- The Guardian
- Issue #2006
The Coalition Morrison government has got to go. On Saturday 21st May vote them out!
The Communist Party of Australia rejects the undemocratic electoral system that prevents small parties from participating on an equal basis. The two-party system that prevails in Australia and the most recent changes to the electoral laws by the Coalition government and supported by the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) are the main reason there are no Communist candidates at this Federal election.
Ultimately universal suffrage does not guarantee the results will express the interests of working-class people.
The Communist Party of Australia demands a democratic electoral system that would allow the participation of working-class political forces like the CPA. The CPA advocates for a compulsory, preferential proportional representation system. The Australian Electoral system must change.
The current undemocratic electoral system promotes the waste of millions of dollars in dirty electoral campaigns mainly sponsored by monopoly capital in the interest of the coal and mining industries to preserve the status quo of the minority.
WORKERS DEMAND CHANGE
The Coalition government has been consistent in its war on workers. Wages and conditions have deteriorated with the right to organise for workers and their unions dangerously undermined.
Working families are facing high and rising living costs. Workers and their families are having to make choices about buying medications, having heating/cooling with some facing food shortages and even homelessness as real wages stagnate or fall.
Workers on JobSeeker cannot afford to live with dignity and the government is steadfastly refusing to increase payments for these workers looking for work or those on the age pension, disability and other social security payments.
The Communist Party of Australia campaigns for a living wage and secure jobs for all workers and a living income for all social security recipients including those on JobSeeker.
The Coalition government has targeted construction and maritime workers and their families with the introduction of special legislation for their industry. The Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC) as the cop for the industry undermines the right to organise and has cost millions of dollars in tax payer money to fund litigation against the CFMMEU. The ABCC has not improved the industry nor prevented deaths or serious accidents. On the contrary it has been an obstacle for workers to freely exercise their rights and secure their safety in the workplace. The ABCC must be abolished.
MONEY FOR WAR NOT PEACE
The Coalition government with support from the opposition has embarked on a war-mongering spending spree. In 2016-17 the Coalition announced that it would spend $1 trillion on “defence” over the next twenty years – that is up to 2036-37. Since then, it has committed additional spending.
The support for war alliances like AUKUS and the QUAD will put billions of dollars into military spending with a blank cheque on nuclear-powered submarines, offensive trident missiles, aircraft, drones, preparations for cyber warfare, and military bases for US imperialist plans targeting China.
The Communist Party of Australia demands the scrapping of both treaties and an independent foreign policy in the best interest of the Australian people and its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific.
The CPA demands no cold war on China, Australia’s main trading partner.
HOUSING
The number of working Australians seeking help for homelessness is steadily rising particularly among young Australians where insecure and precarious work is becoming the norm. The returned level of JobSeeker to little more than pre-COVID settings and other income support payments leave many others in poverty and unable to pay rent. Urgent action is needed to provide long-term housing solutions that will address our social and affordable home shortfall but neither major Party has put forward solutions. One-off cash payments and co-share housing loans will do nothing to address the growing homelessness. This will need to be fought for after the election.
CLIMATE
The Coalition budget in March continued to provide coal, oil and gas corporations more than $37 billion while cutting spending on climate change and energy by thirty-five per cent in the coming four years. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and the Great Barrier Reef are among the programs being cut. Workers and their communities are again left to do the heavy lifting.
The latest Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change report gives us until 2030 to make radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and until 2050 to reduce these emissions to zero if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The next 10 years will be critical, we cannot afford another three years of the LNP and other climate change deniers.
MEDICARE
The Coalition, if elected, would continue to undermine Medicare and fail to ease the pressure on the public health system. There should be a greater focus on preventative health care and nationalisation of the health system.
HOW TO VOTE
The immediate aim in the forthcoming elections is to defeat the Coalition, to ensure it does not have control of either House.
In the current circumstances, with no communist candidates standing at the federal election of Saturday 21st May, we recommend the following:
The Communist Party of Australia supports giving first preferences to Socialist, left and progressive candidates, then Labor, with Coalition candidates followed by extreme right independents and parties last.
THE SENATE
The Senate is crucial regardless of who forms government on 21st May. There is a strong possibility of a minority government in which progressive, democratic and independent candidates will play an important role.
The Greens have the potential of holding the balance of power in the Senate polling high in a number of states. The electorate will respond positively to candidates whose aims are to save the planet and protect the environment with credible policies and targets for 2030 to achieve zero net carbon emissions.
