Photo above: The suffering of Gaza’s people caused by Israel’s genocidal terror. Displaced Palestinian children are seen among temporary tents next to large piles of garbage in Gaza City on March 21 2025.
Photo: Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua

How We Can Resist the Australian Regime’s
Participation in Israel’s Terror

and its Support for Western Imperialist
Interference in the Middle East

14 April 2025 – The Israeli military’s cold-blooded March 23 murder of 15 Palestinian medics and emergency workers who were travelling in two convoys of clearly marked ambulances says everything about the genocidal aims of its war on Gaza’s people. Every day, the Zionist butchers commit new gruesome crimes. Yet Israel would not be able to wage its war on the Palestinian people without the massive support that it receives from the U.S., German, British and Australian regimes. It is not only in Palestine that these regimes are causing immense suffering within the Middle East region. Over the last four weeks, the Donald Trump-led U.S. regime, with the assistance of its British and Australian counterparts, has been relentlessly bombing Yemen. These forces have killed a large number of Yemeni civilians, killing at least 31 of her people, mostly women and children, in just the first day of this latest wave of attacks on March 16. This operation not only seeks to stop Yemen’s brave actions in support of the Palestinian people but also aims to crush one of the only two remaining governments in the Middle East that are not under the thumb of the Western imperialists. The other remaining relatively independent state is Iran. But Trump is now threatening war against Iran too. There had been one other relatively independent government in the region – in Syria. But that government was ousted last December by a collection of “Rebel” proxies of the U.S., British and French imperialists and their Turkish, Qatari, Israeli, Saudi and Jordanian allies. The forces that the imperialists and their allies have brought to power in Syria are dominated by Al Qaeda-derived anti-secular extremists who are fanatically determined to subjugate women. This new Syrian regime’s forces have already massacred thousands of members of Syria’s Alawi minority. They have also attacked the country’s Christian and Druze communities, constricted the rights of women and subverted the country’s previously secular education system. The regime has also begun a Trump/Elon Musk-style mass firing of Syria’s public sector workers, while stating (actually re-stating) its intention to privatise most of Syria’s state-owned enterprises. This will “open” up the Syrian economy to much greater super-exploitation by Western investors and their counterparts in the Gulf states.

What the imperialists and their proxies are doing to re-shape Syria is closely connected to their limitless support for Israel’s tyranny over Palestine. For the ruling classes of the capitalist powers support Israel precisely because the Zionists are its most reliable attack dogs in the region who enforce their hegemony over the oil-rich and strategically located Middle East. Thus, Israel played a major role in the imperialists’ operation to bring its proxies to power in Syria. The Israeli military not only relentlessly attacked the previous government’s forces with air and missile strikes, it also armed and paid the salaries of at least twelve different armed “Rebel” factions based in the south of Syria. Today, Israel is its U.S. masters’ main attack dog to try and subjugate oil-rich Iran under U.S.-led Western domination.

We need to wage a powerful struggle to resist the Australian regime’s support for Israel’s genocidal terror against the Palestinian people and to resist the hegemony of the Western imperialists and their Zionist and other junior partners over the broader Middle East. Leftists in Australia have a big role to play in this regard. For the Australian regime is a major contributor to the military operations of the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East. The joint U.S./Australia satellite ground station at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, is used by the U.S. to help its own military and that of its allies to locate targets for their missile, artillery and drone strikes. Today, the Pine Gap spy base is used to direct U.S. attacks in Yemen and Iraq. Pine Gap’s target data is also passed on real time to Israel to ensure that the bombs and missiles that the Zionist military unleashes on Gaza kill Palestinian people rather than fall on open space or empty buildings. It is likely too that through U.S. membership of NATO, Pine Gap spy data is also passed on through NATO to NATO member Turkey. Meanwhile, Australia’s air bases in northern Australia have been used to host aircraft conducting air-to-air refuelling of U.S. B-2 bombers attacking Yemen. When the Joe Biden-led U.S. regime bombed Yemen last October, the Australian regime bragged about the role played by Australian air bases in the attack. In addition to the undoubted role of Australian-hosted Pine Gap, it is likely that Australian air bases are also supporting the new Trump-led U.S. administration’s even more brutal bombing campaign against Yemen. However, given local anger at Trump’s tariffs that have hit Australia among other countries, the ruling class did not consider it opportune to boast about its role in facilitating this new wave of U.S. attacks on Yemen. In any case, in a mission dubbed Operation Hydranth, the Australian military has several personnel in the Middle East directly participating in the U.S. and British led assaults on Yemen. Meanwhile, Australian companies sell military equipment and supplies to Israel and continue to seek to expand this provision of support to the genocidal Zionist military. Earlier this year, Australian defence company EOS had its advanced weapon system trialled by the Israeli military as part of a bid to win a contract to supply it with counter-drone weapons. The Australian regime for its part boosts Israel’s arms providers. In February last year, the Australian military awarded a nearly $917 million contract to Israel’s biggest arms producer, Elbit Systems – known for supplying Israeli forces with killer drones and mortars. Australia’s capitalist rulers also support the U.S.-led drive to subjugate Iran. Thus, with the support of all the parties and “independents” currently in parliament, the Australian government has hit Iran with sanctions. Sometimes, Canberra disguises these as measures against the Iranian government’s repressive and anti-women policies. But Australia’s rulers care nothing for the Iranian masses. Their real goal is to support the U.S. and Israeli drive to bring Iran to heel. This was proven last October, when the Australian government unleashed new sanctions on Iran in response to her 100% justifiable, retaliatory missile strike on Israel. 

The Left and politically advanced sections of the workers movement must mobilise in mass actions to demand: Close Pine Gap! No refuelling or hosting of U.S. warplanes from Australian bases! Australian troops involved in the operation against Yemen: Get out of the Middle East! Lift the Australian regime’s “terror” listing of Hamas and Hezbollah! No military sales to Israel! Cancel Australian contracts to Israeli arms suppliers! Lift the sanctions on Iran! Down with the Australian regime’s attacks on pro-Palestine activists! It is possible to win sections of the Australian working class to fight for this agenda because doing so is in the very interests of the working class. When the power and authority of the capitalist rulers is strengthened, like it was when their side took over Syria, they are more able to get away at home with attacking militant unions, curbing leftist dissent, demonising Aboriginal youth and scapegoating refugees and immigrants. On the other hand, any setbacks to the Western imperialists – who the Australian ruling class are part of – in Palestine, Yemen, Iran and the broader Middle East will weaken the Australian capitalist rulers at home too and, thus, give the working class and all oppressed more possibilities to win struggles against this exploiting class.

What We Must Do to Re-Shape the Pro-Palestine Movement So That It Becomes Much More Effective

It is important to understand why the Australian rulers are so avidly assisting U.S. intervention in the Middle East. The reason is not because they are servile to the U.S. rulers. As we are seeing with the very different stance taken by the Australian government and that of the Trump Administration over the Ukraine war, the Australian regime acts in the interests of Australia’s billionaires and other capitalist exploiters and not the American ones. Australia’s rulers want U.S. power to be defended and enhanced only because it is U.S. might that helps protect the Australian ruling class’ own imperialist plunder in what it claims as its “own backyard” – that is the southwest Pacific and southeast Asian region. So they naturally back the U.S. maintaining its hegemony over the strategic Middle East and inevitably back the U.S. rulers’ Zionist attack dogs. Like the other imperialists around the world, Australia’s ruling class is counting on the U.S. rulers to spearhead the Cold War campaign to destroy socialistic rule in China and, thus, wants the U.S. capitalist superpower to remain strong for this reason too. Therefore, when the Australian capitalist ruling class backs U.S. operations in the Middle East, they are ultimately doing so with the intention of advancing their own predatory imperialist interests.

The potential to mobilise resistance to Australian ruling class support for Israel’s genocidal onslaught and the broader Western hegemony over the Middle East is shown by the fact that hundreds of thousands of people, outraged at Western support for Israel’s genocidal crimes, have joined pro-Palestine marches in Australia over the last year and a half. But for this potential to be realised the political direction of this spirited movement must be properly oriented. To be sure, there have been strongly positive aspects to the political content of the protests. Aboriginal speakers in particular have rightly drawn the connection between Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the Australian rulers’ brutal subjugation of this country’s First Peoples. Some of the rally chants – like “Albanese You Can’t Hide – We Charge You with Genocide” – have powerfully exposed the Albanese Labor government’s complicity in Israel’s massacres of Palestinian people. However, there is another component of the movement pushing a, at bottom, very different slant. Promoted most openly by Greens politicians who address the pro-Palestine events, this stance appeals to the Australian government to “do a lot more” to support the Palestinians. Although accompanied by passionate – and in the case of speakers like federal Greens senator, Mehreen Faruqi, truly heartfelt – appeals for the government to put sanctions on Israel and condemnations of the Australian government “for doing very little” to solidarise with the Palestinian people, the effect of this “doing very little” apparent criticism of the government is to cover up the fact that the Australian regime is actually doing a lot – a lot, that is, to support Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, the futile appeals that the Greens and those Far-Left groups that tail after them make for “Australia to put sanctions on Israel” – something that will never happen while Australia remains under capitalist rule and Israel remains a crucial attack dog for Australia’s U.S. senior partner – distracts from the urgent need for mass actions to oppose the ten different means by which the Australian regime is today actively supporting Israel’s terror. To see how urgent this task is we should point out this important fact: no other regime ruling over a country with Australia’s population size or smaller does as much to support Israeli terror and U.S. hegemony over the Middle East as the Australian regime does.

In part, the Greens minimisation of the Australian regime’s crimes, even while delivering it in the tone of an angry denunciation, stems from the fact that the Greens are a capitalists-including, capitalism-accepting party that, like the ALP and the conservatives, wants to protect the image of the capitalist Australian state. So, they feel more comfortable criticising the government “for doing very little” than skewering the large amount of genocide-supporting crimes that the regime is actually committing. There is another reason that the Greens do not want to focus too much on the actual ways that the Australian regime is supporting Israel’s onslaught against the Palestinian people and the U.S. domination of the Middle East that underpins it. The Greens actually back some of these Australian government policies themselves! For example, the Greens support Australian government sanctions on Iran and have often demanded that these sanctions be escalated. Indeed, when Israel bombed Iran a year ago, the Greens refused to stand in clear solidarity with Iran but instead despicably called on the government to “condemn all sides”. Moreover, in some other cases, the Greens, while not openly supporting particular Australian government measures backing U.S. and Israeli tyranny over the Middle East, nevertheless refuse to oppose those measures. For instance, the Greens have failed to oppose the Australian regime’s participation in the U.S. and British-led operation against Yemeni supporters of Palestine. The Greens also refuse to call for the lifting of the Australian regime’s listing of Hamas and Hezbollah as “terrorists”, a ban which is very harmful because it impedes Arab and Muslim Australians and other residents of Australia from sending these anti-Israel groups badly needed funds to finance their resistance operations. Indeed, while Greens politicians are keen to appear intransigent supporters of the Palestinian people when speaking at pro-Palestine rallies, all the better to gain votes from amongst the large crowds of participants, their actual stance towards the Palestinian armed resistance is hardly supportive. Several Greens statements in parliament have despicably equated the war crimes of the coloniser state Israel with the resistance actions of the largest Palestinian armed group, Hamas. For example, last June, Greens Spokesperson for Peace and Foreign Affairs, Senator Jordon Steele-John stated: “Our nation must respond to the State of Israel’s crimes in the same way we have rightfully responded to those committed by Hamas.” He further added: “We must always remember that peace is the goal and a just and lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis has been made so much harder to achieve through the actions of the State of Israel and Hamas.” Notably, the Greens have also been aggressively demanding that Palestinian resistance groups release the Israeli hostages that they are holding (some of whom are Israeli soldiers), a demand that has been used by the Israeli and U.S. regimes as a big part of their justification for attacking Gaza. To be sure, it would better if there were no such hostages, at least civilian ones (however the Greens ought to be more energetic in demanding that the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners being held hostage in Israeli jails in horrific conditions be released). However, in the context of bloodthirsty Netanyahu and his even more extreme coalition allies wanting the hostages released so that they can pummel Gaza still more ferociously, to publicly demand that Palestinian resistance groups release the Israeli hostages is to call for placing the people of Gaza under even greater danger of annihilation. 

We must wage a political struggle within the pro-Palestine movement to stop the Greens and other pro-capitalist tendencies from diverting and distracting the movement away from the key task of opposing each of the actions that the Australian ruling class takes to support the Zionist war machine and the U.S. hegemony over the Middle East that this terror machine rests on. There is another political problem that needs to be corrected in the pro-Palestine movement. Significant parts of the movement promote the notion – or otherwise mistakenly believe – that the only reason that the Australian government is supporting Israel is because it is a puppet of the U.S. and/or a puppet of Zionist lobbyists. This notion is, for starters, plain wrong. For although the U.S. rulers and the pro-Israel lobby exert a nefarious influence, what primarily drives Australian government policy on the Middle East (and everywhere else) is the strategic interests of this country’s own super-powerful, ultra-rich exploiting class. The biggest problem with this notion is that it implies that the task of the movement is merely to pull the Australian government away from the clutches of the U.S. rulers and the detestable pro-Zionist lobbyists so that the government can finally act on its own supposed, innate, caged-up, “human rights”-driven inclination to come to the defence of the besieged Palestinian people. Such a notion greatly prettifies the Australian rulers – the same ones that continue to brutally subjugate this country’s First Peoples – and undercuts the need to relentlessly oppose them. Moreover, when the Australian ruling class hear the pro-Palestine movement delivering such a message, while it will of course anger them greatly, it won’t overly terrify them. For they will actually be relieved that the movement is not opposing them as an implacable enemy and that hard-hitting chants like “Albanese You Can’t Hide – We Charge You with Genocide” do not express the overall line of the entire movement. And when we are not politically threatening to the imperialist ruling class they do not feel like they need to make any concessions to us.

What Stance Should We Take at the Elections to Advance
Resistance to Imperialist Hegemony over the Middle East

As well as turning the pro-Palestine movement into one that truly seeks to damage the authority and political stability of Australia’s imperialist ruling class we, of course, need to build more forces for the movement. We also need to win those who join actions sporadically to participate a lot more consistently. The biggest obstacle to doing so are the widespread illusions that the Australian government’s policy on Palestine can be changed through changing the composition of parliament through elections. Such hopes have even been expressed by some speakers at the pro-Palestine protests. As the federal election nears, such vain hopes will intensify. As long as many of the people who are hostile to the imperialist West and Zionist terror cling on to hopes of change through the ballot box, they will feel that it is not too important for them to participate in the actions on the ground that they would otherwise be joining. However, the reality right now is that even if a few pro-Palestine candidates were to win some seats, the fact that both major parties so strongly back Israel’s war on Palestine – and even more overwhelmingly back the U.S. dominance over the Middle East that underpins Israel’s actions – means that supporters of Western/Israeli tyranny over the Middle East will have a parliamentary majority regardless of who has any parliamentary balance of power between the ALP and the Coalition. More fundamentally, as long as they remain in power, the rich Australian capitalist class, driven by its own imperialist needs and through both its control of the media, think tanks and other means of influencing mass sentiment, on the one hand, and its web of influence over state institutions on the other will compel any parliament to support U.S. domination of the Middle East and the Zionist marauding that flows from this. Even in the hypothetical case that anti-imperialists truly committed to the liberation of Palestine were allowed to be elected to a parliamentary majority, the propaganda machine of the capitalist class and the capitalist state’s enforcement organs would sabotage implementation of any anti-imperialist policies; and topple the government in a coup should it persist in trying to implement them. Therefore, the only effective means from here to resist Zionist tyranny and imperialist domination of the Middle East is to build mass actions, linked to the power of the workers movement (including through strikes, pickets, occupations and marches), in opposition to each of the means through which the Australian capitalist regime is backing U.S. and Israeli forces in the Middle East. We must put all our effort into building such actions and knocking down all the political obstacles standing in the way of such mobilisations.

This does not mean that how people vote is unimportant. If a party stands genuinely opposed to imperialism and the capitalist system that imperialism is an extension of then supporting that party can help galvanise mass opposition to – and thus actions against – Australian capitalist rule and its support for U.S. and Israeli tyranny in the Middle East. But where is there such a party running in the elections? We have seen so clearly through the Albanese government that the ALP leaders are enemies of the Palestinian people, supporters of the imperialist takeover of Syria and vicious attackers of militant unions like the CFMEU. The ALP supports pro-speculator, pro-rich investor housing policies that drive low-income renters into poverty, all while engaging in the racism-inciting scapegoating of migrants, refugees and international students for the unaffordable rents and dwelling prices. The right-wing Liberal/National Coalition is all of this but in an even more shameless and extreme manner. Most rabidly hostile to the Palestinian people, Aboriginal people, other people of colour and our workers unions are the far right parties like One Nation and greedy billionaire Clive Palmer’s, Donald Trump-loving, Trumpet of Patriots party.

In contrast, the Greens not only oppose Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, they also condemn racist attacks on Muslims in Australia. Moreover, the Greens do promise more low-rent public housing than Labor do and have opposed the extreme character of the attack on the CFMEU (even though the Greens joined the rest of the parliamentary parties in calling for what is necessarily union-weakening, state intervention in the CFMEU). Thus, with the ALP so blatantly knifing the back of its working class base (yet again!), many former Labor supporters from militant unionists, to low-income renters, to progressive-minded youth to opponents of Israel’s Gaza genocide are now intending to vote for the Greens. However, it is telling that while the Greens have said that they will demand support for a big increase in environmental spending as a condition for supporting an ALP minority government, they have not stated that they will only back a Labor minority government if it stops its support for Israel’s terror and the U.S. hegemony over the Middle East that underpins it. Instead, in preparation for joining a potential coalition – or de facto coalition – government with Labor, the Greens have disgustingly begun whitewashing the Albanese government’s support for Israel’s genocidal terror by saying that Labor has now “finally shifted towards the Greens position”. Really? If true, that says a lot about the Greens’ actual position (as opposed to what Greens politicians tell us when they speak at pro-Palestine rallies)! Indeed, the Greens’ acquiescence to a Labor minority government’s support for Israeli terror is par for the course for them. During Israel’s November 2012 war on Gaza, when the Australian regime was, as now, giving military support to Israeli terror, the Greens remained in a de facto coalition government with Labor.

Not only is the Greens’ support for Palestine partial as we have detailed above, on almost every single other major international issue they side with the imperialist Western powers. For example, the Greens fully backed the imperialist proxies that have now seized Syria. Indeed, of all the parliamentary parties in Australia, the Greens were the most rabid in backing these misogynist, anti-secular fanatics. They often attacked the Australian government for not being belligerent enough in supporting these pro-imperialist forces and Greens politicians even spoke at the rallies held in Australia in support of these “Rebels” before they seized power. Moreover, while the Greens nominally oppose U.S.-led military action against Iran, they support all of the Western imperialists’ political attacks on Iran used to build up towards such a military onslaught. Thus, the Greens not only push for ever more Australian sanctions on Iran but, in August 2023, Greens federal senator David Shoebridge even joined hardline anti-communist and fanatically pro-Israel Liberal politician James Paterson – the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs – in hysterically demanding that the Australian Federal Police arrest more sympathisers of the Iranian and Chinese governments living in Australia that make social media comments defending these governments against criticism from opponents.

It is on the most important issue facing the world that the Greens show most clearly their pro-imperialist character – the new Cold War drive of the capitalist powers to crush socialistic rule in China. Although China’s transition to socialism is unfinished and deformed by hostile pressure, the capitalist powers are feverishly working to crush socialistic rule in China because they worry that the existence of a workers state in a country with more than one in six of the world’s people and one which is so successfully improving the lives of her masses will eventually encourage demands for socialism in their own countries. Moreover, even right now, China’s mutually beneficial cooperation with the ex-colonial countries is impeding the imperialists’ ability to plunder and exploit these countries. The Greens are fully behind the rest of the ruling class’ campaign to undermine the Chinese workers state. To be sure, the Greens do oppose AUKUS. However, in their political stance, they are along with the Far Right groups, the most extreme opponents of Red China. They not only voted for the draconian 2018 “Foreign Interference” laws that are aimed against people in the Australian-Chinese community and beyond who express sympathy for socialistic China but also demand additional measures to suppress expressions of sympathy (or even neutrality!) towards Red China and to persecute those who voice them. It was Greens federal senator David Shoebridge – when he was a NSW MP – who successfully spearheaded a campaign to drive out the Chinese language-teaching Confucius Institutes from schools, on the grounds that they were sponsored by the Chinese government. Shrieking that the institute was a tool for Chinese “foreign interference”, Shoebridge even attacked the then NSW Liberal government from the far right, accusing them of being slow to crack down on the Institute. Meanwhile, the Greens support every single lying attack made by the imperialist ruling classes against China over “human rights” and every single Western-backed internal force within China (and their exile allies) that seeks to destroy the Chinese workers state. Indeed, Greens politicians have even joined their Far Right counterparts like Craig Kelly (see the latter part of the following article https://www.trotskyistplatform.com/put-the-banks-under-state-control/ for photos) in guest speaking at the events of the extreme right-wing, anti-communist Falun Dafa outfit – an American government-funded Chinese organisation that supports Donald Trump and Germany’s Nazi-inspired, Far Right and rails Nazi-style against “race mixing” and gays.

For all these reasons, no genuine anti-imperialist should support the Greens at the upcoming election. A vote for the Greens is a vote for the continued escalation of the capitalist powers’ political and propaganda campaign to crush socialistic rule in China and the intensified McCarthyist repression that accompanies it at home. A vote for the Greens is a vote for endorsing the avidly Greens-supported takeover of Syria by fanatically anti-secular imperialist proxies. Although the Greens do state opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza, by supporting the efforts of the imperialist Western powers that back Israel to expand their global power, the Greens end up actually doing a lot of harm to the cause of the Palestinian people. Most directly, the triumph of the pro-imperialist forces that the Greens fanatically backed in Syria has led to Palestinian resistance groups having their bases ejected from that country and a government that was hostile to neighbouring Israel being replaced by one that craves friendly ties with Israel and was brought to power with the Zionists’ direct assistance. And what of the Greens’ support for a similar pro-imperialist regime change in Iran (as opposed to the replacement of Iran’s male chauvinist, capitalist, but currently Western-conflicting, regime by an even more militantly anti-imperialist state under workers’ rule which is what we stand for)? If the Greens side wins in Iran like they did in Syria, what would that do to the supply of arms to Palestinian resistance groups and to Hezbollah and Houthi allies of the Palestinian resistance? And what if the side that the Greens are on triumphs in the new Cold War too and socialistic rule in China is overthrown? How much more unchallenged and powerful would be the imperialist Western powers then – the ones that arm, finance and assist the genocidal Israeli military!

Because the Greens embrace actual capitalist exploiters in their ranks, as well as many capitalism-accepting upper middle-class elements, the Greens are unable to deliver on their more progressive promises. For they are unable to withstand the pressure of the capitalist class that would oppose implementing such policies. Only the class struggle mobilisation of the working class against the capitalists could achieve this – and the Greens do not even pretend to be a party that stands for this. Thus, as the federal election approaches and the possibility of a post-election Labor-Greens-Teals joint government looms, the Greens are going out of their way to ensure that the majority of the capitalist class does not campaign against the Greens’ presence in a future ALP-led minority government. They are doing this by showing that the Greens would be “responsible” administrators of the capitalist order. This was shown most clearly by the Greens Defence spokesman’s announcement in late March of a Greens promise to fund a massive $4 billion program for the Australian military to gain new missiles and drones. The Greens program is for a powerful Australian capitalist state that is, however, more independent of its U.S. senior partner. That is a recipe for the continued imperialist plunder and bullying of the peoples of the southwest Pacific and surrounding areas by Australia’s capitalist bigwigs – something that the Greens do not even acknowledge exists let alone oppose. Moreover, those who are considering supporting the Greens should consider this: with the Greens already making announcements trying to outdo the Liberals and ALP in anti-China militarism, how much further would they go to prove to the mainstream of the capitalist class that they are a “safe pair of hands” should the Greens actually become partners in an ALP-led alliance government? We actually don’t need to speculate. In Germany, the German version of the Australian Greens have been in a governing alliance led by the ALP-like, Social Democratic Party, for the last three and a half years. This German government that the Greens have been a key part of is noted for its militarism, its massive arms build up and for being one of the Israeli military’s biggest supporters – indeed second only to the U.S. regime.

Many working class people of Arab, Muslim and other people of colour backgrounds in Western Sydney are distrustful of the Greens. This is because they are wary of the Greens’, at best, indifferent attitude to the armed Palestinian resistance and because they understand the Greens to be a party led by upper middle-class whites with little real understanding of what they are confronting. As a result, a couple of independent candidates with the backing of Muslim organisations are running in two formerly safe Labor seats in southwestern Sydney. The mainstream media have dubbed these candidates “Muslim independents”, a description which the candidates themselves do not embrace. These particular independents are promising a tougher stance against Israel’s war on Gaza and more resources for the forgotten migrant-based communities in southwest Sydney. However, like the Greens, these candidates do not even claim to stand for the class interests of the working class against the capitalist ruling class. Indeed, the independent candidate running in Blaxland, a well-regarded migrant from Egypt, Ahmed Ouf, is himself a small-scale capitalist who owns a couple of pharmacies using hired labour and – like the Liberal Party – openly espouses a pro-business program. Without pushing back against the capitalist exploiting class – and this requires mobilising working class people in conscious class-struggle action – any promises by these independents to address housing unaffordability, the high cost of living and unemployment in their suburbs cannot be fulfilled. Still less can they force the Australian regime to pull back from its support for Israel which is driven by the overall interests of the rich and powerful Australian capitalist class. Therefore, while it is understandable that working class people of Arab, Asian, African and Muslim backgrounds in southwest Sydney may want to vote for these independents to register their anger at the Australian government’s support for Israel and the Islamophobia and white supremacist attitudes of the ruling establishment, they should not. Any vote by southwest Sydney’s working class people for capitalist independents, or pro-capitalist ones that do not even claim to stand for the particular class interests of the working class, represents a rejection of the basic socialist understanding that the interests of the working class masses, on the one hand, and the struggle against imperialism, on the other, can only be advanced by the struggle of the working class and its allies against the ruling exploiting class. Therefore, those working class people who get sucked into voting for such candidates will in doing so diminish their own class consciousness, thus making themselves less able to be mobilised in the class struggle and anti-imperialist resistance that we so desperately need.

In summary, we call on all working class people, all partisans of the downtrodden and all opponents of imperialist tyranny over the Middle East – and the Zionist terror that accompanies it – to refuse to vote for any of the parties in parliament or for any capitalism-accepting independents (which is, unfortunately, all the “independents” that we know of). Please convince your friends, co-workers and family members to do the same. For the main point of voting this way is to reject illusions in positive change through parliament so that we can better build the alternative path that is really necessary: determined mass actions – including strikes, pickets, occupations and rallies – that unite the power of the working class with all the oppressed and all anti-imperialists to demand the closing of Pine Gap, the ending of all Australian regime support to the U.S. and Israeli militaries, the removal of all Australian troops from the imperialists’ anti-Yemen operation, the smashing of the Australian regime’s racist attacks on Aboriginal people, a massive increase in low-rent public housing (including through confiscating the vacant houses of the ultra-rich), the nationalisation of the electricity, oil, gas and renewables sectors to drive down power prices and the booting out of the union-busting government administrators from the militant CFMEU construction workers union. In the process of such mobilisations, we can build a workers party that will truly stand for the interests of the working class masses and Australia’s subjugated Aboriginal people, while defending scapegoated Asian, Arab, Muslim and African origin minorities and championing the cause of women’s emancipation. Such a workers party would be very different to the ALP. The ALP seeks to administer the capitalist system in a way that supposedly improves workers’ lives, while craving acceptance from the powerful capitalist exploiters that would allow it to administer their system by constantly accommodating their interests and supporting all their overseas imperialist ambitions. In complete contrast, the workers party that we want to build would fight uncompromisingly for everything that the masses need, would oppose Australian imperialist tyranny over the southwest Pacific and southeast Asian regions, would resist Australian imperialist support for both U.S. intervention and Zionist terror in the Middle East and would have as its ultimate goal the replacement of the capitalist state with a state under workers’ rule.

Already, many working class people turn up to the polling booths to have their name ticked off to avoid a fine and then consciously cast an Informal vote by either leaving the ballot sheet blank or avoiding numbering all the boxes in the House of Representatives ballot; or, better still, by writing a quick political critique or an incisive message for the scrutineers of the ruling class politicians to read. In the seat of Blaxland, at the polling booth in Auburn where the most votes were cast in that suburb, the Auburn West polling booth, nearly one in five voters who turned up to the booth cast such an Informal vote at the last federal elections. At the Auburn Central polling booth, the Informal vote was nearly one in six of those who turned up. These figures do not include the many other people who risked fines by avoiding turning up to the booths because they could not bring themselves to support any of the candidates. Of course, people do vote Informal for different reasons. However, the wild fluctuations in the level of Informal vote in particular polling booths from election to election proves that the Informal vote is mainly not caused by people who do not know how to cast a valid vote. Moreover, the much, much higher Informal vote in working class, heavily people of colour areas, as compared to in wealthy, overwhelmingly white, blue ribbon Liberal or Teal areas, suggests that most of the people voting Informal are pro-working class, anti-racist minded people, or ex-Labor voters, who would rightly never support the Liberals or the more extreme Far Right parties but cannot, or can no longer, bring themselves to support a Labor Party that repeatedly stabs working class people (and most people of colour) in the back. That such people take this stance is absolutely great! However, for such people, voting Informal must only be the first step that they must take. It is important that their healthy distrust of the system does not turn into cynicism or despair that things can never be changed. We need to convince those pro-working class, anti-racist minded people who vote Informal that they need to actively support anti-capitalist, anti-racist and anti-imperialist mass actions that can push the Australian exploiting class back and make a real difference to our lives, while simultaneously helping build the organisation needed to mobilise more and more powerful struggles. This is the purpose of Trotskyist Platform’s policy for these upcoming elections. We urge all our supporters, friends and readers who agree with this perspective to help us carry out this work. For every pro-working class, progressive minded person, who would rightly never ever vote for the Liberals or Far Right parties and who, at the upcoming election also refuses to vote for Labor or the Greens or capitalism-accepting Independents, not because they are despairing of change but because they know that the road to positive change is not through these pro-capitalist entities, the fight to mobilise the class struggle and anti-Australian-imperialist resistance that we need will be advanced by one notch. This will be the case no matter which pro-capitalist party or parties end up administering the next government. Let us advance this struggle by countless notches in the lead up to the coming elections! 

To have the powerful actions that we need, we not only need large numbers of working class people and our allies mobilised behind the correct program, we also need these masses mobilised in an organised way. It is in our trade unions that class conscious workers are already organised into mass organisations. Therefore, mobilising sections of the union movement is key to having powerful pro-working class and anti-imperialist actions. It is through our unions that we can most easily organise industrial action – the most powerful of mass actions. We need such industrial action not only to smash the attack on the CFMEU, to fight for real wage rises and to win the rights of permanency for all casual and gig workers but also to oppose Australian imperialism and it’s meddling in the Middle East. We need, for example, right now, those unions that have given their verbal solidarity to the embattled Palestinian people to now unleash political strikes to demand the closure of Pine Gap, the removal of Australian troops from the U.S./British operation against Yemeni supporters of Palestine and the halting of all refuelling or hosting of U.S. warplanes from Australian air bases. To mobilise such actions requires a struggle against the capitalist-accommodating program that currently dominates our unions. At the moment our unions are largely led by members of the ALP with some unions flirting with the Greens as well. Therefore, the struggle to win unionised workers to turn their backs on the ALP and Greens at these elections – as well as obviously to continue to reject the thoroughly reactionary Coalition and Far Right parties (which all class conscious workers would do in any case) – is crucial to the struggle to orient our unions onto a new path of militant struggle and intransigent opposition to the Australian capitalist class and all its imperialist interventions abroad. It is a crucial part of building the resistance that we need to the Australian regime’s participation in Israel’s terror and its broader support for Western imperialist interference in the Middle East.