Vol. 74/No. 31      August 16, 2010

Manuele Lasalo is the CL candidate for the House of Representatives in Chifley. A permanent resident of Australia who has worked in the country for 21 years, Lasalo is barred from being on the ballot by undemocratic electoral laws.

“We present a revolutionary working-class alternative to Liberal and Labor, the parties of big business. They have no solution to the capitalist crisis except to intensify the assaults on workers and farmers,” Poulsen said.

Poulsen introduced the Communist League campaign to workers attending a memorial meeting held during a 24-hour work stoppage on the wharves July 23. The memorial was for Stephen Piper, a 41-year-old worker, who was crushed to death at Appleton dock in Melbourne 10 days earlier. It was the third death on the wharves in Australia this year.

Poulsen explained to workers at the meeting that the Communist League campaign calls for workers’ control over safety on the job as the only way to save lives and prevent injuries.

Lasalo marched with thousands of construction workers July 20 in an action organized by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. They were protesting charges laid against Ark Tribe for refusing to provide information to the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) about a union meeting over safety.

The ABCC is a national government body set up in 2005 with draconian power to police building workers and their union. “We call for the ABCC to be abolished and the charges against Tribe to be dropped,” Lasalo said.

The candidates have joined the union picket line at the Tahmoor Colliery several times, introducing the communist campaign to miners there. (See article on this page.)

One of the discussions Poulsen had with miners was about immigration, a key issue in the election. A front-page July 24 Daily Telegraph article headlined “Invasion,” claimed an “armada” of refugee boats was heading for Australia’s shores.

“We support opening the borders to refugees and other immigrants,” Poulsen said. “We call for closing all detention centers where these fellow workers are imprisoned.”

The Communist League election campaign also calls for getting Australian and allied troops out of Afghanistan and an end to federal government intervention in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territories.

The trial date for a couple charged with procuring an illegal abortion in Cairns, a city in northeast Australia, has just been set for October 12. “We will be joining other supporters of abortion rights on the national day of action October 9 to demand the charges be dropped,” Lasalo said.
 
 
Related articles:
Thousands sign to put socialist on D.C. ballot
Socialist candidates in Iowa present ‘a clear message’
New York march condemns Arizona law  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home