Socialist Equality Party (Australia)
SEP public meeting: A tribute to Barry Jobson—Australian Trotskyist
The life of Barry Jobson holds crucial political lessons for workers and young people coming into revolutionary struggle today and we encourage you to attend our online meeting on January 17.
By The Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 15 December 2020
From the time he joined the Socialist Labour League, predecessor of the SEP, in 1974 Comrade Barry was a tireless fighter for the program of Trotskyism in the working class, particularly in the Elcar railway workshops in the Sydney suburb of Chullora where he worked for many years.
Strong response to Australian SEP meeting on COVID-19 and the lessons of 2020
By our reporter, 8 December 2020
SEP speakers detailed the global impact of COVID-19 on youth and workers and the revolutionary socialist program needed to combat the escalating social catastrophe created by the profit system.
By Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 2 December 2020
The depraved abuses flowed inevitably from the nature of the war itself—a brutal operation to crush all resistance to the imposition of US control over the country.
COVID-19 and the lessons of 2020: A socialist perspective for the struggles ahead
The Socialist Equality Party and International Youth and Students for Social Equality in Australia are holding an online public meeting to discuss the program the working class must adopt to fight the social, economic and political crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia) holds online health workers' forum
By our reporter, 29 September 2020
Australian health workers speak out over the lack of PPE and proper training to deal with COVID-19, and the government's run-down of the healthcare system.
Australian ruling elite moves to junk coronavirus safety measures—the working class must intervene to answer the pandemic threat!
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 17 September 2020
Sections of the ruling class have concluded that any further safety restrictions can no longer be tolerated, regardless of the danger to working class lives.
Attend SEP (Australia) online forum: The COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis of capitalism and the way forward for health workers
The safety and well being of health workers must be taken out of the hands of governments and unions who have no interest in this task.
Build the International Youth and Students for Social Equality!
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 28 August 2020
The SEP's National Congress resolved to build the IYSSE among working-class youth, as well as university and high school students, on the basis of the revolutionary traditions of Trotskyism.
Free Julian Assange! Defend Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden!
The SEP's recent National Congress committed to "intensifying the fight for the unconditional freedom of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange" and the defence of all persecuted journalists and whistleblowers.
SEP (Australia) holds successful fifth national congress
By our correspondent, 26 August 2020
Delegates discussed and unanimously adopted a major resolution outlining the deepening crisis of Australian and world capitalism and the tasks of the party over the next two years, and elected a new national leadership.
The coronavirus pandemic, the crisis of capitalism and the tasks of the SEP
Published here is the main resolution that was discussed and adopted unanimously at the Fifth National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) held on August 14-16, 2020.
Victoria's COVID-19 catastrophe: An indictment of Australian governments and capitalism
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 5 August 2020
The surge in coronavirus deaths and infections is the outcome of the pro-business reopening of the economy enforced by governments, the corporations and the trade unions.
SEP (Australia) holds lecture series on the history of Trotskyism
By Oscar Grenfell, 17 July 2020
The lectures, now all available online, reviewed some of the fundamental lessons of the protracted struggle by the Trotskyist movement for socialist internationalism.
Committee for Public Education and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia)
Public forum: COVID-19 and the escalating assault on educators and students
The Committee for Public Education and International Youth and Students for Social Equality in Australia are holding on online forum on July 18 to discuss the critical issues posed by government demands that schools reopen.
Oppose the Melbourne public housing towers lock-in! For a health and welfare response, not a police mobilisation!
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 9 July 2020
The SEP calls for the formation of local safety committees, both within the tower blocks and more broadly, to organise measures to protect the residents and the working class as a whole.
SEP (Australia) July 7 online lecture
A new period of socialist revolution and the tasks of the Fourth International
The lecture will outline the contemporary significance of the Trotskyist movement's fight for socialism internationalism, amid a breakdown of capitalism and an upsurge of the class struggle.
SEP (Australia) June 30 online lecture
The 1985–86 split with the WRP and the renaissance of Marxism
The split ranks among the most crucial strategic experiences of the Trotskyist movement and the international working class.
The ICFI and the war against Pabloism
The lecture will review the international political context of the emergence of Pabloism, a national-opportunist tendency within the Fourth International.
Reject Australian universities-NTEU job and pay cuts!
By the Committee for Public Education and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, 15 June 2020
Despite intense opposition to the cuts among university workers, the trade unions are collaborating with the university managements to push through ballots to impose them.
The founding of the Fourth International
The lecture will outline the immense contemporary relevance of Leon Trotsky's establishment of the world party of socialist revolution in 1938.
SEP (Australia) holding online lecture on the history of the Left Opposition this Tuesday
The lecture will outline the intense relevance of the program of world socialist revolution defended by the Left Opposition, amid a global crisis of capitalism and the emergence of international struggles by the working class.
Oppose the premature lifting of COVID-19 safety restrictions!
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 3 June 2020
The Socialist Equality Party opposes the profit-driven "back-to-work" campaign as the global COVID-19 pandemic worsens and fresh outbreaks appear across the country.
Oppose the rush to reopen Australian schools! Form safety action committees of teachers and staff!
By the Committee for Public Education (CFPE), 28 May 2020
At stake is not just the immediate public safety concerns in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, but the future of the education system.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia) to hold online lectures on history of Trotskyism
Amid the breakdown of capitalism triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, the lectures will outline the contemporary significance of the Trotskyist movement's decades-long fight for a socialist and internationalist perspective.
Committee For Public Education online public forum
The COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis in the universities
The CFPE invites university workers, students and teachers to attend its online forum to discuss the pandemic and the deep crisis in the universities, both in Australia and internationally.
Australian teachers speak out against unsafe conditions
By our reporters, 17 April 2020
One teacher said: "We are seeing that the allocation of resources is not to support social safety but to enrich a few super-wealthy oligarchs."
Australian Committee for Public Education holds successful online meeting on pandemic crisis
By our reporters, 6 April 2020
The Socialist Equality Party's (US) candidate for vice president, Norissa Santa Cruz, brought greetings to the meeting which was attended by more than 70 people.
IYSSE (Australia) online lecture Tuesday night: Socialist Alternative and the politics of the pseudo-left
Beams will explain that the struggle to build a socialist movement of the working class requires a fight against all those tendencies that seek to channel opposition behind the political establishment.
Attend the Committee for Public Education online meeting
The COVID-19 pandemic: The political issues confronting educators
By the Committee for Public Education (Australia), 4 April 2020
We invite readers in Australia and internationally—especially teachers, school staff, academics, kindergarten and childcare workers, parents and students—to take part in the online meeting.
Strong response to Nick Beams' IYSSE (Australia) online lecture on coronavirus pandemic
By Oscar Grenfell, 28 March 2020
The refusal of governments to take the necessary measures to address the pandemic, Beams stated, was inextricably tied to the systematic social attacks on the working class.
Australia: "Teachers for Assange and Manning" campaign in Melbourne
By Sue Phillips, 7 March 2020
The active intervention of teachers and education support staff is just one indication of the growing concern among millions of people that Assange's persecution has immense implications.
Rally and march in Melbourne, Australia demands freedom for Julian Assange
By Patrick O'Connor, 25 February 2020
Many people in the city centre expressed support for the march as it passed, with some joining the demonstration.
"The release of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning is up to us"
Australian and New Zealand demonstrations demand freedom for WikiLeaks founder and US whistleblower
By our reporters, 24 February 2020
The weekend rallies point to growing international support for Assange and Manning and a deeper political understanding and determination to fight by important layers of students, workers and youth.
Rank-and-file teachers in Sydney adopt resolution defending Assange and Manning
the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 12 February 2020
The resolution is the outcome of the initiative of the Committee For Public Education, acting independently of the trade union apparatus.
Rallies in Australia and NZ to demand freedom for Assange and Manning. No to US extradition!
the Socialist Equality Party Australia and SEG (NZ), 28 January 2020
The SEP rallies in February will demand that the Australian government end its collaboration with Washington and immediately use its legal and diplomatic powers to secure Assange's freedom.
The Australian fire crisis and the necessity for socialism
the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 11 January 2020
That the Australian prime minister denied any link between the fires and global warming epitomises the organic incapacity of the ruling classes internationally to address, let alone resolve, the climate crisis.
Brisbane forum calls for broad support for Assange and Manning
By Mike Head, 18 December 2019
The resolution adopted by the forum focussed on the need to take the defence of the WikiLeaks founder out to the working class globally.
Powerful response to call for stepped-up fight to free Assange and Manning at SEP (Australia) meeting
By our reporters, 17 December 2019
The speakers stressed that the upsurge of support for Assange and Manning was inseparable from the growth of the class struggle internationally.
SEP meeting in Alice Springs demands freedom for Assange and Manning
By our reporters, 2 December 2019
"Something inside me told me that I had to do everything to defend Assange… It was going to be one of those life-defining moments for me"—Margaret Richardson
Christoph Vandreier and David North to speak at Sydney Gleebooks launch of Why Are They Back?
Vandreier's and North's discussion will focus on the historical lessons that must be learned in order to build a mass working class movement capable of preventing the disaster of Nazism from taking place on an even greater scale today.
Meetings in Australia and New Zealand pass resolutions demanding freedom of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
By our reporter, 26 November 2019
The meetings on the weekend took place just days after Swedish prosecutors had abandoned—for the third time—their "preliminary investigation" into the false allegations that Assange had committed sexual assault.
"We are all Julian Assange"
Interviews with Alice Springs workers and youth about public meeting to defend Assange and Manning
By our reporters, 23 November 2019
Popular support in Alice Springs for imprisoned journalist Julian Assange is matched by a deep distrust of government authorities and the major parliamentary parties.
Video: 70 years after the Chinese Revolution—How the struggle for socialism was betrayed
The following lecture was delivered by Peter Symonds at eight campuses in Australia and at meeting in Wellington, New Zealand.
Australian and New Zealand students speak after lecture on 70th anniversary of Chinese Revolution
By our reporters, 31 October 2019
"The real root ideas of socialism were not implemented in China from the bottom-up. I learnt that Trotskyism is internationalism, but Mao did not agree with that perspective."
Public meetings in Australia and New Zealand
Meeting defending Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning in Melbourne this Sunday
The aim of the meetings is to prepare for the political action that must be organised in Australia and internationally in opposition to the legal travesty against Assange that is underway in the British courts.
Australian students and youth speak out at climate strikes
By our reporters, 23 September 2019
"The governments are too scared to do anything because they want to make profits, rather than save the planet."
IYSSE lecture series in Australia
Seventy years after the Chinese Revolution: How the struggle for socialism was betrayed
While the revolution vastly transformed international relations and class relations within China, the Communist Party, based on the Stalinist program of "Socialism in One Country," deformed the newly-created state from the outset.
Stop the deportation of the Biloela refugee family from Australia!
the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 4 September 2019
The fight to defend refugees can only advance through a struggle by the working class against the right-wing nationalist policies of the entire political establishment, including Labor and the Greens.
Rally in Melbourne demands freedom for Julian Assange
By our reporters, 15 July 2019
Amid cold and wet weather, about 130 people rallied with determination to demand Assange's freedom.
SEP meetings review political lessons of Australia's federal election
By our reporters, 6 July 2019
Labor's defeat in the May 18 elections poses the urgent necessity for an intensification of the fight for socialist and internationalist consciousness among workers and youth.
Australian workers and youth discuss SEP election campaign
"I've seen the Labor Party and the unions working hand-in-glove at the expense of the workers throughout my entire working life."
Julian Assange's birthday celebrated at vigils in Australia and New Zealand
Linda Tenenbaum, a longstanding leader of the SEP, indicted the Australian government and the political and media establishment for abandoning Assange, an Australia citizen.
Video: Protesters at SEP (Australia) rally speak out in defence of Assange and Manning
"I came to support Julian because of all the time he has lost to help the poor people and the oppressed around the world."
Australian PM refused to raise persecution of Assange with Trump
By Oscar Grenfell, 2 July 2019
At the G20 summit Morrison fawned over Trump, who is seeking to imprison the WikiLeaks founder for life, or execute him.
Watch the Sydney rally to free Assange live!
The SEP rally is among the first events to be held since the WSWS International Editorial Board called for the formation of a Global Defence Committee to demand freedom for Assange and Manning.
Terry Hicks, father of former Guantánamo Bay prisoner David Hicks, demands freedom for Assange and Manning
"There's only one word to describe the victimisation and persecution of Assange and Manning, and that word is barbaric."
Assange legal advisor: Pentagon spearheaded pursuit of WikiLeaks founder
By Oscar Grenfell, 25 June 2019
Geoffrey Robertson's statement is another demonstration that Assange would not receive anything resembling a fair trial if he were extradited to the US.
Australia: Another Sydney apartment block evacuated over major structural cracks
By John Wilson, 17 June 2019
The event underlines the escalating crisis in housing and apartment building and the cost-cutting methods used during the past two decades.
Victory to the Political Revolution in China
Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International, 4 June 2019
The following statement was published on June 8, 1989, just four days after the Chinese government's brutal military crackdown on students and workers in Tiananmen Square.
SEP Australia meetings on Labor's election debacle and the defence of Assange
The leftward movement of workers and youth can find no means of expression within the present political framework. It must be developed into a conscious political movement, based on a socialist perspective.
Socialist Equality Party wins important support in Australian federal election
By Oscar Grenfell, 25 May 2019
Thousands of workers, students and young people signalled their support for a socialist alternative to war, budget cuts and authoritarianism.
Australian voters speak out
Mass support for Assange as workers and youth oppose militarism and war
By our reporters, 21 May 2019
Many workers passionately oppose the persecution of Assange and Manning hailing them as "heroes," "legends" and similar appellations.
The Australian Labor Party's election debacle and the fight against the far-right
The election outcome exposes the bankrupt claims by the unions and the pseudo-left that the rise of the extreme right can be opposed by supporting pro-business centre-left parties such as the Australian Labor Party.
Vote 1 Socialist Equality Party! Take up the fight for socialist internationalism!
the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 17 May 2019
The SEP is campaigning to build a revolutionary, socialist movement of the working class against the entire parliamentary establishment and the capitalist system that it defends.
Mass unemployment, climate change and a toxic dump in Oxley
By Michael Smith, 17 May 2019
The following is an edited version of the speech delivered by Michael Smith to the Socialist Equality Party election public meeting in the Brisbane electorate of Oxley.
Strong response to SEP's socialist program at final election meetings
There were animated and extended discussions at SEP public meetings in the working-class electorates of Parramatta, Hunter, Calwell and Oxley this week.
Workers and youth discuss Julian Assange, social conditions and war at SEP election meetings
One worker said: "It is absolutely vital that we have meetings like this in working-class areas. Having this meeting, as a party, is one step ahead towards the goal of achieving equality."
Australia's housing crisis to worsen whichever party wins election
Richard Phillips: SEP senate candidate for NSW, 16 May 2019
A new housing loan scheme announced by Liberal leader Morrison and endorsed by the Labor Party will do nothing to resolve the acute housing problems facing millions of workers.
Labor and the unions responsible for social crisis in western Sydney
Oscar Grenfell: SEP candidate for Parramatta, 16 May 2019
Grenfell explained that Labor and the unions have presided over "an onslaught against manufacturing and industrial jobs."
Hunter "Meet the Candidates" Forum exposes major parties
SEP candidate Max Boddy said that "the elephant in this election campaign is the deafening silence on the persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning."
Australia: Rally to defend Julian Assange held in Broadmeadows, Melbourne
The event drew a small but determined crowd of SEP members and supporters, local workers, and WikiLeaks' supporters.
Factory fire symptomatic of social devastation in Calwell electorate
Peter Byrne: SEP candidate for Calwell, 14 May 2019
"Where factories once employed workers who actually made things, they are now rented and filled with toxic waste, then abandoned."
A socialist program needed to halt assault on university students and staff
Mike Head: SEP candidate for Oxley, 14 May 2019
The Socialist Equality Party is alone in calling for a vast redistribution of wealth to secure the basic social right to free, high-quality public education at all levels.
Two former Australian prime ministers tout Labor's pro-business record
Hawke and Keating boasted they had created the "modern" deregulated economy, and called for the election of a Labor government to deepen this pro-business agenda.
The Australian election and the fraud of the NDIS
Max Boddy: SEP candidate for Hunter, 10 May 2019
The National Disability Insurance Scheme was always designed to privatise the disability sector, push people off welfare payments and slash public spending.
Greens offer bogus climate pledges while pleading for another partnership with Labor
Mike Head: SEP candidate for Oxley, 9 May 2019
The "plan" of the Greens is not about saving the environment and the planet but handing billions of dollars to supposedly "green" companies.
SEP candidates address election meetings in Australia to defend Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
By our reporters, 8 May 2019
The SEP, which is running eight candidates in Australia's federal election, held public meetings in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
SEP election meetings in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle, Brisbane
Vote Socialist Equality Party! No to War and Austerity! For Socialism and Internationalism!
The Socialist Equality Party has placed at the very centre of its election campaign the demand that the Australia government immediately repatriate publisher and journalist, Julian Assange and courageous whistleblower, Chelsea Manning
Assange's father tells demonstrators Australian government must secure son's release
By our reporter, 6 May 2019
Friday's protest in Sydney was held two days after Assange was sentenced in a British court to 50 weeks' jail on bogus bail charges.
Liberal and Labor compete in stoking anti-refugee scare-mongering
The SEP unequivocally defends right of asylum seekers, immigrant workers and their families to live, study and work in Australia, or anywhere in the world, as full citizens.
Economic reversal exposes Australian election myths
By Mike Head, 27 April 2019
Inflation was zero during the March quarter, indicating a rapidly stalling economy that will intensify the corporate offensive against the working class.
Anzac Day 2019: Conditioning the Australian population for war
Richard Phillips: SEP Senate candidate for New South Wales, 27 April 2019
The media and political establishment has erected a wall of silence around Australia's involvement in the US-led preparations for war against China and Russia.
Australian construction workers facing massive fines for striking
By Terry Cook, 26 April 2019
The Australian Building and Construction Commission has launched legal action against workers involved in a short work-stoppage last year.
Australian mining magnate renews his fraudulent populist pitch
Mike Head: SEP candidate for Oxley, 26 April 2019
While feigning sympathy for working people, billionaire Clive Palmer is bankrolling an election blitz by his so-called United Australia Party.
The Australian government must act to free Julian Assange
Oscar Grenfell: SEP candidate for Parramatta, 25 April 2019
Assange's brutal arrest and the attempts to extradite him to the US are an attack on the working class.
SEP (Australia) election candidates win strong support for the immediate release of Assange and Manning
By our correspondents, 23 April 2019
The SEP is the only political party in the election defending Julian Assange and US whistleblower Chelsea Manning and fighting to mobilise workers and youth to demand their immediate release from prison.
SEP (Australia) to hold election rally and meetings in defence of Assange
The events are aimed at building the mass movement required to compel the Australian government to fulfill its obligations to Assange.
The Socialist Equality Party candidates in the 2019 Australian election
the SEP (Australia), 16 April 2019
The SEP is standing Senate groups in New South Wales and Victoria and running candidates in the House of Representatives' electorates of Parramatta in Sydney, Calwell in Melbourne and Ipswich in Brisbane.
Support the Socialist Equality Party in the 2019 Australian Federal Election
No to Militarism and War! For Socialism and Internationalism!
The vital issue facing the working class is not the futile attempt to change the mindset of the ruling elites through the ballot box, but the development of its own independent political movement for socialism.
Workers and youth speak out at SEP (Australia) rallies in defence of Assange
"What they are doing though won't stop us. We will find a way to free Julian and any other journalists who come under attack."
Twenty years since the death of Australian Trotskyist and Aboriginal worker, Comrade Yabu Bilyana
By Linda Tenenbaum, 15 April 2019
On April 5, 1999, Yabu Bilyana, the first indigenous Australian to join the International Committee of the Fourth International, died at the age of 54. This obituary was written by then Socialist Equality Party assistant national secretary, Linda Tenenbaum, and published by the WSWS on April 7, 1999.
Message of condolence from David North
"He based his life on the ideals of justice, equality and human solidarity"
"Had he not been so tragically disabled by illness, Yabu undoubtedly would have played a major role in the expansion of the party's influence in the working class."
Yabu Bilyana addresses ICFI World Conference: "Genocide of indigenous peoples is still practiced throughout Australia"
By Yabu Bilyana, 15 April 2019
Bilyana exposed the ongoing oppression of Australia's Aboriginal population and the whitewash carried out by the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody.
SEP (Australia) rallies demand freedom for Julian Assange
"Assange has performed his duty as a journalist to workers, to youth, to the mass of ordinary people around the world. Now, we are obliged to repay that debt which we owe him."
Defend Julian Assange!
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 6 April 2019
The Socialist Equality Party (Australia) condemns the stepped-up preparations to expel Julian Assange from London's Ecuadorian embassy and to force him into the custody of the British police. WikiLeaks reported today that it has information, from a source in the Ecuadorian state, that Assange's eviction from the building, where he sought asylum in 2012, will occur "within hours or days."
Workers and young people speak out at Melbourne rally to free Assange and Manning
By our reporters, 12 March 2019
"If Julian doesn't receive freedom, if Chelsea Manning is not released, then we are going down a slippery slope."
Melbourne rally calls on workers and youth to defend Assange and Manning
James Cogan declared that "the fight to free Assange must become part of all the actions by workers."
"Julian Assange is a significant international citizen who has made a stand for truth-telling"
Address by Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees to the Sydney Free Assange rally
By Professor Stuart Rees, 6 March 2019
When the controversy about Julian first started, a Republican senator from New York, King, said: "Why doesn't somebody take a gun and shoot the son-of-a-bitch? I know it's illegal, but it would be wonderful for Americans' freedom if that happens."
Freedom for Julian Assange depends upon the intervention of the working class
Speech by James Cogan, March 3, 2019
By James Cogan, 4 March 2019
The following speech was delivered by Socialist Equality Party National Secretary, James Cogan, to the SEP's March 3 rally at Sydney's Martin Place to free Julian Assange.