Time to move calls for an independent agenda to a higher stage

Vanguard November 2013 p. 1
Nick G.

(Above: An independent working class agenda demands the table, not just the crumbs!) 

Around Australia there is growing enthusiasm for an agenda that embraces the just demands and the democratic rights of the people and is independent of the parliamentary political parties.

We see it in the widespread support that community struggles such as the Tecoma McDonald’s campaign are able to garner.

We see it in the sentiment that is emerging in unions and workplaces for a revival of labour values despite their jettisoning by the Labor Party.

We see it in the reactions to exposures of US email surveillance and the erosion of legal protections of liberties once held to be sacred, even under bourgeois systems of law.

We see it in the willingness of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, the President of the ACTU, human rights lawyers and activists to open for public discussion their concerns about threats to human and democratic rights in Australia.

Basic principles and shared objectives

The CPA (M-L) has strongly advocated the development of an independent working class agenda which encompasses these and other issues.

In August 2012 we wrote: “It need not at this stage be a formal document to which various organisations must commit, but there should be a central core of demands that are put forward in various ways …”

It would not now be unrealistic to add to that a call for progressive-minded people to try to give that agenda something of a more concrete shape over the coming year so that when we talk of our agenda there is a common understanding of basic principles and shared objectives.

For those who retain a membership of and loyalty to the ALP it should not be seen as a line in the sand, an issue over which to split progressive ranks.  But even many of these people now see the ALP as an organisation to apply pressure to rather than an organisation on which to rely. 

The working class is not represented by the major parliamentary political parties

And this is key to further advancing an independent working class agenda, namely that it serves to focus and intensify the voice of the voiceless, to give confidence to those without much hope for the future, to unify and strengthen those who instinctively understand that their interests are not being represented in the parliamentary talking shops.

The major parliamentary parties are loyal only to the class interests of the rich.

They see only a future under US domination.

They try and outdo each other in schemes to privatise, to deregulate and to impose an objectionable burden on the people.

In spite of all the difficulties, the working people continue to rely on one another, continue to resist the attacks and continue to struggle for a better future.

Bringing the vision to life

It is only in the ranks of people uniting in struggle that a different vision for the future emerges.

That vision, of a just, democratic, independent and socialist Australia informs the agenda of which we speak and for which we work.

It is now time to lift spontaneous support for an independent working class agenda to a higher stage of more concrete demands and more conscious commitment.