In my work as a lawyer, I see everyday how corporations’ pursuit of profit can ruin lives.
Hi, I’m Colleen. I’m proud to be running as the Victorian Socialists candidate for Albert Park in this year’s state election.
I'm a socialist, a union delegate, and a lawyer for people with asbestosis and other occupational diseases. I’ve always stood up for my beliefs, speaking out against government and corporations, and organising people to take them on.
It’s clear that people are crying out for relief from the high cost of living: inflation, interest rates, rent, debt, the cost of childcare, health care, education and aged care combined with stagnant wages are crippling working-class people. Meanwhile the rich are getting richer. This is not a ‘cost of living crisis’. It’s class war.
Victorian Socialists stand up for working-class people: for wage increases that keep pace with inflation, services run for people not profit, a building spree of public housing and rent caps.
This is the alternative to the racist scapegoating of immigrants that One Nation and the Liberals are exploiting. A strong vote for Victorian Socialists is a refutation of that politics. Having been involved in campaigning against mandatory detention of refugees for more than 20 years, standing up to racism is part of my activist DNA.
In my work as a lawyer, I see everyday how corporations’ pursuit of profit can ruin lives. We need representatives who are not afraid to stand up to corporate power: to tackle climate change, to tax profits to fund public services and to raise living standards.
People are sick and tired of the major parties being part of the establishment, and the far-right so called ‘alternatives’ have their own billionaire backers. You don’t have to wonder what side socialists are on, because core to our beliefs is that workers should run society and they’d do a better job than the people who run it now.
In Victorian Socialists, we think more and more people want representatives who will call for system change and speak for a socialist alternative.
When you vote for a socialist, you are sending a message to the mainstream parties that people want a voice that is unapologetically radical. It is also a vote for an alternative approach to politics that centres on organising people in struggle to increase their confidence to change the world instead of waiting for change to come through parliament. I’ve lived that idea the whole of my adult life.