The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Australia is holding an important public meeting on Thursday May 15 at 7 p.m. entitled “After the Australian election: The socialist alternative to Labor’s government of war and austerity.” Register now!

The re-election of the Labor government in Saturday’s federal election was a reflection of mass popular opposition, in Australia and globally, to US President Donald Trump and the program of trade war, militarism and oppression he signifies and embodies. The Liberal-National Coalition and its leader Peter Dutton suffered a massive electoral defeat, as voters identified them with the fascist in the White House.

But, as the SEP warned in our election campaign, the election will resolve nothing for the Australian working class, which now confronts the harsh reality—a Labor government that is totally committed to working with Trump to implement the war and austerity agenda.

This is not an accident. It is because Trump’s program is not the unique creation of an evil madman, but the program of capitalist governments everywhere. Confronted with the historic breakdown of global capitalism, the ruling class has no answer but imperialist war, necessarily accompanied by domestic attacks on working-class wages, jobs, social spending and democratic rights.

The first order of business of re-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was a cordial discussion with Trump about AUKUS, making clear that furthering the expansion of Australia’s military and its transformation into a frontline state for a US-led war against China is a top priority for the Labor government.

Labor’s readiness to carry out this program is demonstrated by its record over the past three years. As it has allocated increasing sums to the military, the Albanese government has presided over the worst decline in working-class living standards in 70 years, spearheaded by state Labor governments, which have imposed successive real wage cuts throughout the public sector.

Immediately after the election, Treasurer Jim Chalmers made clear that the assault on workers would be deepened, stating that Labor will shift its focus from miserly measures supposedly directed at reining in inflation, to “productivity,” a code word for stepped-up exploitation of the working class. 

The collapse of the Coalition means that the Australian ruling elite is now wholly dependent on the Labor Party to implement this unpopular agenda. Labor will in turn rely upon the fraudulent official “left”—the Greens, the trade union apparatus and the pseudo-left organisations, including Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative, as well as its electoral front, Victorian Socialists. These organisations have sought to cover over the global crisis surrounding the election, playing down the threat of war and fascism, while promoting illusions that Labor is a “lesser evil” that can be pressured into implementing some sort of “reforms.”

In stark contrast to these fake-left parties of the upper middle-class, the SEP sought in our election campaign to prepare and arm the working class for the situation it now confronts. What must be built is a movement of the working class, politically independent from and opposed to all of the capitalist organs, including Labor and the unions.

The fight against war and austerity requires a socialist perspective and a unified struggle by the working class internationally against capitalism itself. This is what the SEP alone is fighting to build.

We urge you to register today to attend the meeting on Thursday May 15, which will address these critical issues, with ample time for questions and discussion.