Australian DSP divides

Dysfunctional marriage is finally dissolved by the expulsion of the minority

Bob Gould

Tomorrow, May 13, the DSP majority will expel the whole of the minority, which calls itself the Leninist Party Faction. A protracted witch-trial in the DSP has culminated in a recommendation from the three-member investigating committee appointed by the national executive to expel the whole of the Leninist Party Faction, led by John Percy, Doug L, and a number of others in other cities.

Outsiders in their own party

The Labor Party ranks according to Michael Egan

Ed Lewis

The public discussion over electricity privatisation in NSW is increasingly becoming a traditional union bash in the media. Today, Michael Egan, another former Labor Party official and politician, steps forward to read a lecture to the party’s ranks about a properly respectful attitude towards politicians.

Another banker joins the Iemma cheer squad

Ed Lewis

Another banker weighs in on the Iemma-Costa side of the NSW electricity privatisation battle today, although it’s obvious Babcock and Brown’s Stephen Loosley is a bit better informed about the present state of the Labor Party than either Paul Keating or Bob Carr.

Cranks and enemies

The popular front between Roger Raven, Mike Berrell, Bob Carr, Paul Keating and the World Socialist Web Site

Bob Gould

I’ve just come back from the semi-regular Wednesday evening meeting of the Power for the People Labor Party rank and file committee, set up to oppose the government’s electricity privatisation push. About 40 Labor Party members were present and 25 or so others, including people from the DSP majority, Solidarity, Socialist Alternative, some Greens, and others.

The charge of the corporate heavy brigade

Ed Lewis

After last weekend’s revolt of the NSW Labor Party ranks on electricity privatisation, the media are suddenly full of praise for Morris Iemma, previously execrated by the very same media as an incompetent leader of a bungling and corruption ridden government. Iemma is urged play the strongman in opposing the Labor ranks and offered the carrot that this might his improve his dismal opinion poll figures, never mind the fact that he’s going against the opinions of something like 80 per cent of the state.

Propagandism and the struggle against electricity privatisation

There’ve been a few comments on Leftwrites about the electricity privatisation struggle. Ablokeimet obviously has some serious understanding of the history of the Australian labour movement and some sense of the form of mass struggles, and I thank him for his pretty sensible observation.

I don’t want to be too hard on Tom O’Lincoln, but his response encapsulates the completely unscientific, and particularly the un-Leninist, notions and practice at the core of the permanent propaganda orientation of Socialist Alternative, to which Tom moved from the ISO a year or two ago.

Michael, get the blunderbuss that’s hidden in the thatch

Bob Gould

In her important and warm-hearted novel, Ride on Stranger, Kylie Tennant describes labour movement battles in Sydney in the 1930s:

The strange turbulence of the city, its careless ferocity, was perhaps due to the large strain of Scots and Irish in the population, but it seemed that if anyone wanted to start a fight, there were always plenty of strangers ready and willing to join in. If the thing had a political flavour, the unions would take up the case, the Labour Leagues [the old name for Labor Party branches] would take it up. Part of the duty of the UCDL was to be out addressing meetings of Labour supporters night after night in little drafty and dusty halls all over the suburbs, putting the case for this or that protest. It was as though Sydney was encompassed with a network of separate spider webs, the spiders might be suspicious and ready to eat each other; they might be connected by a single thread, yet if you touched a strand of that network, 100 spiders leapt and danced indignantly in their webs … The Sydney of the UCDL was a network of lawyer’s offices, of bare wooden meeting halls, of committee meetings, annual conventions.

Costa says the labour movement is a joke. We’ll see who laughs last

Bob Gould

In a spectacular, bulging eyed, shrill-voiced, fist-shaking display of contempt for the Labor Party at the NSW party conference on Saturday, government Treasurer Mick Costa lashed out in a vituperative way at his old associates in the trade union movement and virtually the whole of the organised labour movement, who went on to vote him down on electricity privatisation by 702 votes to 107, about seven to one.

A lot of high ground won in a continuing battle

NSW Labor conference overwhelmingly rejects electricity privatisation

Bob Gould

11pm, Saturday evening.

I’ve just returned, very tired, from the traditional left dinner at the Labor conference. I arrived at it late because the privatisation debate went on into the early evening. I’ve been on the go since 7am, and myself and a couple of comrades have given out 1800 copies of my leaflet.

The Greens and a rational united front approach

Bob Gould

A bit of a discussion is taking place on Leftwrites about the the relationship of small socialist groups to the Greens. Apart from the IS-Solidarity, who these days are pretty sane, the rest of the far left seem to be pissing in the wind.

Introducing The Ecosocialist

Ed Lewis

Back in 2001 Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy wrote an Ecosocialist Manifesto advancing a left approach to the deepening environmental crisis. Now some leftist environmentalists around the world are involved in drafting a second, updated version of the manifesto.

Crunch time for the Labor Party as a force for progress

The issues involved in, and the consequences of, electricity privatisation

Bob Gould

The economic arguments advanced for electricity privatisation by Mick Costa, Morris Iemma and Ian Macdonald are completely unsound. They’ve been thoroughly refuted by the veteran public infrastructure economists, Bob and Betty Con Walker.

Iemma manoeuvres desperately on privatisation

Ed Lewis

As the NSW government’s certain defeat on privatisation at the NSW Labor conference draws closer, the government is manoeuvring frantically to find cracks in the anti-privatisation forces. About a week ago the media had a story that Eddie Obeid, former Labor powerbroker and controversial businessman, who resigned from parliament a few years ago, had been brought in to lobby anti-privatisation unions. Obeid got his answer in no uncertain terms from Labor Party administrative committee chairman Bernie Riordan, who said the party’s most powerful administrative body would not tolerate attempts to victimise Labor MPs who opposed privatisation. The attempt to use Obeid shows the desperation of the privatisers.

Class warfare in the Sydney Morning Herald

Ed Lewis

In a tumultuous world, it’s comforting that some things don’t change. As the neoliberal global dystopia plunges deeper into financial crisis and the associated so-called trade liberalisation pushes parts of the world towards famine, the Sydney Morning Herald editorialises against a leading trade unionist.

Morris Iemma, master politician

Ed Lewis

You’ve got to hand it to NSW Premier Morris Iemma, no one can stuff things up quite as royally as he can.