Less than 5mins long, Shoebridge explains and puts in a nutshell where we are now (and where that will take us) and what we need to do for a decent future.
Let’s get active!
Less than 5mins long, Shoebridge explains and puts in a nutshell where we are now (and where that will take us) and what we need to do for a decent future.
Let’s get active!
Yes, and not just Australians.
This is such an onerous situation. if we follow the current democratic model how can voting Socialist help us to get to that society we’d like to see?
If the Socialists the original commenter was referring to is the Australian Socialists* (what we’ll be running under at the next federal election), then here’s the answer:
We don’t believe we’ll achieve socialism through parliament alone (the ruling class would never give up their power over society so easily), however running in and winning elections is an important part of building a socialist movement:
You’ve got to make the socialist argument to people where they are.
Abstentionists claim participating in elections necessarily means you’re going to moderate your views. We don’t agree with this and see it as a means to promote our movement to as many people as possible. Make no mistake, we don’t think we’re going to get into parliament and implement a bunch of reforms by compromising our ideals like the Greens’ do.
There’s a reason people have heard of us and we’re growing and abstentionists are completely invisible and no one has ever heard of them (exaggeration, but you get what I mean).
Do let me know if you have further questions about why the Socialist contest elections!
* these are the state-level parties:
Thank you very much for your comprehensive reply. I hope not only me but others get more clarity on this issue.
My concern is that voting Socialist in Australia, at least at present, does not result in a seat in parliament. In the meantime, the Greens is what we have and they do have a sizeable presence. I’d like to vote for Socialist politicians (not that there’s any where I live) if their preferences go to the Greens because we must keep left-wing reps in parliament.
One thing I don’t want to see is the disunity that plagues leftist movements in other places. Otherwise, we all lose, including the working poor [edit: and all others living hand to mouth] and the environment. Compromise is inevitable. What is important is that we don’t compromise what is essential like real care for people and their struggle.
Really appreciate engaging with me on this. Lemmy really is my favourite social media since it seems people here are much more keen to discuss!
This got a lot longer than I planned lol, don’t feel obligated to respond to it all
Conclusion at bottom is tl;dr
We are very fortunate that we at least have preferential voting, that we can place our favourite first, and don’t have to engage in the “lesser evilism” politics of first-past-the-post elections.
We do have a decent chance in the upcoming Victorian election in the Northern and Western Metro regions (upper house), and in Footscray (lower house). Though of course, those who don’t live there (me included) can’t vote for them. We will campaign in our own areas but focus our volunteering efforts in the electorates with the best chance, because getting a single member elected would like a huge win for the visibility of our movement.
But winning elections isn’t the highest priority or the most impact we can have.
If you’re a socialist, the number 1 most important thing we can do is to organise and intervene in our unions, at protests/community meetings, and with our friends and family. And by convincing others to join up to do the same thing to grow the movement.
This is because we can only change society through mass democratic action, not waiting on parliament to pass changes while being massively influenced by those with the money.
It’s not only about voting. And as mentioned in my previous comment, we can’t achieve socialism through parliament alone.
Highly encourage you to check out events in your areas to get involved.
I’m certainly preferencing the Greens 2nd after the Socialists, and I’d wager the vast majority of the membership would also (unless there’s a Socialist Alliance candidate, who are running as independents, but only in 6 lower house seats and 3 upper house seats).
It also bears noting, only the voters get to choose their preferences, not the parties (Victoria, as the last state to still have group voting tickets, finally abolished them).
So I really don’t think our presence overall hurts the electability of the Greens (other than if we beat them).
Also, you might be surprised, depending on the state you’re in. Check out the respective events pages. The closer you get to your state’s next election, you may find a candidate pop up in your area. We’re running in every seat in Victoria this election, despite still being a pretty small party, and I’d bet it’s a similar story in the other states who are not as big.
I partially agree with you here.
We should work together, and it bears noting that we do co-operate with the Greens outside electoral politics, to not great fanfare, and unfortunately pretty lackluster mobilisation on their part (an example I’m aware of: a Greens member of Parliament was given an opportunity to speak at a protest, against the cohealth closures, that Victorian Socialists organised with the understanding they would bring their members - You could count the number of people from the Greens that turned up on one hand, compared to our hundreds - despite having a much smaller membership 🫤 which is unfortunately par for the course (see [1] below for more thoughts).
We will continue to work with them where our goals align, and not just refuse to join forces based on sectarian grounds.
However, the Greens are not an anti-capitalist party, and their idea of achieving societal change is entirely - or very heavily - focused on parliament, via incremental reform and by agreeing to pass bad legislation to not appear obstructionist. They sing their praises of how “Greens pressure works” [2].
I also don’t believe that compromise has been very effective for the Greens.
They really didn’t get much of anything by waiving the HAFF through after some resistence, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, or emissions trading scheme legislation under Rudd/Gillard - as a small list of examples. Meanwhile their political enemies on the right in the Labor party still claim they are obstructionists.
In most cases including these, they end up having to compromise because they can’t mobilise enough people on the ground to make the arguments to everyone on why they should completely refuse to accept minor amendments that don’t fundamentally improve the Bills they’re passing.
The HAFF, honestly, would have been better not passed at all. It’s truly terrible and quintessential “doesn’t do what it says on the tin” legislation typical of the Labor party.
And the recent national park bill [3] in NSW the greens negotiated through with the condition that carbon credits could be sold, is another great example of the Greens compromising in extremely silly ways.
Ultimately, because the Greens are so top-down, they fail to mobilise on the ground, and so can’t stare down stupid legislation. Nor do they meaningfully debate policy within the membership, only within committees.
Conclusion / tl;dr
I don’t believe Victorian Socialists and the other socialist parties in other states are a net negative for left wing politics in this country. And while the Greens and the Socialists agree roughly on the approximate direction society should be heading in, their end goal, and our ideas about how society should function (ending capitalism) are different enough, and intervening in the Greens has been tried (Left Renewal) and not seen much success due to the highly top-down structure of the party, that intervening and joining the Greens doesn’t make strategic sense.
P.S.
For context/transparency, I am a regular member of the party, I haven’t stood for candidacy or delegacy. But have been quite active for about a year.
[1] Compared to our membership numbers, we proportionately can mobilise a much larger number of members for doorknocking, letter boxing, events, industrial action rallies and protests.
All parties have paper members, including ours, but perhaps due to the nature of our politics, we enjoy a better level of engagement.
I would love to see more Greens members get involved with their party. Though I’m not hopeful at the outcome, because the structure of their party is very top-down, as pointed out recently by Mehreen Faruqi after losing to her more conservative opponent in the recent party room leadership contest.
[2]
That’s news to me! Would love to have GP visits be free lol
https://greens.org.au/health
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/10/greens-senators-to-cross-floor-over-contentious-koala-park-deal
Thank you for your effort. I do want to respond to some of what you say. Need more time to think on some of the matters you lay out.
The ultimate goal is to build a new constitution that serves everyone equally. There’s lots of ways to do it, winning electoral power is just one part.
Please provide a link to any information re what you say. I’d like to educate myself.
Lol this makes it sound like a sock puppet convo.
But anyway he’s some links,: https://www.socialists.org.au/ https://www.victoriansocialists.org.au/about/what-we-stand-for
So who is the sock puppet operator?
I don’t know who’s doing the down votes. When I asked for information I wasn’t being sarcastic. I genuinely want to be better educated about current socialism in our country.