While One Nation climbed the polls to be the most popular party in the country, something else was stirring in the Melbourne suburb of Thomastown: a grassroots campaign to elect socialist activist Sarah Garnham to the Whittlesea City Council. In a nine-horse race, Sarah won 18.4 percent of the vote, just behind the winning ALP candidate Chaman Tiwari, who received 20.4 percent.
Thomastown is one of Labor’s safest seats. But, as in much of its heartlands, Labor treats the people who elect it like dirt, running down infrastructure and services, and overseeing cuts to workers’ living standards.
Tiwari embodies the modern Labor Party. She owns several businesses and was an HR manager for aerospace and weapons giant Lockheed Martin. Huge resources were put into her campaign, including obnoxiously large billboards throughout the suburb. She had the backing and preferences from other Labor candidates, and lucked out by being first on the ballot.
Yet there were only 193 first preference votes between Tiwari and Garnham. Sarah’s campaign was organised by the local Victorian Socialists branch in Thomastown, whose members spent hours letterboxing and talking to residents.
While most candidates talk endlessly about advancing the interests of the “business community”, we proposed reversing the privatisation of childcare and aged care, standing up to property developers and big retailers, and putting workers first.
We also critiqued the far right and One Nation. Our campaign coincided with a statewide anti-Hanson initiative. So when we doorknocked in Thomastown, we led with this. We slammed One Nation for its racism, its billionaire backing and its plans to trash workers’ rights even further. This resonated with people.
Though One Nation didn’t run in this by-election, a Freedom Party candidate was strongly associated with them. He received 10.6 percent of the vote. Together with the Liberal Party-aligned candidates, the right won 33.1 percent. So while we should not downplay what One Nation could achieve in Thomastown in the upcoming state election, these results show that there could be a real contest.
While Victorian Socialists’ anti-capitalist politics and activist-centred approach to organising won most of our votes, I think it is undeniable that fighting the far right will be an important part of our election campaigning.
Unlike the Greens, who tend to ignore working-class areas like Thomastown, socialists prioritise them. In the last few state elections, we’ve gone from 2.9 percent to 7.7 percent of the vote and as high as 11 percent some parts of Thomastown, Lalor and Epping. We also got 15.5 percent running Omar Hassan in a recent Lalor council by-election, while Sarah’s vote is up from 10.4 percent two years ago.
This November, Victorian Socialists plan to run all 104 upper and lower house seats across the state. Get involved at victoriansocialists.org.au.
