Labor Tribune welcomes letters from across the socialist and labour movement. Unlike most of the left, we welcome open debate and discussion. Important disagreements should be thrashed out in front of the whole movement so that the working class learns the methods of Marxism and self-liberation and isn’t just given pre-prepared dogma. Email the editors at labor.tribune@proton.me.
Labor Tribune on a break until 2 February 2026
It has no doubt been a traumatic end to 2025 as we deal with the shock and trauma of the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi on the first night of Hanukkah. Labor Tribune extends the deepest sympathy and solidarity to the families and friends of those murdered by reactionary Islamists.
As Marxists we also look to organisation and working-class solidarity to once again seek hope amid the difficulties facing us all. It is clear that only a radical transformation of society can overcome the deep crises global society is facing: an accelerating drift to militarism and war driven by capitalist imperialism; deepening climate change; and unbelievable inequality not only at a global level but within Australia itself as workers find it difficult to live full lives amid such wealth in society.
Thanks for the support since we started in September. With your backing we will move from strength to strength in 2026. The working class needs a militant organised party that can organise our struggles in Australia and in solidarity globally to overcome capitalism. That is the heart of our project.
Marcus Strom, Labor Tribune editor, Sydney
22 December 2025
A few reflections on the terrorist attack at Bondi
1) The two individuals who committed these heinous murders at Bondi have been motivated by the atavistic ideology of antisemitism. Collective blame and revenge based on ethnicity and religion is a form of fascism.
2) An identical form of blame, revenge and genocidal collective punishment has been practiced by the Netanyahu government and previous Israeli governments against hapless Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank as occurred in Bondi on 14 December.
3) A Muslim shopkeeper, Ahmed al-Ahmed, disarmed one perpetrator and by his heroic act probably saved many people from being murdered.
4) In the immediate aftermath of this heinous terror attack the Liberals, One Nation and the Zionist establishment have engaged in a hysterical demagoguery targeting all opposition to the Gazan genocide.
5) This heinous terrorist act has, above all, provided oxygen to the extreme fanaticism of Jillian Segal, the pre-eminent representative of the Zionist establishment and an uncritical supporter of the Israeli government appointed by the Albanese government as the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia.
Segal’s proposals to combat antisemitism involve the deception of the ‘Big Lie’ that all opposition to ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinians is antisemitism.
Segal is not the representative of all Jewish people in Australia. A significant minority of Australian Jews are horrified and intransigently opposed to the genocide of the Palestinian people perpetrated by the far-right Netanyahu government.
6) Segal, the Liberals and One Nation together with much of the Australian mass media are now crowing hysterically urging the Albanese government to implement extreme authoritarian measures to ban all protests against the Palestinian genocide, monitor debate in universities and other places with the clear intention of banning open and free discourse with draconian punishment such as expulsions from universities and loss of jobs.
7) As a child of Holocaust survivors who had grown up in Poland after the Second World War, I urge the Albanese government not to succumb to this hysteria. It is vital, if Australia is to remain an open society, that free and open debate and discourse circulate in our society and the individuals who participate in these debates and discourses must have no fear of being subjected to any form of opprobrium or punishment.
John-Janusz Ebel, Melbourne
15 December 2025
Maintain our solidarity
Almost from the moment the gunshots ended at Bondi Beach, Zionists and their rightwing allies took the opportunity to launch a full scale offensive to counteract the bad publicity Israel’s war crimes have attracted over the past two years.
First, Jillian Segal launched a spirited attempt to revive her failed career as Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. ‘If only they had implemented my report,’ she wailed, failing to note that her report was a hotch-potch of tendentious nonsense and an embarrassment to all concerned.
Another failed politician was not too far behind. Josh Frydenberg smartly got himself into the headlines and onto the ABC’s 7.30 castigating the Labor government for failing to eradicate antisemitism (which government has?) – a transparent attempt to relaunch his own political career. Both he and various rightwing shock jocks were aghast at Sara Ferguson’s crisp suggestion that this was the case.
Adding to the ABC pile on, other rightists unleashed their fury on Laura Tingle’s contention that the assassins’ actions had little to do with their religion – meaning that Islam does not instruct its followers to shoot children from a bridge in Bondi. We can expect further attacks in the next few days and weeks – and calls for a witch hunt in the ABC. And the ABC’s inevitable retreat into a frightened ‘neutrality’.
Naturally enough, the NSW government has not been far behind the pack, promising even more repressive legislation and further restrictions on Palestine solidarity demonstrations.
It will be a struggle to maintain our rights and our solidarity in the months to come – let alone to preserve the memory of the 75,000 Palestinian dead (and still dying).
Sarah, Adelaide
18 Dececember 2025
Proud to join the Riding Tide protest in Newcastle
Why did I, a 69-year-old woman, travel 848 kilometres from home to get arrested at a mass protest? Why did 8000 people from all walks of life join the Rising Tide protest?
I was one of 181 people arrested recently in the Port of Newcastle, the world’s biggest coal port and Australia’s single largest contributor to the climate crisis.
Having sent copious letters, signed many petitions, gone to numerous demonstrations and canvassed many politicians about Australia’s inaction on the climate crisis, getting arrested for paddling a kayak as part of a peaceful blockade of coal ships, seemed all that was left for me.
The cost of my arrest is nothing compared to the worldwide impact of climate change.
I left my comfort zone to join a diverse busload of strangers travelling from Victoria. Being one of a crowd of 8000 like-minded people at the Rising Tide protest was empowering, energising and affirming. The event was laser focused, extraordinarily well organised, family friendly, stimulating and lots of fun.
Rising Tide’s demands are to cancel all new fossil fuel projects, end coal exports from Newcastle by 2030 and tax fossil fuel export profits at 78 percent to fund community and industrial transition and pay for climate loss and damage.
My kayak buddy declared that she had saved many lives as a doctor but getting arrested in the blockade would be the most significant thing she has ever done.
At the time we were paddling out in kayaks, 940 people in Indonesia were drowning in flood waters, while 100,000 were left homeless. Bridges, roads, hospitals and schools left in ruins. I felt like I was paddling for those Indonesians, but I was also paddling for my own family, your family, friends … all life on Earth. I was paddling with ordinary concerned fellow citizens. We demand that the government act on the science of climate change.
Our government states that they are taking strong action on climate change. But are they? Australia has approved at least 30 coal, oil and gas projects since 2022. The recent approval of the extension of Woodside’s North-West Shelf gas project to 2070 will make it the biggest fossil fuel project in the Southern Hemisphere.
For those not interested in protecting society and the health of the planet, consider the financial impact of doing nothing. Repairing the aftermath of floods, fires and droughts unprecedented in their frequency and intensity, is already astronomical. We literally can’t afford to ignore climate change.
In questioning what impact peaceful protest can bring, I am reminded that Australia has a proud history of significant social and environmental change brought about through protest, including women’s right to vote, women’s right to stand for election to parliament, the eight-hour work day, LGBT+ rights, the protection of the Franklin River, women’s right to drink in bars and earn equal pay for equal work.
Tough new laws in many Australian states mean peaceful protesters now face severe penalties. Meanwhile corporate lobbyists have easy access to politicians in private meetings.
My arrest may not have altered the course of climate change. However, if enough of us take action, the government will be forced to listen and act.
Getting arrested was better for my mental health than despairing at the latest climate disaster news.
Rising Tide have already reached out to me, checking to see if I need counselling and assuring me that they will stand by me with legal support.
I’m proud to have joined the Rising Tide protests and to be one of 181 people arrested. I’m proud to take a public stand on the most significant issue facing life on Earth. I’m proud to not leave this to young people to fix.
Australia must act immediately and strongly on climate action.
Rhona Rose, Victoria
15 December 2025
Opportunity!
As Sports Minister, Anika Wells can win back the support of most Australians immediately by declaring she will support Peta Murphy’s anti-gambling ads report. Lead on this by showing courage in Cabinet and Wells could well retrieve her reputation.
Julanne Sweeney, South Australia
9 December 2025
Stagnant capitalism with the rich getting richer
The most recent Australian quarterly national accounts show a struggling economy, not in desperate shape, but with few signs of growth overall. In case you are interested in the 21st century trend, here is a snapshot from the annual data.
You will see a downward trend so far – a stagnant capitalism punctuated by significant falls and rises: the rises get weaker. It’s the same story since 1960.
Note the first indicator of wealth (GDP per capita) heading south. Yet, the top 5 to 10 percent have never been richer, never accumulated so much.
Don Sutherland, Tasmania
3 December 2025
Strong communities are self-policing
The whole situation with the CFMEU reminds me of what an old anarcho-communist friend used to say to me. Strong communities don’t need policing.
Yes it’s true when it comes to militancy, the CFMEU is a very strong community, but strength is also looking at leadership and exposing opportunists.
I admit, this is a lot harder said than done, which is why transparency must be at the heart of union democracy, and I hope the rebuild of the CFMEU is built to be strong, transparent, and member led.
The CFMEU shows so much of what the union movement could do for the working class, which is why it’s constantly attacked. Equally though it shows what can go wrong when it lacks transparency and an inability to self police to purge criminal elements which have embedded themselves in the organisation.
Josh L.
Shellharbour Barrack Heights branch
25 November 2025
Pensioner poverty – too high and getting worse
Australia still does not have an official poverty line(s) system. Instead, age pension and other low-income poverty estimates use either the ACOSS method (same as the OECD, European Union) or the Melbourne Institute method.
Also, since Albanese Labor was elected there has been no Australian data made available to the OECD data base that shows the general incidence of poverty in age pensioner and other low-income groups.
Last year the Australia Institute estimated that using the rigorous income threshold, the OECD 2021 estimated 25 percent of Australians 65 and over were living in poverty, and in 2024, 22.6% of retirees end their working live in poverty.
The newest fact sheet from Anti-Poverty Week organisers says that one-third of age pensioners are living in poverty. It is also well established that women pensioners are more likely to be at or below the poverty line than men.
Using the ACOSS method, the poverty line at 60% of median disposable household income is $770 per week (rounded) for a single person. (At 50% it is $642.) Right now the total pension rate is $589.
That’s a preliminary poverty gap of $181 per week.
The Campaign Against Pensioner Poverty proposal – step 1 to close the poverty gap – requires a minimum $10 a day increase for some, through to $29 per day for the rest (depending on circumstances).
That could include fixing the maximum basic rate to never less than 35 percent of male ordinary time earnings (the best community standard).
The CAPP aims to shift all pensioners above the poverty line to at least a “modest” standard of living.
You can sign the petition at this link.
Campaign Against Pensioner Poverty
3 December 2025
Socialists, just merge already!
With the Australian Electoral Commission blocking the Socialist Party from registering under the name “Socialist Party” on the grounds that it is too similar to “Socialist Alliance,” the question of socialist unity has once again been forced onto the agenda.
The AEC defends this undemocratic restriction by claiming it prevents voters from mistakenly assuming an association between organisations that are formally unaffiliated. Maybe the AEC has a point here!
What are the political differences between Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Party? For a socialist organisation to justify its separate existence, it must do so on the basis of a distinct program. If it cannot, then it has no purpose beyond the petty sectarianism of its leadership. I doubt that members of either organisation could convincingly explain this separation to anyone outside their immediate milieu without resorting to insults rather than politics.
In practice, the politics of the Socialist Party and Socialist Alliance are virtually identical. Both operate on a fundamentally left-Laborite, reformist program and both pursue an electoral strategy. Socialist Alliance has nothing to lose by merging with the Socialist Party, and the socialist movement as a whole has everything to gain.
More recently, there has been an interesting turn of events. According to correspondence from Socialist Alliance’s national office, the Socialist Party’s executive appears to have abandoned the conference position of allowing Socialist Alliance uncontested runs in certain electorates. Instead, they have adopted the Communist Caucus position: to contest the same seats and openly struggle for political hegemony.
Whether this shift reflects the opportunism of the Socialist Party leadership, the sectarianism of Socialist Alliance or the vindication of the Communist Caucus’s motions will become clearer in the coming weeks. What is already clear, however, is that the socialist movement cannot advance through fragmentation, electoral manoeuvring, or unprincipled coexistence. The only viable path forward for the socialist movement is socialist unity based on program, not on branding.
Simon Blow
Melbourne
17 November 2025
Laborism can’t act to even save itself: lessons of the coup
I am trying to work out whether Hamish McPerson’s review of a pamphlet about the working class response to the coup that brought down the Whitlam government is worth reading.
I was in my early days of activism and just 13 months before the coup I had joined the Communist Party of Australia. I was teaching at Taperoo High School in South Australia and in the weeks leading up to November 11th I had engaged in hundreds of discussions in and outside of working hours about what was really being organised and why.
Much coincided with the escalation of the Indonesian army’s invasion and occupation of East Timor that had been accepted, maybe assisted, by the Whitlam Labor government. Much discussion also involved the role of the USA, especially because of Pine Gap, in the coup’s machinations.
I remember clearly the ALP membership’s dismay and frustration with the the Party machine’s handling of the growing crisis. The members were way ahead of the machine in standing up for Australian sovereignty. The CPA did everything possible with limited resources to shift that into effective counter-mobilisation.
There is more detail but a stand-out feature: the CPA produced and distributed its national newspaper, Tribune, as a daily. Except for a small group in Sydney paid on award rates, that was done voluntarily by CPA members. Union officials and activists grasped it every day. (I am pretty sure that the complete set is available at Trove online.)
The ALP machine, with all of its resources, couldn’t match it. The small sect-like left played no effective strategic role, except to tell everyone their way was the only, but played a good role in publicising major events to defend the government.
As a learner what stood out for me was how inadequate the Labor Party itself was in standing up a) for its own interests, and b) for basic principles about democratic parliamentary governance, sovereignty and Australian identity. They were like rabbits blinded in the headlights, despite the earthy grasp of reality in its trade union base.
I have no doubt the ALP machine in the party and through the union movement prevented a popular rising that would have saved the government. That rising would not have been revolutionary but nevertheless a powerful expression of democratic intent.
Hawke was just one figure who helped put a stop to it, after all who knows what the masses might learn about such activity for future application? Then, just a few years later in South Australia, when Labor Premier Don Dunstan sacked the Police Commissioner for lying to the government about secret police activities against citizens, the ALP “rabbits in the headlights” syndrome returned.
The Liberals organised mass rallies to attack the Dunstan and bring down the Labor government. The ALP machine completely failed to work out what to do. It took a popular meeting of very broad forces, started off by the CPA and some non-aligned activists, to build a labour-based popular defence of Dunstan’s decision and his government.
We had to save the government and basic, although limited, democratic principles, because the Labor machine did not know, or want to know, what to do. That core fault line remains in modern laborism.
Don Sutherland
Tasmania
10 November 2025
Not prolier than thou
I am writing to the Tribune as an avid reader, a young person and an activist within the Labor Party.
The Tribune is exactly what Labor should be about, focusing on issues impacting both the Australian and international working class. Channelling this through advocacy for a socialist republicanism, militant unionism and fierce criticism of both the Left and Right factions for their abject failure to advocate in the interests for working people.
This publication can help young activists in the party engage in socialist theory and contemporary issues through a genuinely Marxist lens. What I like most about the Tribune is it’s not afraid to be open in its support for working people and anti-imperialism from within the [ALP].
Partyism may only be one part of the process, but it is a critical part of the process to get more activists and unionists from within the party to engage with Marxist thinking.
One of the things I like most about this publication is not shying away from parliamentarism as a step toward socialism, unlike many prolier than thou organisations. It’s critically necessary to attain political power to amplify and empower working class people and trade unions to build toward the needed transition toward socialism.
A Queensland Young Labor Member
11 November 2025
Confronting the arms expo at Darling Harbour
The Sydney Anti-AUKUS Coalition (SAAC) mobilised 21 organisations to sponsor a peaceful protest at the International Convention Centre (ICC) at Sydney’s Darling Harbour on the morning of 4 November, 2025. Given it was a workday we were pleased that some 100 people joined the two-hour protest.
We had wanted to hold it in front of the International Convention Centre. But only days before we were told it had to be held in the “designated area” – Tumbalong Park.
We were annoyed, of course, but we knew that it would be difficult to build the numbers that would be needed for a serious challenge to the anti-protest laws which cover Darling Harbour.
From 8.30am through to 10.30am, speakers addressed the new and dangerous arms race, the deadly AUKUS pact aimed at a war with China, the immorality and illegality of Australian weapons’ exports to Israel, Indonesia, the Philippines and many other countries, and the underlying sexism and racism of militarism and nuclear weapons.
Our focus was on the politics of the weapons expo in a time of genocide.
Prominent speakers from the Greens, Labor Against War, the Maritime Union, Wollongong Against War and Nukes, Wage Peace, WILPF and IPAN explained how the genocide in Gaza, the push for catastrophic war with China, the Expo and the alliance with the US are all interconnected.
Militant socialist organisations – the Communist Party, Socialist Alliance and Solidarity – emphasised the Australian people’s anti-war record and the community’s capacity to organise to stop the drive to war and to challenge the deadly threat from Australia’s military alliance with the United States. Speakers called for real action on climate and housing instead of an arms race.
The rally ended with the Pop Up Peace Singers and a collective photo shoot.
Two weeks before the protest, the Palestine Action Group and Students for Palestine decided to focus on a ‘blockade’ of the expo and about 300 people took part in that effort.
Police responded violently, and came armed with pepper spray. Just after 8am, they used such a large amount inside the designated protest area, the cloud affected everyone inside and outside Tumbalong Park. Twelve people were arrested and face charges; two have been refused bail.
The police’s use of pepper spray on protesters was totally unjustified and we intend to lodge a formal complaint. Their heavy handedness landed one woman in hospital with a fractured tibia.
Predictably, the mainstream media focused on clashes with protesters rather than government support for corporations associated with genocide in Gaza being invited to the Expo.
Despite the difficult circumstances, SAAC did its best to articulate the broad concerns a widespread section of Australian society, including that this weapons Expo made NSW Labor more complicit in the Gaza genocide.
We will continue to reach out to build the coalition we need to cancel AUKUS and all its associated militarism, while remining active in the movement to stop the genocide in Gaza. Get in touch if you’d like to help out.
Peter Murphy, Pip Hinman, Denis Doherty
Sydney Anti-AUKUS Coalition
5 November 2025
Genuine change needed in the ALP
The Labor Party need not be a bourgeois workers’ party, nor need it be one that capitulates to capitalism, or does not challenge the Trump administration, or cheerleader the status quo of the monarchy, a fading relique of a foregone era. There can be genuine change from within the party.
When I first joined the Labor Party, I appreciated the aspects of intersectionality and progressive values within the ALP. I still strongly affirm an intersectional approach and lens to analyse and address other forms of oppression and discrimination (gender, sexuality, race, religion, neurodiversity, weight, age, ability, etc). These could be seen as an extension of Marxist thought to other aspects of privilege or lack thereof. It can also help to prevent hierarchies of social privilege and discrimination within the working class.
While these things are important, they should never be a distraction from core principle of Marxism such as the liberation of the proletariat from the predominately capitalist controlled establishment, which can influence culture and is a primary root causes of exploitation for the working class and others. Without affirming the central goal of transition from capitalism to a democratic socialist society, intersectionality cannot be truly achieved as a natural extension of Marxism.
Thankfully, I think I found what I was looking for within the ALP as a member. I am glad to have just become involved in and supportive of the Labor Tribune, an authentically democratic socialist alternative (not SAlt) advocating for international solidarity, a democratic republic and for the needs of the many, not the few.
As it operates within the Australian Labor Party and the labour movement it does not compromise or capitulate to the status quo, but is broad enough to encompass and foster free discussion and debate with many views across the Marxist spectrum such as my own Anglican ‘Christian Left’ perspective which is grounded on core Christian beliefs and in turn on many core principles of Marxism (dialectical materialism, Marxist analysis, etc.) which I see as mutually compatible and build off of them.
Giles P.
ALP Member
3 November 2025
Graham Richardson: won’t be missed
The death of Graham Richardson, who personified the core ALP rightwing politics that power is everything and political principle is nothing or only gets in the way, reminds us that there truly are some people who set out to leave the world a worse place than they found it, if only to empower and enrich themselves.
That the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, would issue a statement saying that after his stint in parliament Richardson remained a ‘thoughtful, perceptive and engaged observer’ in the service of Packer and Murdoch; and that he was a ‘giant of the Labor Party’ is unfortunately deeply unsurprising.
Andrew
Sydney
9 November 2025
Anarchists: property is theft!!
It appears that Australia’s anarchist community has taken to heart the anarchist maxim that “property is theft”, coined by one of the founders of anarchism, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (not by Marx as many falsely believe).
According to the ‘Leftist Trainspotters’ page on Facebook, the Australian section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) – the Wobblies – has stolen the website domain name of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation (International Workers Association).
If you go to asf-iwa.org, you get redirected to … the Wobblies’ Australian page (iww.org.au). It seems the Wobblies (IWW) registered their anarchist rival’s name on 1 April 2025, no joke.
Never fear, the ASF registered asf-iwa.org.au on 18 July 2025, so they keep their shingle hanging.
Who said it was just Trotskyists who don’t get along with each other.
Michael
Brisbane
2 November 2025
Margaret Reynolds corresponds
Congratulations on establishing Labor Tribune.
It brings together so many in the labour movement who want to see Labor governments remember their history . We all understand there are certain pragmatic decisions that will be made in government, but Labor governments have a responsibility to lead reform as well.
Too much recent decision making is cautious and conservative and this is alienating both young and old who expect so much more from the progressive side of politics.
I am confident Labor Tribune will contribute to giving Labor governments the courage to dare to reform in the interests of a really egalitarian Australia .
Margaret Reynolds, former ALP Senator
National Patron, Labor Against War
Tasmania
14 October 2025
Change needed in the labour movement
I am very pleased by the entry of the Labor Tribune into the ecosystem of leftwing discourse in our society. As a member of the ALP, I find myself often defending my personal position against others on the left with whom I tend to align more closely than with the party I am committed to supporting.
Electorally, I do believe that pragmatism and compromise are useful tools. And I have no qualms about saying so. What bothers me is when it is not matched by an impetus to change the electorate, and move the debate onto ground from which the party can argue for its stated objectives. I see these two problems as the same.
A Labor Party content, at best, to confine itself to realpolitik, and would-be comrades who disparage the ALP (and its members) as illegitimate and vitiated.
I commend your publication for recognising and organising to effect necessary change in the labour movement. I hope it can bring together the party and disaffected lefties to the empowerment of both. I will be sharing it to those ends.
Emil Chandran
ALP member
25 October 2025
Affordable rental housing – a scam
Affordable rental housing (ARH) being promoted by NSW Labor Gov is a scam!!
This research is using conservative measurable economic figures. It does not account for the negative impact of ARH contributing to higher median open market rates.
A recent paper commissioned by Shelter NSW demonstrates that up to 80 percent of ARH uplift benefit goes to developers. Just 20 percent of the benefit goes to the public as ARH for 15 years.
Yes, even the 20 percent benefit is dubious. The ARH rental in many areas (like Sutherland) is still above median rental rates and in effect raises the median open market rate!
As The Sydney Morning Herald has reported, only 550 rentals in Sydney are affordable. Median is clearly not affordable!
And the new developments are knocking down and not replacing in kind, the genuinely affordable red and blonde brick walk up units 400m from town centres.
Double whammy: watch “low and mid-rise housing” reforms and “transport-oriented development” completely strip us of genuinely affordable rental.
SD
ALP member, Sydney
20 October 2025
Pasifika solidarity
Mālō comrades,
This letter is part congratulations and part encouragement from one socialist publication to another. It is incredibly important that the socialist left in Australia puts forward a sound, Marxist program for the emancipation of the working class. Labor Tribune is an important project to give a voice to Marxists in the Labor Party who struggle against the reformist socialism of the rotten leadership of Albanese and co.
Temokalati [“Democracy”] was established on similar grounds: except our arena of struggle is the Pacific, instead of the Labor Party. Pasifika workers are overwhelmingly exploited in Australia, as are many other workers of minority and oppressed nationalities (including those from Southeast Asia). We recently saw Australia and Tuvalu sign a treaty allowing Tuvaluans to enter Australia with permanent residency – this was motivated primarily by the climate crisis, in which rising sea levels threaten to engulf Tuvalu, among other Pacific island countries. This climate crisis, of course, is being accelerated by the big imperialist countries such as Australia.
We aim to provide a socialist voice to pro-democracy forces in the Pacific. The democratic movements of the Pacific too have rotten leadership, from church ministers to bourgeois lawyers and business owners. In Tonga especially, working people languish under an oppressive, suppressive, and repressive royalist regime, in which working people do not have the democratic rights and freedoms that we take for granted in the liberal democratic (imperialist) countries.
We send comradely greetings to Labor Tribune, and hope both of our publications have a long and prosperous run, ideally ending with some kind of revolution establishing a democratic workers republic, at which point our publications would most likely become redundant. We are unsure of how many Pasifika workers are members or supporters of the Australian Labor Party, but we encourage them to read Labor Tribune alongside ourselves.
Max (on behalf of Temokalati)
15 October 2025
No risk to banks in First Home Guarantee
Marcus Strom’s piece succinctly gets to the fundamental issue at the centre of the housing crisis: the utter capitulation by the state to capital markets in determining housing outcomes. As such, I need to add very little other than: 1) the real beneficiaries of the scheme are the lender and capital more generally and, 2) to emphasise the point that structural homelessness and debt enslavement are deliberate features of a system that sets worker against worker and uses fear and greed as instruments of social control.
The second point is self-evident to anyone paying attention, only the first requires further elaboration. Comrade Strom is correct in his argument that the inducement to become further financially stressed as a result of taking up this scheme is a likely outcome for those at whom this policy is notionally targeting. Yet the mortgage lender is free to make higher loan-to-value (LTV) loans up to 95-98% with even lower risk exposure than a standard 80% LTV mortgage, assured that the government will underwrite any default and keep the whole rotten scheme rolling along as lending volumes increase and the Banks get more customers, paying more interest.
Under capitalism, ‘the House always wins.’
Mal Dale
Leichhardt ALP branch, Sydney
14 October 2025
Sectarianism and solidarity
Socialist movements have always been prone to splits and disagreements. Yet solidarity is the essential condition for working-class power. Even the Liberal Party – a party of individualists – understands the importance of collective discipline to exercise power. The left, meanwhile, remains fractured among multiple parties and organisations, often more focused on asserting internal purity than working together toward shared goals.
This contradiction – our dependence on solidarity alongside a tendency toward sectarianism – is the Achilles heel of socialist organising in Australia. Every time the movement grows, unresolved tensions resurface, producing another split.
We can’t expect historic organisations to suddenly merge, but we can rebuild relationships between them. Most divisions are sustained by mistrust between leaders, which in turn poisons organisational relations. Rebuilding trust requires vulnerability – extending small, low-risk gestures of cooperation and allowing others the chance to reciprocate.
The Socialist Alliance model, effectively replicated with some changes through Victorian Socialists and interstate counterparts, has always been subject to the domination of one group in some form. There is both a need and a desire to organise more effectively across organisations.
Labor Tribune’s recent piece on the Socialist Alternative and Solidarity split (28 September 2025) points to opportunities for collaboration – such as joint actions supporting Palestine – where common ground clearly exists.
People are drawn to movements that work constructively with others. Consistent demonstrations of solidarity strengthen credibility; consistent refusal to cooperate isolates.
To embed this spirit, I propose a simple council of socialist organisations, with representation from each group, whose sole purpose is to identify opportunities for joint action. This minimalist structure would help ensure solidarity remains a living priority rather than a rhetorical one.
The contradictions of capitalism will bring it down, but we need to resolve our own contradictions so that we might build enough power to move the corpse of the current system.
Stephen McCallum, Tasmania
12 October 2025
Congratulations from ‘Purplepingers’
Dear comrades,
I’m writing to congratulate you on this project. This is a positive development that has been required for some time.
There is no need to relitigate a principled criticism of the ALP and its unwavering support of the capitalist system in this letter – as members you would be acutely aware of the various and pressing issues facing not only the party, but the working class oppressed by that same party here and abroad.
It is refreshing to see what appears to be a principled Marxist project forming rather than simply another campaign group titled “Labor against <insert something horrific the Labor party is doing here>” or “Labor for <insert something the Labor party is doing its very best to destroy here>”. Though these various campaign groups have been necessary, they do little to achieve what is probably the most important aspect of this project – steps towards Marxist unity.
I have many reservations about this project, but I am glad it is happening and commend the project’s aim to work with the broader left and reject a sectarian approach to the struggle. Whether this aim is purely a statement or will be put into practice is yet to be revealed, but I’d like to offer my support where I can provide it without being unprincipled in nature, and I hope that others do the same.
If the project has concrete goals or campaigns it would like to work together on, I encourage those behind the Labor Tribune and its audience to reach across the aisle, noting that many on the left will be rightly wary of the bright red badge its members will be carrying.
The task before you is a difficult one, both to convince those within the Labor Party of the Tribune’s worth as well as the socialists outside of it. You will likely face sectarian opposition from the outside and reactionary opposition from within. It is my hope that sectarian opposition withers away – and if the reactionary opposition assumes the form of your expulsion from the party, I believe there is a certain Socialist Party that would have you.
I’ll end this letter with an amended quote from the Labor Tribune’s article titled, ‘Dear comrades: Comintern to CPA in 1922’:
While the fight for coherent working class politics must take place outside the ALP, for socialists within the ALP it is beholden on them to get their house in order to take the struggle forward, united.
In solidarity,
Jordan van den Lamb, aka ‘purplepingers’
Victorian Socialists (personal capacity)
30 September 2025
Should Labor campaign to nationalise Optus?
I’m a member of NSW Labor and the NSW Left who identifies as a socialist because I believe in socialising industry and building a workers’ democracy. The recent 000 outage from Optus – the second in just a few years, with deadly consequences – shows again that penalties slapped on these corporations are little more than a cost of doing business. They aren’t real accountability.
That’s why I asked fellow ALP branch members online whether they’d be moving motions to call for the nationalisation of Optus. I know nationalising a company isn’t automatically socialism, but in this case it’s clearly a question of the public good. If critical communications infrastructure fails, lives are at risk.
Of course, the question is always raised: can we even do it? After the High Court’s 1948 Bank Nationalisation Case, constitutional barriers exist in Section 92 and Section 51(xxxi). But are socialists in the Labor Party willing to test that? Shouldn’t we be discussing how to push for a referendum to amend the Constitution so that governments can nationalise critical services when they are in the public interest?
I know bipartisan support would be hard to win, but the more important question is whether Labor’s socialist wing is prepared to fight for it. Are we going to make the case inside the party that corporate control over essential services costs lives, and that public ownership is the only guarantee of safety and accountability?
To me, that’s what being a socialist in Labor has to mean: putting nationalisation and democratic workers’ control back on the agenda.
Josh L.
Shellharbour Barrack Heights branch
22 September 2025