r/AustralianSocialism

Hey,

I've recently moved back to Australia - to a fairly remote part of the Sunshine Coast.

I've got a fair bit of freetime on my hands and I am wondering if there is anything worthwhile getting involved in this part of the world. I've been sitting on the armchair far too long.

Politically, I lean ML/ Maoist, but I have an open mind & I'm willing to work with / learn from anyone doing good work

DM me if there's anything I might find interesting

Peace

I'm a young ML living in Sydney who wants to get organised in communist spaces, but I'm unsure of what organisation would be best for me to join. Right now I'm leaning towards CPA because I would rather join an actual party organisation that is strictly marxist-leninist, however I do disagree with their people republic of china policy. The RCO seems like a decent option, just not sure how much I'd like the 'freedom of tendency' thing. If anyone could give me some guidance on where to go, as well as any information on the activities that these or any other organisations take part in that would be wonderful, thanks.

Australia is undergoing a historic decline in support for multiculturalism, according to the Lowy Institute’s annual poll, amid a groundswell of fear rooted in mounting economic pessimism and an increasingly illiberal and chaotic world order.

Hey all. I already asked a question about this group a few months ago to get a feel for them. Today, I decided to look up what they've been up to since and... nothing. It seemed like a rising group with a lot of interest from the left and students. This time last year, they had two in-person reading groups running concurrently in Melb and held, by all accounts, a pretty successful conference with back-to-back panels. This year, nothing, no conference, no panels, and they even cancelled their reading group indefinitely last month. Just one lecture uploaded by their Canberra chapter.

So... what happened? Another split?

“Victorian teachers and education support staff have overwhelmingly rejected their proposed pay deal, in a rank-and-file rebellion against pay cuts, unbearable conditions in schools and their own union leadership.”

It’s notable how much organising in the union for Palestine contributed to the capacity to mobilise for a better pay deal. A teacher activist talks about this organising in the podcast linked at the end of the article. It has some powerful lessons for militants in other workplaces and unions.

Another key point: “One Nation is feeding off the bitterness about Labor’s failure to address the cost-of-living crisis. A successful union fightback for pay rises is the way to show there is an alternative.”

Rennick's people first party & the Australian Citizens' party have recently announced a merger to form the Australian People's Party.

Rennick is a defector from the liberals who's basically a one nation cooker with (relatively) left-wing positions on the economy & foreign policy. The ACP is a very strange party founded by the post-trotskyite Larouche movement which combined nominally left-wing ideas with esoteric conspiracy nonsense & faded away into irrelevancy (I'd dispute the accusation that the Larouche movement was fascist since it was inward-focusing & couldn't start a serious mass movement, much more Jim Jones than Hitler). They've since cut ties but are still fringe ideologically.

Will this take any steam out of One Nation? Is this a relevant political development or will this amount to nothing? Does combining Cookerism with Deng Xiaoping thought have potential in Australia?