Australian government exploits Bondi shootings to launch historic attack on free speech
The Albanese government remains intent on ramming anti-democratic laws through parliament, under the cover of the Bondi Beach terrorist attack.
Mike Head•
The Socialist Equality Party (Australia)
Speakers Oscar Grenfell, Cheryl Crisp and chair Max Boddy exposed both the reactionary character of the mass shooting and the ruthless exploitation of the tragedy by the political establishment, led by state and federal Labor governments, as a pretext for a deepening assault on democratic rights.
Australian Greens back Royal Commission witch-hunting opposition to Gaza genocide
The Greens are promoting an inquiry that has nothing to do with uncovering the circumstances of the Bondi terror attack but is aimed at legitimising police-state repression.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australian media steps up attack on pro-Palestine workers
The immediate target is opposition to Israel’s imperialist-backed genocide in Gaza, but ultimately this campaign is aimed at stamping out all forms of political dissent by workers and young people.
Martin Scott•
Australian pseudo-left covers for Labor’s assault on democratic rights after Bondi attack
Under conditions of a sharp shift in the political situation, the pseudo-left are trying to subordinate anger and opposition to the Labor Party and the fraud that endless protests will shift the establishment to the left.
Oscar Grenfell•
Martin Scott•
Richard Phillips•
Peter Symonds•
Martin Scott•
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
“They’ve taken this tragedy as an opportunity to crack down on pro-Palestine, anti-Zionist movements and free speech.”
Adelaide Writers’ Week cancelled, new board apologises for censorship of Randa Abdel-Fattah
South Australian Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas has intensified his vicious denunciations of the Palestinian academic and writer.
Richard Phillips•
Australian Labor government tacitly backs Trump’s illegal assault on Venezuela
Labor leaders have said as little as possible, while refusing to condemn Trump’s flagrantly illegal war of aggression in the slightest.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australia: Victoria bushfire catastrophe exposes Labor’s broken promises and indifference
Despite the obvious and long foreseen dangers of fire seasons intensified by climate change, successive governments in Australia have refused to provide the necessary resources to prevent such catastrophes.
Eric Ludlow•
Australian Labor government calls Royal Commission to witch-hunt opposition to the Gaza genocide
The Commission has nothing to do with uncovering the truth of the Bondi terror attack. Its role is to witch-hunt mass opposition to the genocide in Gaza.
Oscar Grenfell•
Oscar Grenfell•
Oscar Grenfell•
Richard Phillips•
Mike Head•
Mike Head•
Socialism AI is a powerful new chatbot developed by the WSWS to advance socialist consciousness globally by bringing the scientific outlook of Marxism to workers, youth, and intellectuals.
“Get the knowledge that you need, at SocialismAI.com”
Ty, an educator who led sickouts against COVID in 2020, explains how workers can use Socialism AI to get the knowledge they need.
Ty•
Science vs. suspicion and fear: An Open Letter to a critic of Socialism AI
This is an Open Letter responding to several harsh criticisms of Socialism AI posted by Professor Tony Williams in the comments section of the WSWS.
David North•
Technology and the working class: Responding to an opponent of Socialism AI
This response seeks to clarify important issues related to the technical and political development of Socialism AI.
Evan Blake, David North•
Australia postal worker encourages use of Socialism AI
“I call on my brothers and sisters around the world to use Socialism AI to educate, organise and unite.”
Our reporters•
The eruption of American imperialism reaches Europe: The conflict over Greenland and the fight against imperialist war
The answer to Trump’s fascistic policy of “might makes right” is not European rearmament but the international mobilization of the working class against all imperialist warmongers.
Johannes Stern•
No troops in Minneapolis! For a general strike against Trump’s coup!
The Pentagon has placed 1,500 active-duty soldiers on alert for deployment against protests over ICE violence in Minneapolis.
Socialist Equality Party (US)•
The Minnesota general strike and the re-emergence of class struggle in the United States
The United States has reached a point where the scale of political breakdown and the ferocity of class tensions are generating profound shifts in consciousness.
Socialist Equality Party (US)•
For a general strike to stop Trump’s occupation of Minneapolis!
The call for a one‑day general strike and economic shutdown on Friday, January 23 to oppose the rampage by Trump’s ICE must become the beginning of a broader working class mobilization across the city, state and country against the Trump administration.
Socialist Equality Party (US)•
Patrick Martin•
Keith Jones •
Tom Hall•
Keith Jones•
Socialist Equality Party (US)•
Build neighbourhood and workplace rank-and-file committees! While far advanced, Labor’s devastating plans can and must be defeated by the working class.
Australia: Antisemitism Education Taskforce to attack democratic rights and academic freedom
Just four days after the Bondi attack, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the creation of the Antisemitism Education Taskforce, chaired by corporate figure David Gonski and featuring the government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal.
Sue Phillips•
Full-time employment plummets in Australia
Some 3.3 million people, more than one-fifth of the workforce, are either unemployed or underemployed, 431,000 more than a year ago.
Leonard Johns•
Australia: Worker killed after roof collapses at Mammoth coal mine in Queensland
Jeff Palmer, 59, is the third worker to be killed at the Coronado Global Resources-owned mine in the past six years.
Martin Scott•
Australia: Worker dies at Cleanaway’s Ravenhall waste facility
The death in Melbourne’s western suburbs on December 17 is the fifth fatality linked to the recycling and waste management company over the past 18 months.
Martin Scott•
Kaye Tucker, Richard Phillips•
Mike Head•
Sue Phillips•
Our correspondents•
Erika Zimmer•
Australian safety regulator’s initial report on fatal Cobar mine explosion: more questions than answers
The NSW Resources Regulator’s November 25 “Investigation information release” neither explains what caused the tragedy nor makes any recommendation for how to stop more workers being killed.
Martin Scott•
Australia: Cobar residents oppose rapid reopening of Endeavor mine after fatal explosion
“It is very frightening for workers and their families when they don’t know why this happened. Everyone needs answers—not just the residents of Cobar but people all over Australia.” – Cobar miner’s wife
Our reporters•
Australia: Cobar miner warns fatal accident at Endeavor Mine could be repeated
“I don’t think what the company has done in sending workers back on the job is right at all,” a Cobar worker said, referring to the October 28 mine explosion that killed two workers.
Oscar Grenfell, Richard Phillips•
Australia: Cobar mine workers should defy the company gag order
Endeavor workers have not only been instructed not to speak to the media, but even to their own families about the tragic death of their colleagues and the conditions in the mine.
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
Our reporters•
Contact the SEP!
Phone: (02) 8218 3222
Email: sep@sep.org.au
Facebook: SocialistEqualityPartyAustralia
Twitter: @SEP_Australia
Instagram: socialistequalityparty_au
TikTok: @SEP_Australia
PO Box 4033
Bexley North, NSW, 2207
What next in the school strike against conscription in Germany?
Tens of thousands of students have launched a powerful strike against the reintroduction of conscription in Germany, expressing mass opposition to militarism and war. This struggle can succeed only if it is extended to the working class and developed into an international socialist movement against war and capitalism.
International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE)•
Trump’s National Security Strategy deepens split within NATO
The US intends to interfere in the internal affairs of its NATO partners, break up the European Union, strengthen fascist parties, and help enforce racist remigration policies.
Peter Schwarz•
Australian Labor government gives $95 million to Ukraine for war with Russia
$50 million is being poured into a US-NATO fund, which supplies strike capabilities to Ukraine, including those that threaten to provoke a war throughout Europe and globally.
Oscar Grenfell•
South Korea ramps up war preparations against China
Under Lee Jae-myung and the Democrats, Seoul is marching in lockstep with Washington’s aggressive imperialist agenda, demonstrating that there is no section of the South Korean ruling class opposed to war.
Ben McGrath•
Oscar Grenfell•
Oscar Grenfell•
Oscar Grenfell•
Johannes Stern•
Peter Symonds•
Israel kills 14 Palestinians as Trump prepares imperialist “Board of Peace” for Gaza
Israel launched strikes on Thursday and Friday that killed at least 14 Palestinians, including children, as the White House organizes its “Gaza Board of Peace,” made up of imperialist war criminals including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Kevin Reed•
Palestine Action hunger strikers in imminent danger of death as Labour government still refuses to meet
Irish Republican Bobby Sands died after 66 days of a hunger strike—a milestone reached by Muraisi on Tuesday. Other Irish hunger strikers died between 46 and 61 days.
Paul Bond•
Trump and Netanyahu pledge Middle East bloodbath will continue in 2026
US President Donald Trump threatened to “knock the hell out of” Iran and warned there would be “hell to pay” in Gaza, while reiterating his calls for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
Andre Damon•
Israel’s far-right government seeks to tighten its grip on power
The measures are aimed at strengthening the powers of the Netanyahu government as it continues its wars in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen and prepares for another offensive against Iran, amid plunging living standards.
Jean Shaoul•
Andre Damon•
Johannes Stern•
Jean Shaoul•
Kevin Reed•
Jean Shaoul•
David North addresses book launches in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia
David North, the chairman of the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site and of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in the United States, spoke at book launches in Sydney and Melbourne over the past week. The events were part of a visit by North, who has played a leading role in the world Trotskyist movement for more than 50 years, to the SEP in Australia.
Australian health workers voice outrage over Gaza catastrophe
The open letter and the response it has generated speak to the depth of the anguish, shock and anger felt by healthcare workers as they bear witness to the atrocities occurring in Gaza.
A doctor•
Glastonbury’s defiant stand for Palestine and the radicalisation of the working class and youth
There are events which burst through the crust of official politics and media-managed opinion and let popular sentiment erupt to the surface. Saturday afternoon at the UK’s Glastonbury music festival was one of those.
Thomas Scripps•
Australian court rules ABC illegally sacked journalist for opposing Gaza genocide
Antoinette Lattouf’s victory is a damning exposure of the extensive campaign that has been waged by the Labor government and the entire establishment, to falsely brand opposition to the Israeli genocide as antisemitism.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australian workers and youth oppose US-Israeli attacks on Iran and ongoing genocide
“It could be curtains for everybody with World War Three, nuclear war, and I’m trying to stop that. I’m terrified, horrified, especially so because I have children and grandchildren.”
Our reporters•
Eric Ludlow•
Our reporters•
Macquarie University Rank-and-File Committee•
Gabriela Zabala, Richard Phillips•
Mobilise the working class to end the Gaza genocide! Take up the fight for socialism against war!
A socialist perspective for mass student meetings in Australia against the Gaza genocide
The IYSSE will be urging students at the meetings to take up a fight for the mobilisation of the working class against the Gaza genocide and the Labor government.
International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia)•
Australian high school students oppose social media ban
Teenagers in the industrial city of Newcastle, north of Sydney, speak out against the Labor government’s legislation to bar them from accessing social media platforms.
Robert Bond•
Australian teenagers oppose police repression, social media ban after beach clash
What happened at Mordialloc beach last week was not a pre-planned “youth riot” as the media and government claim, but a confused chain of events sparked by a heavily-armed police operation.
Eric Ludlow, Owen Howell•
1,600 students walk out against ICE in Hillsboro, Oregon
On Tuesday, over a hundred students from Lincoln High School in downtown Portland and from other schools in the city also walked out against ICE.
Hector Cordon•
Our reporters•
Eric Ludlow•
International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Australia)•
Jack Turner•
Eric Ludlow•
Beams pointed to the roots of the pseudo-left in tendencies that broke from the Trotskyist movement and rejected the revolutionary role of the working class.
Australia: Build rank-and-file committees to fight Labor’s attack on construction workers and the entire working class!
The past three months have demonstrated that the fight against Labor’s administration of the CFMEU requires a rank-and-file movement independent of the ousted union leadership.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Labor’s attack on the CFMEU: 1 year under state control
The federal Labor government’s appointment of administrator Mark Irving was always aimed at facilitating deeper attacks on wages and conditions in the building industry and more broadly.
Martin Scott•
Australia: Inquiry highlights financial ties between building union and big developers
Incolink, a worker entitlement fund jointly controlled by the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union and Master Builders Victoria, has handed over tens of millions in investment returns to those organisations in recent years.
Martin Scott•
High Court of Australia rejects challenge to Labor’s attack on the CFMEU
The ruling gives the go-ahead for a stepped-up assault on the wages, conditions and democratic rights of building workers, but it also means those who want to fight the administration can no longer be held back with the lie that all they can do is wait for the court’s verdict.
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
Martin Scott•
This report includes videos of speeches delivered by SEP members at the October 27 meeting, explaining the Labor government’s administration of the construction union and outlining a perspective to fight it.
Expert report shatters fraudulent case against Bogdan Syrotiuk: Deepen the international campaign for his freedom!
The campaign to free Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk has reached a decisive turning point with the publication of a forensic linguistic analysis that shatters the fraudulent case against him.
Johannes Stern•
Ukrainian court rejects motion to dismiss judge for bias as Bogdan Syrotiuk is barred from accessing dental care
The decision to not dismiss the judge for bias underscores yet again that, within the Ukrainian court system, everything is stacked against Bogdan.
Clara Weiss•
1 year since the arrest of the Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk
Exactly one year ago, the Ukrainian socialist and leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists was arrested by the Ukrainian Secret Service.
Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists•
Left Voice calls for release of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk
One year after the arrest of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk, Left Voice, which is affiliated with La Izquierda Diario Network, has issued a statement calling for his release.
Clara Weiss•
WSWS Editorial Board•
Clara Weiss•
David North•
Johannes Stern•
Clara Weiss•
Capitalist breakdown, the fight against war and the tasks of the Socialist Equality Party
This resolution was adopted by the Seventh National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), held from October 3-6.
Support the SEP in the Australian federal election! Build a socialist movement of the working class against war, austerity and dictatorship!
The Socialist Equality Party is standing candidates in the Australian federal election to build an independent movement of the working class against Labor, the Liberal-National Coalition, the Greens and capitalism itself.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
WATCH: After the Australian election—The socialist alternative to Labor’s government of war and austerity
At Thursday’s meeting, speakers Oscar Grenfell and Cheryl Crisp, as well as chair Max Boddy, presented a Marxist analysis of the May 3 federal election.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
The Australian election, global opposition to Trump and the need for a socialist perspective
The election was marked by a mass repudiation of Trumpism, but within the framework of parliamentary politics, the outcome is a pro-business, pro-war Labor government that will collaborate with Trump.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australia’s second-term Labor government will accelerate pro-business, pro-war agenda
The key ministers who prosecuted the previous Labor government’s militarist and socially regressive policies retain their posts but changes to the ministerial line-up signal a further lurch to the right.
Mike Head•
Oscar Grenfell•
Mike Head•
Oscar Grenfell•
Martin Scott•
Our reporters•
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Australian Electoral Commission blocks evidence on its SEP ballot access ban
The AEC’s escalated reasons for refusing to release the information—claiming that it would not be in the “public interest” to do so—further underscore the anti-democratic nature of its ban on the SEP registration.
Mike Head•
Australian Electoral Commission rejects FOI application for evidence to justify election ban on SEP
This Freedom of Information decision further exposes the anti-democratic character of Australia’s electoral laws and the AEC’s totally obscure use of them against the Socialist Equality Party.
Mike Head•
Meeting opposes ban on official registration of SEP, outlines socialist perspective for Australian election
Held in person in the working-class Sydney suburb of Bankstown and streamed on Zoom, the meeting was attended by a broad cross-section of workers, students and young people.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australian Electoral Commission rejects challenge to election ban on SEP
The AEC letter underscores the anti-democratic character of the country’s party registration legislation.
Mike Head•
Our reporters•
Our reporters•
Our reporters•
Our reporters•
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Australian electoral authorities reject Socialist Equality Party’s registration, despite it meeting membership requirements
The decision was made as the looming election is characterised by mass hostility to the official parties and a growing desire among workers and young people for a genuine alternative.
Julian Assange is free, but the struggle to defend democratic rights continues
On Monday, Julian Assange walked out of the UK’s Belmarsh Prison a free man, following five years of imprisonment and nearly 15 years of persecution by a cabal of imperialist governments led by the United States which hounded him for exposing their crimes.
Statement of the World Socialist Web Site editorial board•
The Australian Labor Party’s record in the Assange case
The Australian government's involvement in the plea deal arrangements was the result of mass popular pressure. It followed years of Labor actively assisting the persecution of Assange.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australian spooks and their media mouthpieces bemoan Assange’s freedom
The complaints have a pathetic character to them, but also underscore the fact that the assault on democratic rights associated with the persecution of Assange persists and deepens.
Oscar Grenfell•
Julian Assange arrives in Australia free
In a press conference, Stella Assange hailed a global support movement for creating the conditions for Assange's freedom, while warning of an ongoing assault on press freedom that had to be fought.
Oscar Grenfell•
Oscar Grenfell•
Thomas Scripps•
Laura Tiernan•
Oscar Grenfell•
Thomas Scripps, Chris Marsden•
Resolution adopted at the Sixth Congress of the SEP (Australia)
The COVID disaster and the political crisis of Australian capitalism
“The criminal ‘let it rip’ pandemic policies of governments—invariably enforced by the labour and trade union bureaucracies—have exposed the brutality of capitalism, and its readiness to sacrifice lives for corporate profit and private wealth accumulation.”
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Resolution adopted at the Sixth Congress of the SEP (Australia)
Build an international movement of the working class against imperialist war!
“The same contradictions and crisis of world capitalism are also propelling the working class into struggle, providing the basis for the building of an international anti-war movement.”
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees!
A mass network of interconnected rank-and-file committees can and must serve as the foundation for the fight for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a workers’ government based on a socialist program.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Free Julian Assange!
The ongoing persecution of Julian Assange is bound up with imperialist war, escalating online censorship and a broader turn to authoritarianism.
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Defeat of Australian Labor’s Voice referendum highlights stark class divide, not racism
The Voice voting patterns demonstrate the intensifying hostility of working-class people to the entire political establishment.
Mike Head•
Indigenous Voice leaders denounce Australian voters
An open letter, issued by a privileged layer of indigenous figures who led the Voice Yes campaign, further highlights the immense class chasm shown in the referendum’s overwhelming defeat on October 14.
Mike Head•
Australian pseudo-left slanders population as racist after defeat of Voice referendum
Socialist Alternative’s analysis of the referendum is an attack on the working class, exposing this organisation as a rightward moving representative of privileged layers of the affluent upper middle-class.
Oscar Grenfell•
Australian workers oppose the Voice, call for better conditions for Aboriginal people
“The Labor government is not working class, it is an elite group of people, setting up a puppet called the Voice.”
Our reporters•
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Our reporters•
Socialist Equality Party (Australia)•
Oscar Grenfell•
Max Boddy•
Historical Foundations
The program of the Socialist Equality Party is of a principled, not a conjunctural and pragmatic, character. It is based on an analysis of the crisis of world capitalism and an assimilation of the strategic revolutionary experiences of the working class and the international socialist movement.
The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party was adopted by the Founding Congress of the SEP in Sydney in 2010. It traces the historical events and strategic experiences of the working class and Marxist movement spanning more than a century.
Principles
Membership in the Socialist Equality Party is based on agreement with its Statement of Principles. The principles of the SEP incorporate the essential experiences of the revolutionary upheavals of the twentieth century and the corresponding struggle waged by Marxists for the program of world socialist revolution.
Lecture series: Why study the history of Trotskyism?
The lectures, now all available online, reviewed some of the fundamental lessons of the protracted struggle by the Trotskyist movement for socialist internationalism.
Leadership
Crisp was a founding member of the Socialist Labour League, the forerunner of the SEP, in 1972, and has played a leading role in the Trotskyist movement in Australia for more than four decades. She was elected National Secretary at the Fifth National Congress of the SEP in 2020.
Max was elected to the position of assistant national secretary at the 2020 SEP National Congress. He writes regularly for the WSWS on issues facing asylum seekers and their inhumane treatment at the hands of Australian governments. He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Newcastle, majoring in Aboriginal Studies.
Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Level 1/457-459 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW, 2010, Australia.