Socialist Alliance (Australia)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since March 2007. |
The Socialist Alliance was founded in 2001 as an alliance of socialist organisations and individuals in Australia, initiated by the Democratic Socialist Party and the International Socialist Organisation and founded along with 6 other socialist groups. The alliance grew to a point where most of its members were not members of any of the affiliate organisations, and successive national conferences moved to take the Socialist Alliance in the direction of becoming a united socialist party, following the model of the Scottish Socialist Party (which also started off as an alliance) rather than as a broad electoral front like the English Socialist Alliance or the Anti-Capitalist Alliance in New Zealand. However, to a large extent this new direction has not been carried out in practice.
The Socialist Alliance publishes a quarterly journal, Seeing Red, and supports the newspaper Green Left Weekly, which runs a regular Socialist Alliance column called Our Common Cause.
Contents |
[edit] Election results
One reason the Socialist Alliance was formed was to contest the 2001 federal election, however candidates were listed as independents on the ballot as its application for electoral registration was cut off when the election was called early. It has also run candidates at several state and council elections as well as the 2004 federal election, but has yet to poll a significant number of votes. At the 2004 federal election it received 0.11% of the primary vote (13,305 votes) overall, while it has polled around 2% in individual seats. The Socialist Alliance believes that the Greens continue to dominate the left vote, but that what is needed is a genuine left-wing, socialist, party to represent and assist the Australian working class.
[edit] Deregistration
On 22 December 2006 the Australian Electoral Commission announced that the Socialist Alliance had been deregistered as a political party, in accordance with the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2006 [1], an act that deregistered all political parties unless they currently or formerly held seats in the Federal Parliament. The Socialist Alliance, like other smaller parties, is in the process of reregistering and is continuing to contest elections.
[edit] Affiliate organisations
- Democratic Socialist Perspective (formerly Democratic Socialist Party)
- Freedom Socialist Party
- International Socialist Organisation
- Worker-Communist Party of Iraq in Australia
- Workers League
- Workers Liberty
- Resistance (affiliated in 2003)
- Chilean Popular and Indigenous Network (affiliated in 2004)
[edit] Former affiliates
- Socialist Alternative (withdrew in the initial stages)
- Socialist Democracy (disbanded in December 2005)
- Workers Power (left in April 2006) [2]
[edit] External links
| Politics of Australia | |
|---|---|
| Commonwealth | Parliament · House of Representatives · Senate · High Court · Federal Court · Queen · Governor-General · Prime Minister · Cabinet · Executive Council |
| Federal elections | 1901 · 1903 · 1906 · 1910 · 1913 · 1914 · 1917 · 1919 · 1922 · 1925 · 1928 · 1929 · 1931 · 1934 · 1937 · 1940 · 1943 · 1946 · 1949 · 1951 · 1954 1955 · 1958 · 1961 · 1963 · 1966 · 1969 · 1972 · 1974 · 1975 · 1977 · 1980 · 1983 · 1984 · 1987 · 1990 · 1993 · 1996 · 1998 · 2001 · 2004 · 2007 |
| States and territories and elections |
ACT (2004 election) · NSW (2007 election) · NT (2005 election) · QLD (2006 election) · SA (2006 election) · TAS (2006 election) · VIC (2006 election) · WA (2005 election) |
| Political parties | Australian Democrats · Australian Greens · Australian Labor Party · Family First Party · Liberal Party of Australia · National Party of Australia |
