Socialist Alliance Adelaide

Socialist Ideas Conference: Towards Sustainability and Socialism.

2010-11-16T06:02:00.003+10:30

Presented by the Adelaide branch of Socialist Alliance and involving a diverse range of presenters from broad left movements and campaigns in Adelaide and nationally.

Come along to hear from expert speakers and participate in engaging discussion and debate about progressive ideas and issues.

Saturday, November 20
12:00pm
South West Community Centre
171 Sturt St, Adelaide

12:00 - Registration, lunch available.

12:30 - Panel discussion:
"After the 2010 elections: new possibilities and new challenges"
- Mark Parnell, Greens MLC
- Dave Garland, NUW lead organiser
-John McGill, Socialist Alliance

2:00 - Panel discussion: "Is there a way out of the climate crisis?
- Robyn Waite, Climate Emergency Action Network, SA
- Daniel Spencer, Australian Youth Climate Coaltion
- Renfrey Clarke, Green Left Weekly climate change writer

3:15 - coffee break

3:30 - Workshops
- Refugees
- Equal Marriage and LGBTI rights
- Anti-war
- A Radical history of SA

4:30 - Panel Discussion:
''Towards sustainabilty, towards 21st century socialism: addressing the rise of socialism in Latin America and moves towards left unity in the western world'
- Fred Fuentes, former Green Left Weekly Venezuela correspondent
- Jon Moore, Latin American solidarity activist
- Ruth Ratcliffe, Socialist Alliance co-convenor

6:00 - Drinks, dinner & networking

Plus more speakers to be confirmed.

Presented by Socialist Alliance, all welcome.

For more info please contact 8231 6982, 0403 679 742 or 0403 679 742
adelaide@socialist-alliance.org
www.socialist-alliance.org
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=163598550330044&ref=ts

Eyewitness Report Back from Venezuela Solidarity Brigade

2010-08-17T14:36:00.000+09:30

Confused by contradictory messages you've heard about Venezuela, Chavez and this socialism for the 21st century?

Want to see beyond the sensationalised lies of the US backed Western media?

Come along to this meeting to hear about what's really going on in Venezuela from someone who has witnessed the people's revolution first hand.

Gemma Weedall, Socialist Alliance candidate for Adelaide, recently travelled to Venezuela to experience people power democracy at work.

Hear her report back from the 2010 Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) May Day Solidarity Brigade, and first hand impressions from a country which is tackling environment, health, education, indigenous rights and many other issues from a socialist perspective.

Food and drinks will be available for a small cost on the night.

Tuesday, 17 August 2010 6:00

Adelaide Activist Centre
Level 2, 95 Currie St
Adelaide

Family First are bigots first, says candidate for Adelaide

2010-08-09T18:54:00.000+09:30

Media statement – August 9, 2010

Family First are bigots first, says candidate for Adelaide

Gemma Weedall, Socialist Alliance candidate for Adelaide, condemned Family First’s Wendy Francis likening the legalisation of same-sex parenting to the legalisation of child abuse, as “homophobic” and “an incitement to more violence against lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and queer people”.

“The one thing we can thank Wendy Francis for is her outing of her misnamed Family First party as one of the many bigoted and intolerant parties that will be contesting this election for the Senate in several states, including in South Australia.

“However, tolerant people have a duty to stand up to the parties promoting such an archaic prejudice.

“For decades the LGBTQI communities have had to struggle for their rights. From the most basic, such as holding a march in the streets in 1978, to the campaign for equal marriage and adoption rights of today.

“Survey after survey has shown that gay couples are just as adept as heterosexual couples at raising children. A 2009 report to the NSW parliament on same-sex adoption confirmed this.

“There are now 10 countries supporting equal marriage rights and there is no evidence that those couples' children suffer more emotional abuse than do children of heterosexual couples.

“There is evidence, however, that children will suffer emotional abuse if their parents are denied rights available to other members of society.

“Family First’s spokesperson sounds like those protagonists from the bygone apartheid era who warned that ‘mixed marriages’ would lead to children being abused.

“This bigoted nonsense has no place in a human rights-minded society, let alone in Australian parliaments.

“The Liberal Party deserves to be condemned as well: their Senate preferences go directly to this ‘Bigots First’ party in South Australia.”

Ms Weedall will address the Adelaide March for Equality rally this Saturday, August 14th, which is happening at 1pm at Parliament House as part of actions taking place nationally on this day calling for equal marriage rights for same sex couples.

Ms Weedall will also participate in an electoral forum on the issues of Marriage Equality and Equal Rights, to be held on Monday August 16th from 6pm at the University of Adelaide’s Napier Building.

Media enquiries: Gemma Weedall on 0437 714 786 or Ruth Ratcliffe on 0403 679 742

More information on Gemma Weedall and the South Australian Socialist Alliance Senate team:
http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=959

The Liberals on Climate Change: From Dodgy to Dodgier

2010-08-05T01:38:00.000+09:30

Renfrey Clarke (lead Senate candidate for the Socialist Alliance in South Australia)

Dismayed by the Labor government’s inaction on climate change, and looking for an alternative? Well, don’t look to the Liberals. If the ALP has been dodgy on the issue, Tony Abbott’s party has been dodgier.

Mind you, sincere commitment on the issue is a hard call for Abbott, who at a public meeting in rural Victoria last September declared that global warming was “absolute crap”. But there’s one thing on which the Liberal leader is remarkably consistent – the “need” to funnel large amounts of public money to big business.

Under the “direct action” emissions abatement program announced by the Liberals last February, major carbon polluters will not be forced to pay for the damage they cause the environment. Instead, they will be bribed to pollute less. Or at least, relatively less.

And when the funding of something over $10 billion by the end of the decade runs out, will Australian greenhouse emissions have been reduced? Not by a long shot. Several studies now conclude that the Liberals’ plans would see emissions keep growing, by as much as 13 per cent over the years until 2020.

Saved?

Labor’s much-diluted (and now postponed) Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was intended to put a price on carbon by forcing polluters to buy permits to cover their emissions. Total emissions would, in theory, be subject to a diminishing cap.

Under Abbott’s “direct action”, there will be no cap. Polluters will be allowed to expand their operations, and increase their total pollution, without being penalised a cent – provided their emissions per unit of production do not increase. If they reduce this “carbon intensity”, they will be rewarded at a rate of $10-15 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions “saved”.

Most estimates put the cost needed to make industrialists think seriously about reducing emissions at more than $20 per tonne. Consequently, the Liberals’ scheme can be expected to harvest only “low-hanging fruit” – that is, the cheapest emissions gains. While “direct action” might yield well in its first years, its potential would quickly be exhausted.

Summing up for the Crikey website on February 8, Andrew Macintosh of the ANU Centre for Climate Law and Policy noted of such incentive schemes:

“…they rarely work, are often rorted, generally result in higher abatement costs and aren’t equitable.”

In theory, the various “direct action” measures would bring about net emissions cuts to equal Labor’s (laughably inadequate) target of 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020. A suite of initiatives would be subsidised, including the development of coal-seam methane gas, cuts to waste emissions, and improvements to energy efficiency. Rebates would be provided for solar panels and hot water. Abbott also proposes incentives for the planting of 20 million trees. And of about 140 million tonnes of carbon abatement required under his scheme, the bulk – some 85 million tonnes – would come from storing carbon in soils through improved farming practices.

Arithmetic

Coal-seam methane is a fossil fuel with many critics, but what’s wrong with trees and soil carbon? Nothing, in principle – but the Liberals need to do their arithmetic. The trees might credibly remove 20 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere over ten years, so to have a major impact, the program would need to be far larger. Meanwhile, trees burn in hot, dry conditions, of which Australia in coming years will see plenty. Heat and drought also act to reduce soil carbon, so making big gains in the latter could prove hard as climate change bites.

On February 4 the Crikey website quoted one of Australia’s leading soil carbon experts, Sydney University’s Alex McBratney, as saying that the incentives of $8-10 per tonne [of CO2 equivalent] on which the Coalition had based its figures were probably too low. “It needs to be closer to $20-40 a tonne to be viable.”

Soon after the “direct action” proposals appeared, a study released by the federal Department of Climate Change noted that the Liberals’ claims were “subject to very large margins of uncertainty over both cost and [greenhouse gas] abatement.” Using data from a similar program in NSW, the federal analysts concluded that the “direct action” measures would yield reductions of only 40 million tonnes by 2020, not the 140 million claimed. Instead of falling by 5 per cent, net emissions would rise by 13 per cent.

A study by McKinsey management consultants and ClimateWorks, the latter a partnership between the Myer Foundation and Monash University, yielded similar results. As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald on March 16, the analysts concluded that only 27 million tonnes of carbon, not the Liberals’ 85 million, could be locked away in soils, “and only 18 million tonnes at the low price the Coalition has budgeted to pay.” Even if the result were 27 million, and all the other reductions worked, “the overall impact would be a 6 per cent rise in emissions in 2020 compared with 1990.”

To help pay for its incentives, the federal opposition plans to do away with a series of existing emissions abatement programs. Intriguingly, Abbott on July 20 revealed that the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute would be dumped, for eventual savings of $300 million. An initiative of the Rudd government, the Institute was meant to unite world governments in pursuing “clean coal” technologies.

With the Liberals quitting the field, that leaves the Gillard government as one of only a handful of big-league global peddlers of the “clean coal” delusion.

By contrast, other programs threatened by Abbott are useful and need to be defended. According to AAP on July 20, the Liberals now promise to chop funding for renewable energy, for low-energy buildings, for greening small and medium business, and for aid to poorer countries to deal with climate change.

Carbon Price

On the important question of whether to put a price on carbon emissions, the Liberals are blowing from every point of the compass. In a capitalist economy a clear, predictable carbon price – imposed, say, through a tax on fossil energy sources – can serve as a flexible deterrent to firms putting money into polluting technologies. Senior Liberal front-bencher Joe Hockey was quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald on May 20 as saying, “Inevitably we’ll have a price on carbon…we’ll have to.”

But on July 18 Abbott told a Sky News interviewer, “I do not support the government going out there and making consumers pay a price on carbon.”

Simply making it expensive for capitalists to pollute will not, of course, be enough. So large are the requirements of reining in Australia’s world-leading emissions rates that massive, nationally-coordinated state investment is essential. Private enterprise is not up to the job, any more than it could handle the Snowy Scheme.

The energy industry will need to be re-nationalised. And that, of course, is anathema to the private-profit Liberals.

For politicians loyal to big business, stopping climate change is one of those challenges that are just too hard. The Labor leaders keep putting action off, while the Liberals prefer to dodge and obfuscate. Perhaps the Coalition’s offering to voters should be renamed.

“Direct distraction”, anyone?

Community speakout against racism!

2010-08-04T23:39:00.002+09:30

Saturday, August 7
10:30 - 12:00
Barker Gardens

(cnr of Prospect & Alpha Rds)

Counter the racist politics of fear, hatred and division that both major parties are promoting.
• Welcome Refugees - End Mandatory Detention!
• End Discrimination Against International Students!
• End the Northern Territory Intervention - Real Land Rights Now!

Election campaign meeting and working bee

2010-08-04T22:38:00.003+09:30

The leaflets are being letter-boxed, the posters are going up, the community speak-outs are being organised, the campaigns are growing.

Bursting through the droll depression of the mainstream election campaign, Socialist Alliance is putting on an impressive effort across the country these elections but there's only two weeks left and we need all hands on deck to make the most of it.

100% renewable energy by 2020!
End the Intervention - real land rights now!
Welcome refugees!
Scrap the ABCC!

That's why we're campaigning, not for plush jobs and prestige. Please come along this Saturday to get involved!

Saturday, August 7
2:00 - 4:00pm
Adelaide Activist Centre

Level 2, 95 Currie St

Adelaide

Interview with Socialist Alliance candidates, Gemma Weedall and Renfrey Clarke

2010-08-02T18:58:00.006+09:30

"Gemma Weedall is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Adelaide while Renfrey Clark is on the Socialist Alliance South Australian Senate ticket.

With the upcoming Australian Federal Election, Back Story took the opportunity to speak with the two candidates about issues including environmental, refugee, aboriginal intervention and industrial relations policy.

This interview was broadcast on Radio Adelaide on the 28th of July."

http://backstory.org.au/wordpress/?p=643

Grassroots Activists Run for Senate in Upcoming Election

2010-07-28T21:02:00.002+09:30

Community activists Dr Renfrey Clarke and Ruth Ratcliffe have been endorsed by the Socialist Alliance as their Senate candidates for the federal election on August 21st.

Dr Renfrey Clarke has over 40 years experience campaigning for workers rights, social justice and the environment.

‘’Together, working people have the power to give nature and humanity a sustainable future”, Dr Clarke said.

‘’Workers rights and the environment are one struggle; a vote for the Socialist Alliance helps drive the fight forwards.”

A former teacher and now a community worker in the southern suburbs of Adelaide, Ruth Ratcliffe has been actively involved in numerous campaigns for social justice.

‘’I'm standing for the Socialist Alliance to help build a very different kind of society — one that is truly democratic, where we ensure that everyone has access to education, health care and decent housing, and where we take urgent and necessary action to address the climate crisis.” Ms Ratcliffe said.

Climate change will be a key campaign priority, with Socialist Alliance candidates calling for immediate and large scale public investment for 100% renewable energy by 2020, in order to achieve a safe climate future.

‘’Coal barons and oil magnates profit from wrecking the climate – but for the rest of us, their actions promise devastation,’’ Dr Clarke said.

‘’On climate change, there’s no room for excuses or half measures.’’

The Socialist Alliance campaigns for a complete change of priorities in Australian politics and is committed to putting people before profits.

In addition to the Senate Team, youth activist Gemma Weedall will contest the seat of Adelaide for the Socialist Alliance.

For media inquiries or interviews, please contact Gemma Weedall on 0437 714 786 or Ruth Ratcliffe on 0403 679 742

Young Climate Activist to Contest Seat of Adelaide

2010-07-28T20:55:00.003+09:30

Youth activist and part-time worker Gemma Weedall has been endorsed by the Socialist Alliance to contest the seat of Adelaide in the upcoming federal election on August 21st.

Weedall recently completed a Bachelor of Social Sciences, Politics Major, at the University of Adelaide, where she was a well known student activist.

In April this year, Gemma attended the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

‘’In Cochabamba, my eyes were opened to the perspectives of people from the countries of the Global South, who are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, despite having contributed least to the problem,’’ Ms Weedall said.

Gemma is a passionate grassroots climate change activist and active member of the Climate Emergency Action Network (CLEAN).

“Young people will have to bear the burden of irresponsible climate change and environment policies of both Labor and Coalition governments,”

“My generation does not have the luxury of assuming we will inherit a safe climate, we are going to have to fight to for it.”

Gemma is an active member of the socialist youth organisation, Resistance, and is passionate about the rights of young people, and has also been also been active in struggles around a range of issues from marriage equality to worker’s rights.

‘’I’m standing for the seat of Adelaide with Socialist Alliance because I believe that people and the planet should be prioritised over profits, and I refuse to allow my future and the future of the planet to be sold out to corporate interests.’’

Ms Weedall will campaign alongside the Socialist Alliance Senate Team comprising of community activists Dr. Renfrey Clarke and Ruth Ratcliffe.

For media inquiries or interviews, please contact Gemma Weedall on 0437 714 786 or Ruth Ratcliffe on 0403 679 742