I am running because I was raised to fight against injustice wherever I see it.
Hi I’m Oskar. I’m a proud Aboriginal socialist from Bundjalung and Kamilaroi lands, and I’m your socialist candidate for Williamstown.
I am running because I was raised to fight against injustice wherever I see it. My dad grew up in Redfern in the 1970s. I remember his stories about Aboriginal people living in slums in deep poverty, and constantly being harassed and abused by racist cops.
The oppression we face as Aboriginal people persists today under the watch of the major parties - increasing deaths in custody, incarceration of our communities and children, and the continued denial of land rights.
My great grandmother was part of the stolen generations. She was taken from her family as a child in northern NSW. The stolen generations never ended; today the racist out of home care scheme removes more Aboriginal kids from their families than during the stolen generations period of the twentieth century. It is a disgrace.
Despite all of this, I was always taught to be proud of being Aboriginal, and to always fight back against our oppression. As a child my dad took me to Aboriginal rights marches - one of my first protests was against Tony Abbot’s plans to shut down West Australian Indigenous communities in 2015.
The fight for my people’s rights is a central part of who I am as a socialist activist, and I will continue to struggle until my people are free from the torment of the racist Australian state.
I was born in Broken Hill and spent most of my childhood moving between rentals. My mum raised me and my brother mostly by herself, and for many years put aside her career as an artist to work as a cleaner and provide for the three of us. Watching her sacrifice so much for us to have a better life has made me passionate about fighting for working-class women like my mum to have access to secure housing and welfare that is actually liveable.
We ended up in Williamstown when I was in primary school where I was lucky to have access to educational aids and speech therapy, which I relied on heavily. It’s a shame that health and education is so underfunded. Working- class families deserve access to the same crucial safety nets I had without choosing if it’s more important than putting food on the table. The services we need to live dignified lives should be publicly owned and free.
A foundational moment for me was when I was in high school and my favourite Aboriginal footy player Adam Goodes was called an ape during a game. I watched as the right-wing media labelled him a ‘sook’ and ‘aggressive’ for calling it out as racist, and as he retired from the AFL because of the relentless racial abuse.
I was also experiencing racism at school where I was one of the only Aboriginal kids. But instead of resigning myself to it, I was deeply inspired by proud Black activists and anti-racists like Muhammad Ali, who refused to be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, and Dr Gary Foley, one of the greatest Aboriginal radicals in this country’s history.
Today I work with Gary as a Research Assistant in the Aboriginal History Archive at Victoria University, and learn from him every day.
In 2019, I walked out of high school with thousands of students around the world in protest of the destruction of our climate. It makes me so proud to see students still striking today against the rise of fascist Pauline Hanson and for Palestine.
In my time as a socialist activist, I have campaigned for Palestinian and Aboriginal rights at university, and on the streets of Melbourne. I have taken up the fight against inequality in the Western suburbs as well - I was involved in the campaign to kick nazis out of a Sunshine gym, protested alongside the Techno Park residents in Altona North who were being evicted by the local council, and I led a march against the racist police murder of Somali refugee Abdifatah Ahmed in Footscray.
If elected to represent Williamstown I will fight for working-class people in Parliament. I’ll call out the rule of the major parties who govern for the rich, and the racist far right politics of One Nation.
We need to flip the script of Australian politics and put people before profits - vote socialist!