Keo Vongvixay & Taylor Hernan (Socialist Equality Party)

Summary

Policies & Commentary

The Socialist Equality Party is the local political arm of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution originally founded by Leon Trotsky. Their stance on many matters is more informed by internationalist thinking than most other parties, and that shows a lot in the way they describe their goals. They also consider themselves the one true party of the Left, and they often seem to have more venom for “fake left” parties (i.e. the ALP, the Greens, the Socialist Alliance, the Judean People’s Front, etc) than for their opponents further to the right.

Now, at the last election, the Socialist Equality Party was deregistered after changes made to party registration laws, and a very short timeframe to adjust to the new requirements was imposed. Three years later, and the party is still deregistered, and they are not happy about it, although they stop short of accusing the AEC of actual bias. I can only assume that next election, we will see some absolutely first rate malicious compliance from the SEP.

That aside, the SEP is still not great at outreach. Their site is willfully hard to navigate, and I get the strong impression that this website largely exists to preach to the converted. Certainly, clearly labeling policies seems to be regarded as unnecessary, as is the use of full stops when you could possibly put in an exclamation mark instead! So I’m going to be hunting through their various announcements in search of actual details, primarily this one. I may be some time.

The Socialist Equality Party wants to Fight Against War! More particularly, they want:

• End the genocide in Gaza, and the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine!
• No more spending on militarism! The billions squandered on war must immediately be redirected to the public hospitals, schools and other social services.
• Close the military bases that are transforming Australia into a launching pad for war!

Leaving aside that the first of these is too large a task for Australia to do alone, and taking it more as a statement of principle: yes, obviously. Although it is notable that the SEP sees the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a war of American imperialism, with Kiev’s fascistic regime, which acts as a proxy for the CIA and NATO. It will not surprise you at this point to learn that the SEP also thinks we should leave AUKUS. No more military spending is a fine ideal, but unless every other country is also doing it, Australia would need a certain amount of defence spending to actually, you know, defend with. And while no Australian government is seriously likely to close those bases, there’s a fair chance at the moment that resurgent American isolationism might get the job done for them.

The next section is titled Defend democratic rights! Which sounds great, and they start strong, decrying the current slate of anti-protest laws being rushed through to quash opposition to the war in Gaza. But then the section gets into how this is all a campaign to crush the working class in order to make smooth the way for a war against China, before finally finishing the section with:

Democracy will not be defended through parliament, where the parties of capitalist rule have imposed one series of anti-democratic laws after another. Instead, the fight to defend basic democratic rights must be linked to the struggle against war and the independent mobilisation of the working class.

Now, first of all, if you truly believe that first line, SEP members, then you are hypocrites to be running candidates in this election. As for the rest: how will this happen, exactly? Will you harangue the working class into joining the proletarian struggle? Because right now, that seems to be the only tactic being deployed.

You know what? I’m going to stop here. There isn’t time to spend combing through their website looking for yet move Vague! Statements! With! Exciting! Exclamation! Points! that provide no details, just grandiose pictures of a Promised Land with no path to reach it by. Perhaps you’ll think this unfair of me, to not give them the time and attention I’ve given to other parties and candidates, but I tell you now: they haven’t earned it. These are deeply unserious people, however deeply convinced of their seriousness they may be.

The last heading in their post reads Workers need a new party! Yes, yes we do. But we certainly deserve a better one than this. SEP will be ahead of the Far Right parties on my ballot, but not much else.