What the Socialist Equality Party stands for July 1996 The Socialist Equality Party is based on the principle that the interests of ordinary working people must take precedence over the capitalist drive for profit. Wherever and whenever the needs of the working class conflict with those of the banks, transnational corporations and money markets, and their representatives in parliament, it is the profit system which must give way. The vast productive potential of modern technology must be used for humane and intelligent social purposes -- the elimination of poverty and disease, the rebuilding of cities, the provision of decent, high quality health, education, housing and transport to all -- not to facilitate the ever greater accumulation of personal wealth by a tiny minority of the population.

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This principle places the SEP in irreconcilable opposition to every other political party. The policies of all of them, whether Labor, Liberal, Democrat or Greens, are directly dictated by the requirements of the profit system. These parties all agree that if decent wages and jobs, or government spending on public schools, hospitals, nursing homes and child care centres compromise profits, they have to be scrapped. The basic principles of the Socialist Equality Party 1. For the international unity of the working class: 2. For social equality: 3. For the political independence of the working class: The basic demands for which the Socialist Equality Party fights The goal of the SEP is the establishment of a socialist society - one in which the major corporations and banks are placed under public ownership and the most advanced methods of economic planning utilised to meet the social needs of the entire population. The fight for this goal is indissolubly linked to the struggle for all those immediate demands which address the most pressing and basic needs of the working class. The most urgent needs of the working class can be summed up in three broad issues: (1) Real job and income security; (2) The raising of living standards; (3) Universal access to high quality public facilities. The Socialist Equality Party advocates the following measures to address these basic needs: Secure and well-paid jobs for all! Raise living standards and eradicate poverty! Guarantee the right to decent housing! First class health care for all! Expand and improve public education! Provide comprehensive child care! Guarantee a future for youth! Proper care for the elderly! Defend the rights of the Aboriginal people! Defend all immigrant workers and refugees! Rational planning for city and country! Defend democratic rights! Against militarism and war!   This program can only be realised through struggle We predict in advance that every one of these demands will be greeted by a chorus of opposition from the ruling class, the big business media and the capitalist politicians, who will respond: "There is no money". No other response should be expected. After all, the program we advance is inconceivable within the framework of the present economic order. It challenges the profit system at its very foundations. Whether or not it will be realised will be decided in the course of struggle. The working class must develop its own independent political movement, mobilised around the fight for these demands. Those companies and corporations which are unable to operate in an environment which protects the basic needs of the working class should be taken out of private hands and run as public enterprises under workers' control. The policies pursued by a workers' government of the type envisaged by the Socialist Equality Party would strive to extend the democratic control of the working class over the operation of the economy, to systematically expand the sphere of public ownership of the means of production and to make the satisfaction of social needs, rather than the accumulation of personal wealth, the driving principle of economic development. By placing the most important levers of the economy - the banks, transnational corporations, transport, post and telecommunications - under public ownership and the democratic control of the working class, a workers' government would be laying the foundations for a rationally planned economy, geared to human need. top of page