2006-11-23 Australia: Socialist Equality Party holds successful election meeting in Broadmeadows

Marshall told the audience that the SEP was the only
party directly addressing the most crucial questions facing the working class
and young people. He said there was broad agreement in Broadmeadows with the
SEP's demands for the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq and
Afghanistan, reflecting the sentiments of working people everywhere. Yet all
the candidates and the media were refusing to mention the issue.

"In defending the so-called war on terror," he said,
"Labor fully supports the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Australia's
neo-colonial interventions in the Pacific. State premier [Steve] Bracks has
left the running to federal Labor leader Kim Beazley, who backs the US
occupation of Iraq. Purely for tactical reasons, he now wants Australian troops
redeployed to Afghanistan and the Pacific region."

Marshall also took aim at the Greens party, which expects
to capitalise on the widespread disaffection with the two major parties. He
explained that while the Greens postured as opponents of Liberal and Labor,
they were not a genuine antiwar party. Their record in government in Tasmania
and internationally, he said, demonstrated that they defended the profit system
and its assault on the social position of the working class.

The SEP candidate outlined the party's socialist policies
and encouraged those present to actively participate in the final few days of
the campaign. "The SEP is the only party defending the working class. In
opposition to all other parties, we start from human need, not the dictates of the
capitalist market and private profit," he said.

SEP national secretary and member of the International
Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site, Nick Beams, focussed
his remarks on the crucial political lessons that had to be drawn by all those
opposed to the war in Iraq. He drew attention to the fact that while the recent
US Congressional elections had been a vote against the continued US occupation
of Iraq, the Democrats, who now controlled both houses of Congress, were
collaborating ever more closely with the Bush administration.

Beams warned that the US administration was not only
preparing to increase US troop numbers in Iraq, but planning for an attack, if
not an invasion, on neighbouring Iran. He pointed out that militarism was not
simply the product of Bush and other individuals, but arose from the explosive
implications of the declining position of American capitalism within the world
capitalist order.

"How is the fight against war to be waged?" Beams asked.
"It can only be undertaken on the basis of a program that strikes at the very
cause of war itself-the international capitalist system. A global economy
organised on the basis of private profit and rival nation-states means that the
struggle for markets, for profits, for raw materials, for spheres of influence,
will inevitably, at a certain point, give rise to military conflict with the
most disastrous consequences for humanity."

Beams also addressed the related question of how to
combat the escalating environmental disaster and the unrelenting assault on
jobs and living standards confronting working people around the world.

After an online demonstration of the World Socialist
Web Site and a collection of more than $1,000 for the SEP's election fund,
there was no shortage of questions and comments. Audience members spoke about
their own varied and often bitter experiences of war, of the treachery of
various organisations in their countries of origin and of the steadily
worsening conditions facing workers around the world.

Marshall explained that while millions protested in 2003,
the demonstrations were directed towards pressuring the UN and the powers that
be. "We are fighting," he said, "to ensure that the next mass movement of the
working class will be guided by an international socialist perspective, that
workers will understand that this war arises not just because Bush is a war
criminal, but because US imperialism is in crisis and is attempting to resolve
that crisis by establishing its hegemony over the world and its resources.

"To put an end to militarism, workers must consciously
participate in the development of an international movement aimed at ending
capitalism, the system that produces this barbarity."

Nick Beams told the audience that behind the simple
demand for the withdrawal of troops were bigger questions. "How can it be done?
It won't happen through protests or the electoral system-this was shown in the
mass protests in 2003 and the recent elections in the US," he said.

"The fact that millions want the withdrawal of troops and
yet these demands are ignored means that there is something fundamentally
rotten with the whole political system. To get the troops out and end the war
poses the necessity of changing the entire economic and political order, which
is based on the division of the world into rival nation states."

A Turkish worker asked how the SEP would deal with the
Howard government's terror scares and its racist campaigns against Muslims.

Beams explained that governments around the world were
using these methods to divide working people and to divert attention from
rising militarism and growing social inequality. He referred to last year's
race riot in Cronulla, Sydney, and explained that a recent report revealed that
this had been deliberately whipped up by sections of the media.

"We will shortly be publishing a detailed analysis of the
race riot that took place in Sydney at Cronulla. And interestingly this will be
based on the document produced by the police themselves. They have made some
interesting admissions in it and that is probably why there has been such a
furore about publishing it.

"One thing that is established-and this is true of all
pogroms, which this was-is that the riots did not arise spontaneously. The
police said there was not any particular racial tension in Cronulla until it
was fanned by the shock jocks-Allan Jones in particular. The police report
includes hundreds of pages of what was said to create the situation.

"We counter this type of filth by explaining that the
working class has no fatherland. It is one international class. Racism is going
to be cleared away by opposing all forms of nationalism and racism, and that
has to be imbued in the working class. If women want to wear veils then let
them do so. Claims that this is a threat to the social order are nonsense. What
is also interesting is the language used by those forces who stoked up the
tensions, like ‘cleaning the suburbs', ‘cleaning the streets'. They use the
same language that Hitler used against the Jews. They simply replace ‘Jew' with
‘Moslem.'" Beams said.

The discussion extended long after the meeting formally
ended. Some of those in attendance had already offered their assistance by
distributing the SEP's election manifestos and leaflets in the area. Others
decided to join the campaign after coming to the meeting. Several participants
spoke to the WSWS.

Andrej Pejic, 15, a secondary student at University High School
had contacted the WSWS after discovering that Marshall was standing for
Broadmeadows.

"The meeting raised important issues-the war in Iraq, the
inequality in society, and attacks on democratic rights-and suggested the way
to combat these problems is through building the socialist party. It was very
clear. I understood what was being discussed because the talks were good and
interactive.

"The meeting also explained the future for young people
as their country goes to war and what it means for them. This is important," he
said.

Pejic immigrated to Australia with his mother following
the NATO military assault on Yugoslavia.

"I started reading the WSWS last year, when I was
searching a lot about history, particularly the history of socialism and
communism. I was also thinking about questions raised by my mother about the
war on the Balkans," he said.

Gihan Perera, who is studying commerce at Deakin University, had
only just found out about the SEP and the WSWS.

"It was a very interesting discussion. As Nick and Will
correctly said, globalisation and capitalism, especially the US, have forced
all these wars. These wars are for oil and for resources. According to the SEP,
it's necessary to educate the working class. This is what is needed to forge a
force against capitalism.

"Nick Beams discussed Milton Friedman. This is important
because the free market is based on profit and because of that, the capitalists
always try to increase their profits. They are not out for the workers'
benefit. They might not be able to smash up conditions in one country so they
go to another country and smash up workers' conditions there. They also need
military force to do this, as they did in Chile.

"The same thing is happening with Iraq. They claim they
went there because of weapons of mass destruction but there were none of those.
They wanted to treat Iraq like a colony and get its resources. This shows where
the so-called free market policies end up. The SEP says, we don't need
capitalist globalism but a social globalism-not privately-owned companies but
social ownership. This is important."

Moetu Orangi, a New Zealand worker now living in Broadmeadows
said that although "much work" had to be done to build a movement like the SEP,
"we have to start."

"I learnt from the meeting tonight," she said, "that
workers have to think in a different frame. We should not ask what this or that
politician is going to do for us or to change the situation. Instead, workers
have to think; what are we going to do to change things?

"It took me some time to figure that out but nothing is
going to change until we begin to do things ourselves and develop a big
movement. It's all about what workers are going to do as a whole. Workers
everywhere must stand together and this is what the SEP is about."

Orangi said she agreed with the SEP's demand for all
foreign troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. "The US is not in Iraq for the people
there, it's there for oil. America never goes to war unless it is for its own
benefit, whether it is oil or territory or something else. A lot of people are
dying there for this.

"I agree that it's no use trying to put pressure on the
government to stop this. We have to build a big movement to oppose war and I
also think that we have to talk to the soldiers themselves. Many don't know why
they are there. The government doesn't tell them the real reasons-oil and
profits-that they're being sent to fight for. I know what it's like because I
was a soldier myself once."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/nov2006/elec-n23.shtml