The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) will hold a public meeting on Sunday, November 1, to launch its campaign for the November 28 Victorian state election, which is taking place amid an unprecedented crisis of the established political parties and mounting hostility to the entire political establishment.
The SEP is standing Morgan Peach and Peter Byrne in the Northern Metropolitan region to tell workers and young people the truth about the critical issues being buried by every other party. Our campaign advances a socialist and internationalist perspective against war, austerity, authoritarianism and the rise of the far right.
Meeting details:
WHEN: Sunday, November 1, 2:30 p.m.
WHERE: Kirrip Community Centre, 135 De Rossi Blvd, Wollert VIC 3750
Register to attend: Register to save your seat
Join online via Zoom: Register for Zoom attendance
The election is being conducted as though the threat of a catastrophic global war does not exist. Yet the Albanese Labor government, with the Coalition’s support, is integrating Australia ever more deeply into US-led military operations and preparations for wider conflict, from the Middle East and Ukraine to the confrontation with China.
The vast resources being devoted to militarism and corporate profits are being paid for through an escalating offensive against workers’ living standards. The federal Labor government is savaging the NDIS, while Victorian Labor is imposing billions in spending cuts amid the deterioration of public healthcare, education and housing.
These policies have fuelled mass hostility to Labor and the Coalition, whose combined support has fallen to historic lows. The far-right One Nation is exploiting this anger, scapegoating immigrants and refugees for the social crisis created by decades of capitalist governments. The Greens and pseudo-left Victorian Socialists offer no alternative, seeking to channel opposition back into the parliamentary framework and behind Labor.
Whatever the election outcome, workers face a government committed to further attacks. The alternative must be developed through the independent political mobilisation of the working class.
Throughout 2026, Victorian teachers, nurses, doctors, allied health workers and others have taken action against real wage cuts and intolerable conditions. But their struggles have been isolated and suppressed by union bureaucracies working closely with the Labor government.
These struggles are part of an emerging international movement of the working class against austerity, militarism and repression. In France, mass protests and strikes have brought workers and young people into confrontation with the government, with opposition increasingly spreading across Europe. This developing movement demonstrates the potential for a unified struggle against the capitalist system.
The SEP fights to mobilise workers against Labor, the union bureaucracies and all capitalist parties. We call for rank-and-file committees, democratically controlled by workers, to take struggles out of the hands of the union apparatuses and unite them across industries and national borders.
The SEP is not standing to secure parliamentary positions, but to build the socialist movement of the working class. This means fighting for workers’ power and the socialist reorganisation of society to meet human need, not private profit.
At the campaign launch, our candidates will explain why the election offers no solution to the deepening crisis, how the fight against war and austerity can be taken forward, and why building an independent socialist movement of the working class is the urgent task. We urge workers and young people to attend, participate in the discussion and join the SEP’s election campaign.
Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Level 1/457-459 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW, 2010, Australia.