For at least four decades, the primary vote for the two historically established parties, the ALP and the LNP , has been steadily declining  At the last election, the ALP fell to 31 percent and the LNP to 36 percent. Unlike in the USA and the UK, the leakage of support from these two parties has been to their left, with just a little going to the right in some suburbs. Much of the ALP’s lost vote has gone to the Australian Greens and, especially in Victoria, to the Victorian Socialists (VS) or sometimes Socialist Alliance (SA). All three of these parties have strong, left social democratic electoral policy platforms. They also have progressive policies on housing issues and global warming. They oppose AUKUS and war alliances with the United States.  Since 2022, all three have also supported calls for an end to the genocide in Palestine. In Victoria, VS, SA and some Greens representatives have spoken at Free Palestine rallies. VS and SA both proclaim their end goal as socialism. 

Red Spark is of the view that everybody with a progressive and democratic outlook should vote for VS and SA candidates wherever they are standing, and for Greens candidates where there is no VS or SA candidate. 

Because the ALP and LNP stand for variants of the same pro-capitalist, class collaborationist politics, both are compelled to progressively shift to the right. However, the ALP must move rightwards slightly more slowly. It must attempt to hang on to  its core trade union and working-class voting base and avoid losing Greens preferences. On Palestine, for example, it has been forced to make rhetorical concessions, as mealy-mouthed as they are, to the public sentiment against Israeli genocide. Recently, in the parliament, the LNP tried to wedge the ALP on Palestine by stating they would invite Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Australia and demanding the ALP state their position. Foreign Minister Penny Wong refused to answer on the grounds that the question was hypothetical.  This sums up their differences: full-throated support for Tel Aviv versus mealy-mouthed manoeuvring to avoid taking a serious position. 

The manoeuvring by the ALP reflects its weakness and its need to be sensitive to its traditional base. This constraint on the ALP is the reason it is still “better” to have the ALP in power than the LNP under Dutton. Red Spark also advocates putting the ALP before the LNP on the ballot paper. The other side of this equation is the relatively unconstrained nature of the LNP reflected in its more open socially reactionary stances that can negatively impact societal consciousness, especially when in government. Notably, Dutton was the LNP leader who absented himself during the 2008 apology to First Nations peoples, light-heartedly joked about rising sea levels affecting Pacific Islands and used the “African gangs” racist slur, among many other similar stances. His electoral platform is based around reducing migration, supporting fossil fuels, introducing nuclear energy and threatening to further increase military spending – all of which should be opposed.

Why Palestine is a Central Question

Central to voting decisions in this election should be whether electoral candidates and parties support the full freedom of the Palestinian nation, the demand for an end to all Israeli occupation and for the cutting of all military, diplomatic and business ties with Tel Aviv. This is another reason to vote VS, SA or the Greens. It is crucial that the question of Palestine is spread as widely as possible in this election.

Why is it crucial? Violent oppression of the most brutal kind all around the world is nothing new. In particular, wars of occupation or national destruction by the imperialist states is common. Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syrian are just a few examples over the last 75 years. In the case of Palestine, however, it is clear that what is taking place is a national genocide, based on systematic military attacks on civilians, including bombings and mass starvation. This is reinforced by settler violence and military harassment, carried out as systematic torture to force departure. This is being done openly and with many public statements by Israeli government figures that the destruction of Palestine and the establishment of a greater Israel is the ultimate goal. They have thrown away the fig-leaf of the “Two State Solution”, which states like Australia still cling to in order to cover up their complicity in genocide.

If Israel, backed by the United States and other imperialist states, including Australia, succeeds in its goals through this genocide, the grossest, inhumane, dystopian precedent will be set that will be catastrophic. The horrible suffering imposed on the Palestinian people, including the murdering and maiming by bombing from the sky of children, is already enough for everybody to oppose it, to try to stop the genocide. If it becomes an accepted precedent, the suffering will soon expand. 

An additional aspect needs reflection and as much public discussion as possible. Many people, especially those who follow world news through Australian television, may not have seen the full extent of the barbarian violence of the Zionists. It may seem like something happening far away, in a part of the world that is too hard to understand and is not directly relevant to people in Australia.  

Still, apart from doing our best to explain its international importance,  another point must be emphasised. What does it say about the moral character of political elites and organisations that continue to assist the genocide? What kind of people, holding political positions, watch and assist mass murder? Can you ever really believe they care about the suffering of human beings anywhere? Why should we even think for a moment that they care about the fates and lives of people here in Australia? They must be removed from power altogether.

And May 4 Onwards?

Even as all of us on the Left, within our means and in accordance with our specific circumstances, advocate for a vote for the VS, SA or Greens between now and May 3, what about from May 4 onwards? None of us can afford to have illusions that the Australian state, and its parliament, will not remain in the hands of the ALP and/or the LNP, the parties of Australian capitalism. Even with a few more Greens MPs, or even a VS or SA MP, this will remain the case. The struggle to remove these capitalist parties totally from power and to have a new kind of state based on the power of the organised common people must crank up.

Immediately after May 3 we need to force real increases in taxation on the corporations and the rich, serious state investment in public housing, enforced phasing out of fossil fuels, the breaking of war alliances and ties with Israel. These and other progressive policies will not come from the next parliament, whatever its exact composition or whether either the ALP or the LNP is in government, but from stronger social and political movements. Such movements are more likely to grow and strengthen if the socialist organisations are better organised and have clear perspectives. Only through mass consciousness being raised through militant campaigns that win and organise into a socialist political formation can the socialist horizon be brought closer.

This means building and strengthening socialist organisation and progressive movements. Now, during an election campaign where we all are hoping for the best vote for VS, SA and the Greens, is not the time to raise critiques of the existing socialist organisations, whether standing candidates or not.  That is for another day. We have published critical analysis on red-spark.org in the past. Red Spark was originally launched in August 2022 as a project to re-establish a revolutionary socialist party in Australia. We are still new and very small, but with a clear outlook on the basic pathway going forward. We are informed by the achievements of the Democratic Socialist Party and its predecessors during the three decades from the 1970s to 2000s and wanting to learn also from its defeats and mistakes. Many of the relevant documents can be read at dsp-rsp.org. We are committed to studying today’s Australian and world situation so that we can discover the precise steps needed to grow and contribute to a strong socialist movement in this country.

Real and important differences with the other longer-standing socialist groups cannot be just brushed aside. Changing a whole society is a big challenge and mistakes in strategy and tactics can be fatal. Such mistakes, or potential mistakes, will and must always be the subject of debate. At the same time, we respect the energy and activism of all the socialists fighting for change. Whatever differences we have, we do not hesitate to call for a vote for VS,  SA or Greens. 

Building a stronger socialist movement will involve not only defending and explaining what we think are the clearest political perspectives, but also working together in whatever practical ways are possible. We need to advance the struggles against imperialism, social and political inequality, racism and for a human-centred, internationalist, socialist Australia where the likes of the current ALP and LNP are swept into the rubbish bin of history.