Perth Voice: Reds in WA senate race

The Perth Voice has reported that Socialist Alliance is mounting a campaign for the expected re-run of the WA senate election.

Candidate Alex Bainbridge is quoted saying "It’s true we’re a minor party, but it’s not like we’ve come from nowhere like a lot of [the small right-wing] parties have done."

"We are trying to make a gradual progression ... to go from a minor party to a major party," he told the paper.

He also said that "we are saying something in this election that no one else is saying".

The latter includes the party's policy of bringing the mining and banking industries into public ownership. Measures like these are essential if we are to break the power of the big corporations that are currently using their economic and political clout to block meaningful climate action and other social justice measures.

The Socialist Alliance campaign is directed primarily against the rampaging Abbott government and the lack of alternative offered by the ALP. However, when asked about differences between the Greens and Socialist Alliance, Bainbridge replied that the Alliance policies are "more far reaching and more practical".

Many Greens may bristle at the suggestion that a socialist approach is more practical than the approach of the Greens, however, it is true. The carbon price is one example of a policy supported by the Greens that is completely impractical in actually reducing carbon emissions, nor is it a 'first step' towards such a policy.

Moreover, because the best of the Greens' policies would challenge corporate power if implemented, they can only be won by concerted union and community campaigns, not reliance on parliamentary manoeuvres. Socialist Alliance prioritises these grassroots campaigns as an integral part its work.