Sue Bolton: ‘Put working-class communities first’

Sue Bolton, a fourth-term Socialist Alliance councillor at the Merri-bek City Council, is running for Broadmeadows in the Victorian elections.

This article is based on a speech she gave to the launch of SA’s campaign. The party is fielding candidates in Broadmeadows and Pascoe Vale in Naarm/Melbourne, and in four seats covering Djilang/Geelong. It is also standing in the Northern Metropolitan and Western Region for the Legislative Council.

Socialist Alliance’s campaign slogan “Fighting for people, not the billionaires” encapsulates our view that fundamental change won’t come from elected representatives.

Our approach is to work with communities getting organised so that they can become really strong. We need members of parliament who will champion a politics that defends working-class communities against the billionaires.

The only way to guarantee that working-class communities’ rights are safeguarded is by electing socialists who are also committed community activists.

The campaign to stop the redevelopment of the toxic site in Fawkner in 2017 is a case in point. When this development came through Merri-bek City Council, I objected and together with the community we fought hard against it. It would have sailed through because the Environmental Protection Authority had already approved it.

Right now the far right — and the mainstream right — are trying to take back social and political rights that took fights to win.

The Victorian Labor Party, following the One Nation (ON) playbook, is attacking migrants. It has stopped talking about renewable energy and the need to transition away from fossil fuels. Even if ON doesn’t get an MP, its policy announcements are pushing the major parties to the right — a core part of the billionaires’ divide-and-rule plan.

Billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart is writing Pauline Hanson’s policies. She has other billionaire supporters, but they prefer to remain in the shadows.

If migration was to be stopped tomorrow, there would still be a housing crisis. This is because state and federal policies allow developers and speculators to game the system. The destruction of public housing is another part of the housing problem.

What is the billionaire’s agenda? Pay zero or little tax and privatise, or cut, public services — not the fat cats but the people providing the services.

Even repairing potholes on roads and motorways has become political, after a man tragically died after hitting a pothole on his motorbike. VicRoads used to do those repairs. Since it has been handed to the private sector, the roads have deteriorated.

Labor’s privatisation agenda of critical public assets includes the Port of Melbourne, part of VicRoads and the Land Titles office. It includes demolishing 44 high-rise public housing towers, shafting people out of their communities and affordable homes.

The disintegration of the community health sector is part of this. The introduction of the national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) forced the community health centres to move to a user-pays model.

But communities have also shown that they will resist. Because of the community revolt, Labor’s plan to axe GPs and other services at various CoHealth sites, including Collingwood and Fitzroy, have been saved — for the moment.

While Premier Ben Carroll has sought to distance himself from Jacinta Allan and Dan Andrews, he supports the public housing demolition. Labor should be pledging to renovate and keep the public housing towers, and replace the dwellings that have been demolished.

The billionaire class wants to stop workers gaining pay rises which keep up with inflation. It wants to remove regulations so private businesses, like the mega data centre AI industry, or developers eyeing off the toxic site in Fawkner, can do whatever they like.

It is possible after the next election that the Treaty process in Victoria could be ripped up. The Coalition has promised to do that and ON would like to. Sections of Labor are nervous about the kind of rights First Nations people would have with a Treaty or treaties.

For First Nations people, the process is about more than symbolism; it is a way of improving their lives, including access to culture and practice to build stronger communities. This is important. We need to ensure that the rights of First Nations people are enhanced. Only then will we have improved rights for everybody.

The premier’s big announcement around the Upfield rail line duplication came down to $80 million for a new study. And this only happened after ON raised the issue.

We don’t need another study; we know the duplication is feasible and its cost. Still Labor only has plans for the duplication ending in Upfield, not extending to Craigieburn, even though the land has been allocated.

I restarted the campaign for the Upfield line duplication after finding out about the extraordinary number of cancellations on the line because of the single track at the end of it. As soon as a train is six minutes late, it terminates at Coburg; everything north on the line is cancelled.

The petition campaign on the northern end of the line meant that we started to meet people who had lost jobs, missed an exam, been fined for picking up their children late from childcare, all because of the train terminations. Those in Campbellfield, where there is no train station, have to walk half an hour to get to one.

Apart from a rent freeze, rents also need to be cut. Thirty per cent of those living in Broadmeadows are renters. A proportion will be on fixed incomes, or on pensions. There are no affordable private rentals for anyone those on JobSeeker or Youth Allowance.

We should also support for those with mortgages. There should not be any bank foreclosures or forced sales. Governments are pitting renters against people who don’t really yet own their homes, but are paying off the bank.

The billionaire class wants to shift all the costs associated with protecting the environment and communities on to working-class people.

None of the mainstream parties want to make it easier for people to have a real say in policies that shape their lives.

Communities need to have that, not only because they have solutions, but they can often see that most of the parties standing for office are there to represent the big end of town, and thereby want to prevent people from planning society and the economy around what the community needs.

[Get in touch with Sue Bolton if you’d like to help Socialist Alliance out.]