{"id":926,"date":"2007-11-06T01:48:30","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T15:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=926"},"modified":"2007-11-21T22:10:02","modified_gmt":"2007-11-21T12:10:02","slug":"trot-guide-2007-20-2007-federal-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=926","title":{"rendered":"Trot Guide 2007 #2.0 : 2007 Federal Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Melbourne Cup Eve, and despite the title of this blog, we’re Racing!<\/a><\/em> into 2007 with the Trot Guide 2007 #2.0 : 2007 Federal Election<\/em>. This year, Murdoch’s Choice has set a cracking pace, easily dictating terms to its principal rival, HoWARd’s Way. In a field that is exceedingly well strung out, bringing up the rear are the minor parties, which on the left include:<\/p>\n

1) The Socialist Alliance<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Essentially now an electoral front for the Leninist Democratic Socialist Perspective<\/strong> (nee<\/em> Party), and barely pretending otherwise, SA is fielding a total of 27 losing candidates, in all states and territories except the Northern Territory, and in both Lower and Upper House seats. Like every other SA electoral campaign, this one will witness little support for the SA, and simultaneously be reported as a triumph by its press (the Green Left Weekly<\/em>). In NSW, Lower House seats being contested by the SA are Blaxland<\/a>, Cunningham<\/a>, Grayndler<\/a>, Newcastle<\/a> and Parramatta<\/a>; in Queensland, Brisbane<\/a>, Griffith<\/a> and Moncrieff<\/a>; in Victoria, Corio<\/a>, Gellibrand<\/a> and Wills<\/a>; in WA, Fremantle<\/a>, Pearce<\/a> and Perth<\/a>; in Tasmania, Denison<\/a> and Franklin<\/a>; and in the ACT, Fraser<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the 2004 Federal Election, SA fielded 34 candidates in total, contesting many of the same seats. For example, in Victoria, in the seat of Corio, SA candidate (and Geelong Trades Hall Secretary) Tim Gooden beat the LaRouchites into last place, gaining 505 votes for the SA; in Gellibrand, Linda Waldron also beat the LaRouchites into last place, gaining 508 votes; while in Wills, David Glanz (a member of the ISO, a Trotskyist sect which has since left the Alliance) scored 867 votes, thereby completing the trifecta of defeats for the terminally unpopular followers of Lyndon ‘Genius or Madman?’ LaRouche.<\/p>\n

2) The Socialist Equality Party<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Obviously not composed of triskaidekaphobes, the SEP is running 13 candidates this election, hoping to sweep to power on “A socialist program to fight war, social inequality and the assault on democratic rights”. Most SEP candidates are running in NSW and Victoria: in NSW, Terry Cook for Charlton<\/a>, James Cogan for Chifley<\/a>, Patrick O’Connor for Grayndler, Alex Safari for Kingsford Smith<\/a> (SA contested this seat in 2004, only to be rejected by 99.6% of voters), Noel Holt for Newcastle and Chris Gordon for Parramatta; in Victoria, Frank Gaglioti for Calwell<\/a> and Will Marshall for Melbourne<\/a>. In WA, Joe Lopez is in the running for Swan<\/a>. In summary, in addition to Senate seats from NSW and Victoria, the SA will be competing with the SEP in the unpopularity stakes in three seats: Grayndler, Newcastle and Parramatta. Whose Ideology Will Reign Supreme?<\/em><\/p>\n

3) The Progressive Labour Party<\/strong> (Klaas Woldring and Max Bradley)<\/p>\n

Klaas and Max are appealing for the support of voters in NSW in an ambitious attempt to join the Senatorial class, made all the more so by the fact that the name of the PLP will not appear on the ballot: “The Progressive Labour Party<\/a> was registered on 19 January 1998 and deregistered on 27 December 2006″.<\/p>\n

4) The Socialist Party<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

…is standing a grand total of one candidate, Kylie McGregor, in the seat of Melbourne. This will mean the Socialist vote will be s p l i t<\/strong> between the SP and the SEP. (Note that the SP has the unique distinction of being the only member of Trot Guide<\/em> to penetrate the bowels of Government.)<\/p>\n

5) The Communist League<\/strong><\/p>\n

A late entry<\/em>: Ron Poulsen of the Communist League is one of six candidates for the very safe Labor seat of Watson<\/a> in Sydney, NSW. According to Soviet Man<\/a>, the CL have contested a number of elections in recent years. For example, in 2004, Ron also stood for Watson. Unfortunately, Ron received just 335 votes, or 0.5% of the total — on the bright side, 13 votes more than his previous effort in 2001. In 1996, Ron stood for the seat of Grayndler, gaining 208 or 0.3%. Ron has also stood for the Senate, in 1998 and 1993 (receiving an initial count of 86 votes). Incidentally, Antony Green notes that “John Howard’s origins are in this electorate, growing up in the family home at Earlwood. Unfortunately for those who cherish national heritage, the house where the Prime Minister spent his earliest years has been replaced by a Kentucky Fried Chicken store”, which I think is comically appropriate.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the Committee for a Revolutionary Communist Party in Australia, the Communist League,* the National Preparatory Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Australia, the New Era Communist Party of Australia, the October Seventh Socialist Movement, Socialist Appeal and the Socialist Labor Party of Australia are all complete non-starters, yet to even make it on to the track.<\/p>\n

Probably ‘cos they all remain dead.<\/p>\n

Further, while the World Socialist Party of Australia maintains a PO Box in North Richmond, the Freedom Socialist Party<\/strong> has gone into meltdown online, making it very difficult to ascertain which party, if any, either advocates proletarian voters support. Direct Action (nee<\/em> the Marxist Solidarity Network), while also appearing to be in limbo, at least for the time being, would likely advocate a vote for SA. On the other hand, the Communist Party of Australia<\/a> advocates Communists vote Green, as does the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)<\/a>, the Trotskyist International Socialist Organisation<\/a> and Socialist Alternative<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, note that, alongside the FSP, the websites of both Socialist Action<\/strong> and Solidarity<\/strong> appear to be down, although whether this means that the organisations themselves are too I dunno.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Melbourne Cup Eve, and despite the title of this blog, we’re Racing! into 2007 with the Trot Guide 2007 #2.0 : 2007 Federal Election. This year, Murdoch’s Choice has set a cracking pace, easily dictating terms to its principal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state","category-trot-guide"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6AyE-eW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4491,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions\/4491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}