Posted on Monday, 16 June
The Victorian Socialists held a members conference in Melbourne over the weekend of 14-15 June. With more than 430 members registering, it was the biggest conference the party has had.
Taking Vic Socialists Australia-wide
The conference voted to endorse the decision of the Executive to “establish socialist parties in states and territories across Australia with the same aims and general structure as Victorian Socialists.”
The proposal, carried overwhelmingly with only 10 votes against, resolved to:
i) Change the name of our federally registered party to the "Socialist Party".
ii) Seek to establish state-based parties with which we can unite in a federal party.
iii) Appoint, via our Executive, interim Secretaries of state and territory-based parties outside of Victoria, and assist them in attempting to establish registered parties in their state or territory.
iv) Establish a provisional national leadership of the new national party, consisting of the Executive of Victorian Socialists, and the interim Secretaries of non-Victorian parties.
v) Direct this provisional leadership to develop a constitution for our new federal party. This constitution should propose a democratic constitution that puts control of the party in the hands of members on the basis of the principle of one member, one vote.
vi) Direct the provisional leadership to establish an interim set of rules for the new federal party that will govern party operations until a national conference is able to meet and approve an ongoing constitution.
vii) Direct the provisional leadership to organise, call and set the rules for an inaugural national conference, where attendees should be delegated from state/territory branches on a basis set by the provisional leadership.
Conference heard about the impressive results of the first few weeks of the membership campaigns for new state and territory parties. More than 2,200 financial members have joined outside Victoria in the last 4 weeks, including more than 900 in NSW, 480 in Queensland, 270 in South Australia and 330 in WA.
It was reported to the conference that it is expected we will be ready to register parties in most states and territories in the coming months.
A full blown Victorian election campaign in 2026
Conference also approved a proposal for an ambitious statewide campaign in the Victorian state election next year.
Conference affirmed that “There is a major possibility - as seen in the Werribee by-election earlier this year - that the Labor vote will collapse at the next state election. The Liberals or the various far-right parties could take advantage of this situation. The Vic Socialists vote of 7% at the Werribee by-election indicated that it is possible that disillusionment with Labor can resolve itself in a vote to the left, not just the right. We need to do everything we can to expand our campaigning capacity to have an impact across the state in 2026.”
To do this, Conference authorised the incoming Executive Council of the party to open nominations for preselection in all 88 Victorian lower house seats.
A state-wide lower house campaign run alongside another intensive campaign in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne where we have already established a base of support, and we hope we can increase our vote there from 2022. In addition, we want to target a selection of lower house seats for intensive campaigning with the aim of putting ourselves in a position to win those seats in the medium term.
Opposition to imperialism, solidarity with Palestine
The conference took place under the shadow of Israel’s murderous assault on Iran, and the escalating genocide in Gaza.
A statement adopted by the Conference stated in part:
“Victorian Socialists have always stood on the side of the Palestinians. We have never shied away from condemning Israel and Zionism as the root cause of the oppression that the Palestinians face, both in occupied Palestine itself and as refugees and migrants in the diaspora. We have always rejected the lie that opposing Israel’s occupation of Palestine is somehow antisemitic, and defend those facing repression for their antiwar stance.
We call on the government to end all political, military and economic ties with Israel, helping to isolate them in the international community. We also demand that they place sanctions on the Israeli state as a whole, as well as on a range of Israeli institutions and figures, and end Australia’s role in the international arms industry.
Most fundamentally, we call on Australia to withdraw from both AUKUS and the US alliance, and expel all US military and surveillance bases from Australian territory.”
The full statement is published here.
The conference also passed an extensive motion affirming that “Victorian Socialists opposes imperialism and militarism as tools of capitalist oppression that fuel war and inequality”, while also stating that we “reject the notion that China or any imperial nation can be classified as ‘socialist’ or ‘anti-imperialist’.”
Support for unity with Socialist Alliance
A report was given to conference about the ongoing discussions with the Socialist Alliance concerning our relationship in light of the decision to expand Victorian Socialists across the country. There was overwhelming support for the resolution moved that:
“We are in favour of there being a single, united socialist party in the Australian electoral sphere, and we appeal to the Socialist Alliance to unite into a single party on a democratic basis. In the event that the Socialist Alliance is not in favour of uniting in the short term, we will work to have a collaborative and cooperative relationship with the Socialist Alliance, and will negotiate with them with the aim of not contesting the same seats and supporting each others campaigns, with a view to working towards organisational unity in the future.”
Expanding democratic structures in Vic Socialists
The conference also approved extensive changes to the party constitution aimed at dramatically expanding local organisation and establishing structures for members to have democratic control over party activities.
Members will now be organised on the basis of state electoral districts, and preselection for elections at all levels of government (federal, state and local) will be in the hands of members who live in each electorate (the only exception being the statewide senate preselection, which will be determined either by the Executive or a party conference).
Victorian Socialists Workers’ Caucus
Recognising that a large proportion of our party members are union members, conference resolved to establish the preexisting internal group, the “Victorian Socialists Workers’ Caucus”, as an official grouping of the party.
Conference directed the Campaign Director to collaborate with VSWC to facilitate the establishment of structures of the caucus, including:
- Election of a coordinator to liaise with the Campaign Director and the Executive in an ongoing way;
- Election of union facilitators to coordinate and communicate with members in unions where there are a significant number of VS members
Elections
The conference held contested elections for all Party Officer positions and for the Executive Council. A new Executive was elected and the following people were successfully elected as Party Officers.
Secretary: Corey Oakley
Treasurer: Steph Price
Campaign Director: Jess Lenehan
Communications Officer: James Plested