Socialist Equality Party

In Western Australia, Joe Lopez, a 45-year-old hospital worker, will stand in Swan, the same seat he contested in 2007. The electorate features sections of light industry, the railway marshalling yards, and Perth’s international and domestic airport terminals. It contains a large population of students from Curtin University, and is currently held by the Liberal Party’s Steve Irons by a slim margin. Lopez, a member of the party since 1984, has written for the WSWS on the devastating consequences of the underfunding of the public health system and of escalating living costs that lie behind the image of Western Australia as a “boom” mining state.

Joe Lopez speaks on health care

Joe Lopez addressed an SEP public meeting last Sunday held at the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts. In attendance were building workers, teachers, students, health workers, IT professionals and young people, some of whom were met during the election campaign.

Lopez focussed his remarks on the crisis in the public health system and the myth of general prosperity as a result of the mining boom in Western Australia. Patrick O’Connor, the SEP’s candidate for the Senate in Victoria, also spoke. An animated discussion followed the two reports. Questions included what policies the SEP would advance if its candidates were elected to parliament, on the crisis of the global economy and the state of China’s industrial expansion, the impact of austerity measures in Europe, how the SEP guards against political degeneration, and what a socialist society would look like.

SEP candidate campaigns at Royal Perth Hospital

Last weekend, Joe Lopez campaigned outside the Royal Perth Hospital (RPH), Western Australia’s biggest public teaching hospital, discussing the party’s program with hospital workers, patients and visitors.

Royal Perth Hospital is an 855-bed teaching hospital located on the northeastern side of the Perth CBD. It has one of the busiest accident/emergency departments in Australia and often suffers from overcrowding. It treats patients from across the metropolitan area, as well as from regional and remote areas of the geographically-large state, including many Aboriginal patients who require specialised treatment.

Labor’s mental illness plan and the healthcare crisis

By Joe Lopez
28 July 2010

The 27 July pledge by Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard to spend just $69 million more a year on suicide prevention measures underscores the government’s utter contempt for people suffering from mental illness and for professionals working in the mental health sector. The additional revenue is a pittance compared to what the chronically underfunded mental health sector requires.