Abbott's win: Don't agonise, organise!

A big thanks to all Socialist Alliance members and supporters for your efforts over the course of the election campaign.

In Fremantle there was a 2.7% swing to the ALP (41.6%) and a 6% swing away from the Greens (11.6%). I suspect this reflected people returning to the Labor fold because of the fear of an Abbott victory.

In a preferential system this doesn't make sense but is based more on mood than logic. In that context we're happy our vote has increased slightly, hovering around the 1% mark, even if we were hoping for a bigger increase.

There is absolutely no possibility of substantially redistributing wealth or stopping runaway global warming without breaking the back of the big business and fossil fuel mafia that dominate Australian politics.

This means extending democratic public ownership to strategic sectors of the economy. We're the only party to raise the call for public ownership and our campaign was an important opportunity to do this.

Bright spots in an overall bleak national result were the return of the Greens Adam Bandt and Scott Ludlam. Bandt's return with an increased primary vote and not dependant on Liberal preferences is especially significant.

We all know the Abbott-Barnett cuts will come thick and fast. But the front line in the struggle for a better and more caring society and one that lives in peace with the natural environment was always going to be in the streets, on the picket lines, at our places of work and education and in our communities.

That would be true even if Rudd had scraped back in.

We can do no better than live by the slogan inspired by African-American civil rights activist Florence Rae Kennedy:

Don't Agonise, Organise!

[By Fremantle election candidate Sam Wainwright.]