Socialist Party of Australia
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Socialist Party
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| Leader | Collective Leadership (National Committee) |
| Founded | 1985 (as Militant) |
| Headquarters | Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne |
| Newspaper | The Socialist |
| Ideology |
Revolutionary socialism Marxism Trotskyism |
| Political position | Far-left |
| International affiliation | Committee for a Workers' International |
| Colours | Red |
| Website | |
| www.socialistpartyaustralia.org | |
The Socialist Party (SP) is a Trotskyist political party in Australia affiliated with the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI). The SP currently has two branches in Melbourne. It publishes a monthly magazine called The Socialist which contains a socialist perspective on news and current issues.
The Socialist Party (Australia) traces its influences through the British Trotyskyist Militant group which organized within the UK Labour Party. It began in 1985 as a small faction within the Australian Labor Party (ALP), when members who had lived in Britain and become members of British Militant returned to Australia to help build an Australian section of the organisation.
The group was originally known as Militant. At that time the ALP was seen by Militant as having "maintained its internal democracy and its active working class membership base", and so they participated politically within that party. They organised primarily within the New South Wales trade union movement and Young Labor (the youth wing of the ALP). At one point, Militant had control of three Young Labor branches.
During the early 1990s when the ALP and most social democratic parties internationally moved to the right, and after other Marxist groups (including their sister party British Militant) were expelled by Labour parties overseas, Militant left the ALP. They wrote that by that stage it had "played a key role in the introduction of neo-liberal policies and no longer has democratic structures that ensure workers interests are represented".
After leaving the ALP, the group became known as the Militant Socialist Organisation before becoming the Socialist Party in line with its counterpart in the UK (in 1996 the unrelated group that used to be called the "Socialist Party of Australia" from 1971 changed its name). The name of the organisation's monthly newspaper was changed from The Voice to The Socialist, and in May 2012 the 8-page broadsheet format was changed to a longer magazine format.
Socialist Party has one branch in Victoria and individual members across the country. It actively campaigns on a range of issues, and holds regular branch meetings open to the public. It argues for revolutionary socialist politics, while also participating in election campaigns, and has had two local councilors elected from its Melbourne branches, in the City of Yarra. It continues to argue for the establishment of a new 'mass worker's party' to replace the ALP, based on trade unionism, community participation and a democratic membership.
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