Socialist Equality Party
sep.org.au
sep.org.au
Nick Beams, 62, the SEP’s national secretary, and member of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site, is heading the Senate ticket in NSW, and will be the party’s national spokesman. Beams, a founding member of the party in 1972, is a well-known writer on Marxist political economy and on the historical experiences and struggles of the Australian working class. Gabriela Zabala, 47, an English literature postgraduate student at the University of NSW, and an SEP member since 1997, is the other member of the Senate ticket in NSW.
Socialist Equality Party National Secretary Nick Beams delivered this speech to the SEP’s final election meetings in Melbourne and Sydney on August 18 and August 19.
Today the World Socialist Web Site is publishing a YouTube video address by Socialist Equality Party national secretary and WSWS International Editorial Board member Nick Beams, outlining the party’s program in its campaign for the 2010 Australian federal elections.
The following is the text of the speech delivered by Nick Beams, Socialist Equality Party national secretary, to an SEP election meeting on 1 August in the electorate of Reid in western Sydney. Beams explained the underlying reasons for the political coup within the Australian Labor Party that ousted former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
The internecine war that has broken out in the Australian Labor Party, with the publication of a series of leaks aimed at damaging either Prime Minister Julia Gillard or her deposed predecessor Kevin Rudd, is more than a passing factional conflict.
Less than a week into the Australian federal election campaign, the hollowed out and atrophied character of the entire system of bourgeois parliamentary democracy is being increasingly exposed.
According to liberal theory, elections are the means by which “the people”, having heard and considered the policies of the various parties and their leaders, get to make their decision on the next government and its program. This mythology of “popular sovereignty” had already suffered a body blow with the June 23-24 political coup that deposed the elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, before he had completed even his first term in office. Now it is being further undermined by the election campaign itself.
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The June 2010 Political Coup: A warning to the working class
Mehring Books is proud to announce the publication of The June 2010 Political Coup: A warning to the working class, a powerful collection of articles, comments and political statements originally posted on the World Socialist Web Site.
Mehring Books is the foremost publisher of socialist books and pamphlets in the English language. Our titles encompass contemporary political analysis, history, culture and the arts, including works by Leon Trotsky and other leading representatives of classical Marxism.
The ISSE is the student organisation of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). For more information, please click on the link below.