There’s something special about the Victorian Socialists’ campaign in the inner-west Melbourne seat of Footscray. On almost every front, the campaign leads the way state-wide: number of doors knocked, yard signs delivered, volunteers involved. In an election overshadowed by rising far-right influence and a right-wing shift, Footscray reveals a base for radical left politics.
This month, I spent some time with the Footscray crew, talking to locals at the AFLW matches at Whitten Oval, and sitting down with candidate Jasmine Duff to figure out the magic behind this campaign.
Jas starts by painting a picture of the electorate she’s fighting to represent: “Footscray has the progressive social conscience of Brunswick, but class questions are shoved in people’s faces way more”.
Melbourne’s inner-west is full of young workers and renters, people who care about questions like climate change and Indigenous justice. Residents value the community's diversity, enjoying the pubs, gigs, and local footy—during the AFLW Pride round in early October, many Bulldogs fans mentioned that they supported VS and some signed up to host a yard sign. It shares this sensibility with other parts of the city where Victorian Socialists has built a serious foothold, like Brunswick and Northcote.
But in Footscray, deep class inequality is an indelible part of the social fabric, and the effects of poverty and for-profit development are impossible to ignore. Homelessness and drug use are more visible than in many other parts of Melbourne; old buildings sit empty and derelict while landowners wait for gentrification to increase property values.
Footscray’s population will grow in the next ten years, yet infrastructure and social services are failing to meet the rising demand. More investment is desperately needed in health care, mental health and public housing. But state Labor governments have run down these services even further over many years, turning instead to more policing to punish vulnerable people.
This has created a sense that Footscray faces conflicting pressures. The state government is keen to entice private developers to build on the 22 inner-city sites currently being land-banked—but to do that, they have to show that property values are increasing, and that means cracking down on rough sleeping and crime. And the community is divided: there is a strong right-wing current, protesting against crime and targeting migrants.
But there’s a different vision for Footscray, too—one that prioritises high-quality public housing, green spaces, public transport and wraparound services to meet the needs of ordinary people. One that argues that vacant sites such as Forges, the old Footscray Hospital and Little Saigon ought to serve the public interest rather than developers’ profits. Initiatives such as The People’s Plan for Footscray highlight this alternative vision and overlap with Victorian Socialists’ demands.
An important aspect of Footscray is that left-wing and progressive people don’t just settle for wishful thinking about improving their communities, they fight for change. Last year, when Victoria Police killed Somali man Abdifatah Ahmed in the heart of Footscray CBD, hundreds rallied to call for justice. Countless local campaign groups are working on issues such as pollution, green spaces, transport, and opposing the huge data centres sprouting up across the west.
Recently, local legends in Yarraville struck a significant blow to data centre giant NextDC, inspiring thousands worldwide who are challenging tech giants in their communities. NextDC is attempting to expand its West Footscray data centre complex, despite serious local opposition. To do this, they must build 22-metre steel power poles (twice the usual height) along residential streets to provide the centre with the vast amount of electricity needed for its operation.
When electricity provider Jemena sent a construction crew to erect these poles, locals blocked the work in whatever ways they could—parking cars in the way of machinery, putting wheelie bins out on the street and refusing to answer their doors to the work crew. This heartening expression of collective resistance forced Jemena to retreat. Even sweeter was the immediate hit to NextDC’s margins caused by the delay—the company’s shares plummeted by 40 percent and it lost around $3 billion in valuation.
Jas says that many of the people leading this campaign have a Victorian Socialists yard sign displayed on their front fence. The party’s project to confront profit-hungry corporations wrecking our communities has resonated with individuals fighting the good fight, spanning from the largest nationwide campaigns to the battles we face in our own front yards.
The Footscray campaign has brought together individual socialists who had not found their place in politics before. Jas tells me about those who visit the Victorian Socialists volunteer centre on Paisley Street. They come for the weekly Tuesday night working bees, to collect a yard sign, or simply to find out what the campaign involves. They might start off feeling they have nothing much to offer, yet after a chat and lingering for a while beyond the time they planned, they go away taking responsibility for a small section of the work.
Some people show up at the volunteer centre to get involved because they’ve read a leaflet dropped on their doorstep and immediately identify with the radical worldview of the Socialists. One couple collected a yard sign and took a list of orders to drop off nearby. Now they have a group chat with the other socialists on their street, where they can organise letterboxing and other local campaigning. Leaning into this localised organising has proved to be a strength of the Footscray campaign, providing easy avenues for newcomers to learn how to campaign.
Dedicated people like these can’t easily be put back in their box. Whatever the result come 28 November, the socialist movement in Footscray is here to stay.
