Socialist
Alliance Latin America solidarity work committee to meet as needed to
nationally coordinate Alliance members’ solidarity work, and which will
92
report and be accountable to the National Executive. Further, that all Socialist
Alliance branches be encouraged to establish a local Latin America solidarity
work committee to coordinate local members’ work and report to the branch in
this area of activity as needed.
4. Preamble: Green Left Weekly’s excellent reporting and analysis of the
political developments and processes in Latin America, in particular in
Venezuela, and its unique status as the only Australian media with a
permanent bureau in Latin America, makes it a highly valuable resource for
strengthening Latin America solidarity in Australia.
Resolution: That Socialist Alliance members’ active in Latin America
solidarity work promote the purchase of Green Left Weekly subscriptions by
all Latin America solidarity organisations and activists. To assist that, and help
strengthen Latin America solidarity in Australia, The Socialist Alliance will
continue to collaborate with other member organisations of the Latin America
Social Forum to produce and distribute a regular Spanish-language supplement
in Green Left Weekly. In the first place, we should seek to organise meetings to
 launch the second Green Left Weekly Latin America supplement, due in the
first part of this year.
5. Preamble: The call from the International Meeting of Left Parties held in
Caracas, Venezuela, on November 19-21, for discussions to begin to found a
“Fifth Socialist International” marks a significant step forward for
strengthening anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist unity in action at a time when the
massive crises of capitalism demand it. For organisations like the Socialist
Alliance, which since its formation has striven for greater left unity in
Australia, progress towards greater left and socialist cooperation and
coordination internationally will assist our aims and struggles.
Resolution: That this conference endorse the decision of The Socialist
Alliance National Executive meeting on December 3, 2009, that “The Socialist
Alliance support the “Caracas Commitment”, the declaration of the
International Meeting of Left Parties held in Caracas on November 19-21,
2009”, and “support the special resolution adopted by the International
Meeting of Left Parties to convene a working group and conference to prepare
for the founding of the Fifth Socialist International, and participate in whatever
93
ways possible in the preparatory discussions and meetings”.
Additional resolutions
6. Strengthen ties between the Latin American revolutions and the
Indigenous rights movement in Australia, including visits between
Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador and Aboriginal Australia.
7. Strengthen links between Latin American revolutions and the environment
movement in Australia, including continuing to publicise sustainable Cuba
example.
8. The Socialist Alliance to publish a pamphlet containing Latin American
revolutionaries’ speeches to Copenhagen Conference, plus Fidel’s
columns.
9. To note proposal for New Zealand Bolivarian Solidarity Conference in
Auckland, September 2010.
10. Support strengthening of solidarity work with Bolivia, including possible
future visits, and investigate possibility of solidarity brigade(s).
 11. Support the Free the Cuba Five Committee sponsored tour of Australia in
March 2010.
12. To add a special resolution on Honduras:
The Socialist Alliance condemns the military coup and fraudulent
presidential election in Honduras in 2009. Arising from the Open Letter to
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, initiated by Green Left
Weekly, we call on the Australian government to:
• Join governments across the world by clearly denouncing the coup and
demanding Manuel Zelaya be immediately restored as president;
• Cut all diplomatic, political, cultural or economic ties that the
Australian government may have with Honduras until Zelaya is
reinstated;
• Join the Organisation of American States in refusing to recognise the
outcome of the fraudulent November 29 presidential election;
• Demand the immediate release of all political prisoners; and
94
• Pressure the United States administration to act on its previous verbal
criticisms of the coup and cut all ties with the coup regime, and end its
ongoing training of the Honduran military.

Afghanistan anti-war work

The Socialist Alliance will continue to promote our position of calling for the
troops to leave Afghanistan, given that this is Australian imperialism’s main
overseas troop deployment.
Specifically, we need to:
• Help initiate and support national protests on and around the anniversary
of the invasion, October 8,
• Seek to continue to broaden the discussion within the union movement and
other social movements about joining the call for the Australian troops to
leave.
Consider snap actions if the Rudd government announces a new troop
deployment to Afghanistan.
 Palestine solidarity work
The Socialist Alliance will continue to seek out opportunities to build the
solidarity with Palestine movement, in particular in the union movement. This
includes promoting the global Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign – in
particular the institutional and academic boycott.
We will also continue to work with Palestinian Solidarity groups on campus,
including Students for Palestine committees.

Tamil solidarity work

The Socialist Alliance will continue to look out for opportunities to link up in
solidarity with communities under siege from their national ruling classes,
backed by imperialism.
We support the self determination struggle of the Tamil people, up to and
including their right to form their own state. All Tamil people held in
internment camps must be immediately released and allowed to return to their
homes free from the threat of violence or arrest.
95
International media organisations, as well as international aid organisations
must be allowed into Sri Lanka immediately.
If the Sri Lankan government continues the war against Tamil people, then the
Australian government must withdraw all financial and diplomatic support to
the government.
We will continue to support Tamil events as well as hosting Tamil activists at
ours and other left events and functions in an effort to publicise their campaign
for justice and break down prejudices among sections of the progressive
movement.
Support the international initiative for a people’s tribunal, organised by the
Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka and the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity
College Dublin, to bring the Sri Lankan war criminals to justice. Specifically
the People’s Tribunal will investigate the allegations that the government of
Sri Lanka and its armed forces committed war crimes and crimes against
humanity during its final phase of the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
 Eelam. The Tribunal will also examine the local and international factors that
led to the collapse of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement.

Coordinating anti-war work

The Socialist Alliance should continue to publicise the anti-war movement in
Green Left Weekly and seek to use the paper to network with other activists in
an effort to build the anti-war movement and to explain the causes of the wars
in which Australia and other imperialist countries are involved.
To better coordinate and evaluate our work, the Socialist Alliance will
organise national anti-war activists hook-ups in 2010—either in concert with
the Socialist Alliance National Executive, trade union comrades, or separately.

96
 Women’s rights
On women’s rights
Fighting for women’s liberation is an essential part of the socialist struggle
and of liberation for all humanity. It is a critical aspect of our work in The
Socialist Alliance – with our general positions on women’s oppression
outlined in our women’s rights charter, the Gender Agenda.
As the capitalist system experiences economic crisis, the effects are being
borne disproportionately by women. Aside from being highly concentrated in
low-wage, low-status, and less-unionised sectors of the workforce, women’s
services have in recent years experienced serious funding cuts, including to
abortion and crisis centres, women’s refuges, childcare, and also aged and
disability care, education and health.
Meanwhile, a 2009 United Nations report stated that the increased financial
pressure is also having a flow-on effect in terms of domestic violence, as well
as increasing the number of women remaining in abusive relationships due to
97 the lack of affordable alternative accommodation, an inability to sell
properties, and decreased support services.
The question before us now is “How will women radicalise against these
conditions, and will the crisis give rise to conditions that we can utilise to
further the struggle for women’s rights as part of the broader fight-back?”
Abortion rights
Preamble
The campaign to de-criminalise abortion is the primary women’s rights
campaign mobilising people in Australia right now. The 2003 Australian
Survey of Social Attitudes conducted by the Australian National University’s
Centre for Social Research, found that more than 80% of respondents
supported a woman’s right to choose. This widespread public support for the
right to access abortion services means that the campaign has a strong base to
build on. However, the campaign to de-criminalise abortion nationally is very
uneven because the grounds on which abortion is considered legal in Australia
varies from state to state.
 The ACT became the first state in Australia to legalise abortion when the
procedure was removed from the criminal statute books altogether in 2002
after years of pro-choice campaigning. And last year Victoria passed
legislation to decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks, moving abortion from the
Crimes Act into the Health Act, after ongoing pro-choice mobilisations.
In WA, after two doctors were charged with performing an “unlawful
abortion” in 1998 under the WA Criminal Code, an intense pro-choice
campaign was sparked that led to substantial changes to the WA legislation.
However, abortion was not removed from the WA Criminal Code; rather it
was amended. Abortion in the Northern Territory , The Socialist Alliance, and
Tasmania is available, in restricted circumstances, while it remains apart of
Crimes legislation.
In NSW, there is an ongoing campaign to remove abortion from the Criminal
Code. While that campaign has been somewhat exclusive in its composition,
and the mobilisations have been small, the escalation of the Queensland
campaign (in the face of a 19-year-old woman’s prosecution under
Queensland’s abortion laws) has had a boosting effect on the NSW campaign.
98
Queensland is widely considered to have the strictest law on abortion in the
country. As many will be aware, in early September, a young Cairns woman
was committed to trial on charges brought under the anti-abortion laws. The
charges carry a maximum penalty of seven years’ prison. Her partner will also
face trial on charges that carry a maximum penalty of three years prison.
Premier Bligh and the Queensland government have repeatedly claimed that
the case is related to the importation of the drug allegedly used for the
abortion. They are lying. The charges have been brought under the anti-
abortion laws, not drug-related law.
This legal situation is not unique to Queensland. In all states and territories
(with the exception of the ACT and Victoria), the danger of prosecution
remains until abortion is a legal right instead of a criminal offence. Only then,
when abortion is solely a health issue between a woman and her doctor, will
the way be open to ensure free, accessible abortion services for all women.
If the charges against the Cairns woman are upheld, the access to abortion
that does exist in Queensland will be seriously threatened. It’s up to all
supporters of women’s right to choose to raise their voices in protest. We must
 make it politically untenable for the Queensland government to maintain their
position of inaction – the charges against the Cairns couple must be dropped
immediately, and we must raise our voices for the repeal of all anti-abortion
laws in Queensland and around the country.
Resolutions
The Socialist Alliance calls for:
• The full repeal of all anti-abortion laws in all states and all instances.
• The Queensland government to intervene to drop the charges against the
Cairns couple.
• An end to compulsory counselling to those seeking abortion, from biased
counselling services, and the provision of counselling services provided by
the public health system where desired, provided by qualified clinical
psychologists who are unbiased.
• Free, safe and accessible abortion on demand.

99 In addition, the Socialist Alliance commits to:

• Helping build the pro-choice campaign to involve the broadest possible
forces in order to activate the majority opinion in favour of a woman’s
right to choose.
• Establishing a Socialist Alliance women’s rights committee in Queensland
to co-ordinate our involvement in the burgeoning Queensland pro-choice
campaign; and
• Utilise the Socialist Alliance women’s rights e-group to facilitate
discussion within the Alliance on the pro-choice campaign.
Violence against women
Preamble
Police figures from the Bureau of Crime Statistics show that domestic violence
in Australia is on the rise. In 2007, 600 domestic Apprehended Violence
Orders (AVOs) were issued in Newcastle, up from 490 in 2006. Port Stephens
recorded a similar increase with 311 issued, up from 231 over the same period
in 2006. In Queensland, in the first quarter of 2005, 6874 new cases of
 domestic violence were reported. In the first quarter of 2009, it rose to 9739
new cases — a 42% rise in 4 years.
Sexual violence against women is also receiving increased media attention at
the moment. Of particular note are the gang rapes perpetrated by footballers,
and the 14-year-old who revealed on radio, while hooked up to a lie detector,
that her first sexual experience had been rape at age 12.
The sad reality is that violence against women is prevalent in Australia.
Australian women have a one in three chance of being raped during their
lifetime; while one in four girls will be sexually assaulted by the time they are
18 and 80% of them will know their attacker. Domestic violence is now the
most likely cause of preventable death for women under 45. It is also the
leading cause of preventable disabilities and illnesses for women under 45.
The rising rates of violence against women are made considerably worse by
inadequate support services. government funding for women’s services is
considerably less than it was a decade ago, despite the marked rise in demand.
This situation is the result of neoliberal funding cuts and a conservative anti-
100 feminist ideological campaign. Consecutive Australian governments have
blamed domestic violence on individual family breakdowns and unhealthy
relationships, rather than recognising the social basis of violence against
women. A huge injection of public funding is needed to support essential crisis
services for victims of domestic violence to prevent the needless death of so
many women and children. Beyond that, the underlying causes of domestic
violence — unemployment, insecurity, poverty, disadvantage and women’s
financial dependence on male partners — have to be addressed.

Collective opposition to attacks on women’s rights is the only force powerful

enough to empower women, to change sexist social attitudes and stop all forms
of violence against women.
Resolutions
The Socialist Alliance calls for:
• Adequate funding for women’s services, and a growth in services
available.
In addition, the Socialist Alliance commits to:
 • Being involved in Reclaim the Night to focus on both violence against
women and abortion rights
• Being involved in International Women’s Day, to focus on violence
against women, abortion rights, pay equity, parental leave and childcare
and, where possible, taking a leading role.
• Re-working our women’s rights charter (“Gender Agenda”) given the
changing political situation, and to include the disproportionate impact of
the economic crisis on women in our workers’ rights material.

101
 D. Resolutions related to the merger of the
Democratic Socialist Perspective and its assets into
the Socialist Alliance
On Green Left Weekly copy and campaigning
Green Left Weekly, now in its 19th year, has always been an attempt to unite
and strengthen the dispersed, uneven radical politics in Australia.
Green Left Weekly began its life as a regroupment project of the ecological and
socialist currents in Australia when an organisational regroupment was not
possible. In that sense, Green Left Weekly was conceived as a paper for the
broader progressive movements: it was and is not a typical “party newspaper”.
Green Left Weekly remains an independent progressive newspaper committed
to reporting on the unfolding political, social and ecological developments
across the globe. As such, socialists can accumulate support and respect from
having regular input into its pages.
102 Resolution
That the Socialist Alliance continues to support the Green Left Weekly project
by:
• Co-ordinating local copy committees as well as writing regular articles
covering The Socialist Alliance’s policy positions and campaigns, and its
weekly Our Common Cause column, as well as engaging in debates with
others involved in the green and left movements;
• Supporting the regular weekly distribution of the paper, including helping
organise a national and local distribution committees which are open to all
supporters of Green Left Weekly;
• Promoting Green Left Weekly hard copy and e-subscriptions and solidarity
subscriptions to The Socialist Alliance members and others in the
progressive movements; and
• Encouraging other progressive organisations to make use of Green Left
Weekly through supplements such as the Arabic-language supplement The
Flame and the Latin America Social Forum Spanish supplement.
 On financial arrangements
• That the Socialist Alliance will assume the national management and co-
ordination of the financial arrangements that have operated in the past to
facilitate the operations and activities of the Democratic Socialist
Perspective (DSP);
• That we encourage conference attendees and others to make a generous
donation to the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund to assist with the running
costs of producing and distributing Green Left Weekly;
• That the 2010 Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund target be $300,000;
• That, in line with an ongoing serious and professional approach to
finances, the Socialist Alliance launch a drive in early 2010 for regular
financial contributions from members and supporters to the upkeep and
running costs of local Resistance/Activist Centres;
• That, after the 7th National Conference, the Socialist Alliance National
Executive appoint a National Finances Committee for the ongoing co-
103 ordination of all aspects of Socialist Alliance finances;
• That this committee be under the direction of and accountable to the
Socialist Alliance National Executive;
• That the Socialist Alliance transition finances committee cease to exist
with the formation of the National Finances Committee.
• That we encourage members and supporters to take out a solidarity
subscription to Green Left Weekly.

On socialist ideas and education

1. The Socialist Alliance recognises that access to the educational assets and
publishing resources of the DSP would be of benefit to all Socialist
Alliance members as part of a wider exposure to all socialist perspectives.
The Socialist Alliance may make use of the accumulated educational
experience and assets of the DSP.
2. The Socialist Alliance establishes a educational committee with the task of
facilitating access by all Socialist Alliance members to education and
 published resources that inform them of a range of socialist ideas The
range of socialist ideas discussed may be broader than Socialist Alliance
policy which is set out in its adopted resolutions.
3. The Socialist Alliance political education committee should investigate the
merits of proposing to the National Executive that it recommends that all
branches form socialist ideas committees
4. The Socialist Alliance aims to encourage various forms of political, social
and environmental education, so that members are able to take advantage
of training and learning programs that may increase their understanding
and raise consciousness.
5. The Socialist Alliance recognises that political, social and environmental
educational resources will include discussions, forums, publications and
multimedia techniques.
6. The Socialist Alliance recognises that large national conferences such as
“Climate Change: Social Change” and “World at a Crossroads” are
valuable events for education and promotion of socialist ideas. The
104 Socialist Alliance will seek to organise or be involved in such events when
practicable. In addition, the Socialist Alliance encourages states and
branches to organise and hold socialist ideas forums when practicable, to
facilitate a wide-ranging discussion of socialist ideas.
7. The Socialist Alliance seeks to make available the Links website
(www.links.org.au) as an information resource for all branches.
8. The Socialist Alliance may make recommendations to Resistance Books in
line with its educational and political needs, and may make use of
Resistance Books titles in its education programs.
9. The Socialist Alliance recognises the Marxist schools being organised in
January 2010 as part of the broad range of educational activities that it
offers its members.
10. To use the drafting of the proposed book on socialism to frame a
discussion on socialist ideas in Socialist Alliance branches
 E. Extraordinary resolution
Solidarity Greetings to Ark Tribe
To Ark,
The 7th National Conference of the Socialist Alliance held in Sydney on Jan 2-
5, 2010 sends solidarity greetings in appreciation of your courageous struggle
against the unjust ABCC laws.
Your fight against the attempts by governments and bosses to weaken the
union movement provides inspiration to all workers.
We stand with you in this struggle and our members commit to follow your
lead and continue the fight until the charges against you have been dropped
and the laws abolished. We will be helping to build rallies to support your case
and calling on all of our comrades and work mates to join the struggle.
We support your motto borrowed from Che Guevara: “When injustice
becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”
105 All the best, comrade.