[Marxism] Voting in Australia -tale of 2 states.

[Ggregray@xxxxxxx]

State elections were held today (Saturday 18 March) in Tasmania and South
Australia
The incumbent Labor  Party governments  were returned in both States. In
South Australia there was a swing of about 11% to Labor. In Tasmania there was
about a 2% drop in the Labor vote and a similar drop in the Greens vote. However
Labor is still expected to win a clear majority of seats.

Commentators on the election have noted that a strong part of the Labor
campaign in South Australia was that a victory for Labor would be a means of
workers being protected from the draconian industrial relations regime being
introduced by the Federal Liberal (actually  conservative) Government. Possibly 
it
will look at taking action like the Labor Government in New South Wales has done
and make public service workers direct employees of the state to remove them
from the reach of the Federal Governments new laws.

Workers across the country face a continued struggle against those laws and
part of that should be a strong demand on Labor in SA to live up to its claim
to being able to protect workers' interests. The DSP front organistion the
Socialist Alliance claims to be a leading force in the fight against the 
Liberals'
new laws. That this is just one of the delusional beliefs  it holds is again
demonstrated by the support its candidates won in the two state elections.

In the seat of Port Adelaide in South Australia the SA candidate had a vote
of 169 or 1.4% of the valid votes so far counted. In Tasmania the DSP/SA ran
candidates in two seats In Franklin its candidate got 225 votes out of 55,751 or
0.40% of the votes so far counted and in the seat of Denison  the DSP/SA got
198 votes out of a total of 50,695 so far counted or 0.39%. All the figures I
have quoted are not final but it is highly unlikely that the percentage of the
votes will change in any significant way.

The point of noting these results is not to flog a dead horse. It is just a
way of underlining the fact that when DSP/SA loyalists such as John Tongolini
replied to my previous postings with the claim that the SA is"going from
strength to strength" such claims are ridiculously remote from reality.

The SA  as dominated by the DSP has proven to be dead end for the left in
Australia . Its use is as an example for active socialists in how not to build a
unified leadership in the struggle.

Greg Adler
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