The general line of this report to the Red Spark National Conference held in June 2025 was adopted unanimously.

The Summary to the Australian Political Report to the RED ANT Conference last December read as follows:

On the one hand, there is a fairly rapidly maturing historic crisis, at least of the legitimacy of bourgeois politics in Australia. Internationally, the imperialist system is becoming increasingly chaotic and exposed. On the other hand, the long downturn in social movements and left political organising means that, despite the increasing chaos no big change or crisis has occurred here yet. Australian imperialism keeps tottering onwards without any immediate, foreseeable threat to stability.

Within this framework, the escalating violence and injustice alongside the bankruptcy and paralysis of the main bourgeois parties and institutions means that incremental changes in the balance of forces seem to be gathering speed, perhaps soon reaching some tipping points that could open up the political situation further and make possible some realignments.

This remains an accurate description of the situation today. The perspectives in the concluding section of the report also remain valid. They read:

In the current situation there is already ample opportunities for socialist groups like ours to grow. Many, or most of them, are growing including ours.

The most urgent need is the re-establishment of a revolutionary socialist party that can begin to systematically harness the ongoing radicalisation of a minority, especially of young people by educating and organising a new generation in Marxist political action. This would establish an organised base of cadres to take full advantage of the various cracks and openings as they occur, and that can play a leadership role in rebuilding broader social struggles.

Re-growth of social struggle in Australia and the establishment of anti-imperialist and socialist leaderships among them will be critical to weakening the Australian state as a bastion of the global imperialist system which exploits and oppresses the overwhelming majority of humanity and is destroying the planet. The weakening of Australian imperialism is an important part of weakening global imperialism. It is a contribution we can make to its defeat.

Stability in Australia: Developments since December

In his summary, the reporter, Sam King, stated it was likely there could be incremental changes in the balance of forces. This is particularly obvious in the Australian situation if less so globally.

The recent Australian federal elections have helped make even clearer the stability of the fundamental political situation while also revealing and resulting in significant incremental changes in the balance of forces among the main players in bourgeois politics, including those on the fringes of bourgeois politics.

The first thing to note is that the balance among the spectrum of political outlooks has remained relatively stable. The Two Party Preferred (TPP) vote has shown the same balance located within the 45-55 per cent range for the last 5 elections. The Australian Labour Party’s (ALP) TPP vote of 55 per cent in 2025 is only up 1.5 per cent on its 2013 result.

Within these TPP votes, the spectrum has remained basically stable also. While the ALP Primary vote has remained in the 30 per cent over the last 5 elections, if combined with the Greens and democratic independents, the left to centre-left vote has stayed in the same 45-50 per cent range for more than the last 5 elections. The ALP plus Greens vote in 2025 reached basically 50 per cent. Thus the 55 per cent TPP.

While the Liberal-National Party Coalition (LNP) vote dropped to an all-time low in 2025, if combined with One Nation and Clive Palmer to its right and the Teals to its left, it reached that 45 per cent range.

The general terrain of political electoral consciousness remains stable in Australia.

This is also reflected in the very weak state of social movements. Only protests around Palestine have a significant presence. However, these have not yet given birth to any unified national campaign organisation nor risen to such a level to force more than token concessions from the ALP government. Other progressive campaigns for peace and against AUKUS, the women’s rights campaign, sexual rights campaign, environment remain so weak as to be virtually non-existent.

The same situation applies to industrial struggle. Between 1975 2000 there was relatively high strike activity. Working days lost in the 1970s (e.g., 6.29 million in 1974) dwarf the 2000 2024 period (max 234,700 in 2022). Disputes were 5 10 times more frequent in the 1970s than in the 2000s. While there was a surge of strike activity in 2022, it has declined again with only 58,000 workers on strike in 2024 out of a current workforce of more than 15 million.

In Australia, we have also had the remarkable case of the State simply unilaterally seizing control of a trade union the CFMEU Construction division. I doubt whether this happened in any other so-called democratic country, yet there is no momentum visible in support for the CFMEU members’ resistance.

In such a situation with so little struggle, it is not surprising that the balance of political outlooks has also been relatively stable.

This social stability is underpinned by a contradictory economic stability. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports the Average Weekly Earnings (November 2024) for full-time adult employees as approximately $90,000. The Poverty Lines: Australia report published by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (2024) estimates that $35,000 after tax is needed for a decent living for a single person. The majority of workers have enough for sufficient, or even more than sufficient, material consumption. At the same time, in 2024, 45 per cent of Australians could not live off savings for more than one month, and 26.5 per cent have no cash left after payday.

In an environment of both the ALP and LNP as well as the media and business spokespersons harping on the precariousness of the national economy since the 1980s, it is not surprising that individually surviving is the key preoccupation of most people, rather than politics or collective struggle. This is even more so given the low union coverage, so that survival becomes an individual matter. Union coverage is now only at 13 per cent overall and 7 per cent in the private sector.

Changes in Representation Within the Stability

While the map of political consciousness remains stable, the various electoral vehicles that represent the different fractions of consciousness has changed and is changing in important ways.

The Liberal Party has come to represent a narrower spectrum, primarily a more right-wing outlook, only discernible from a party like One Nation because of loyalty to traditional conservative styles, although Dutton broke away from that style. One Nation now also represents the ideologically lumpen section of the Right. The socially liberal wing of the petty bourgeoisie has also broken away from the Liberals as manifested in the Teals phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the ALP has gone, over the last several decades, from being a Centre Left Party, that included a Socialist Left (Social Democratic Left) to a neo-liberal Centre Right party with purely decorative concessions to social democracy. It is not impossible that the ALP’s 2025 increase in its primary vote came from voters with a centre-right outlook but alienated from Dutton’s “Trumpism”.

Albanese himself, after the election victory, proclaimed the ALP as the natural party of government capitalist government, that is. That is how the ALP is positioning itself both in terms of policy and image.

If the ALP succeeds on this trajectory, it will reshape electoral politics. The electoral terrain will no longer be a more-or-less simple contest between a (class collaborationist) “social democratic” party (ALP) and an open party of capitalism (LNP). It may become a three-way contest (in broad terms) between a party of the extreme centre, openly managing capitalism, facing contestation from both its Right (LNP and One Nation), propelled by social conservatism and from a social democratic, redistributionist Left (Greens and socialist groups).

It is possible that while relative economic stability remains, this pattern may also stabilise. We can see the beginnings of this pattern in the 2025 elections.

Implications for the Left

There has been discussion on the far left, including in the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) in the 2000s, of a “space” opening up to the left of the ALP. This space has opened very gradually over the last 20 years but is only actually becoming real now. The space to the left of the ALP, however, has not been formed by a new growing radicalised left-wing constituency, but because the ALP’s shift to the Centre Right has left a long existing social democratic oriented constituency no longer represented.

The ALP prior to 1984 was a broad church that included a left social democratic section, including MPs and Senators. There were electorates where a section of the support for the ALP came from people with a left-wing outlook. That constituency has been abandoned. Its middle class element has gone to the Greens while its working class elements have reluctantly voted for the ALP or for socialist candidates. In the 2025 federal election, this can be seen in the votes for Victoria Socialists and for Sue Bolton (Social Alliance) in Wills (8 per cent). It should be noted that a left social-democratic vote is not new in Wills. Independent left social-democratic candidate Phil Cleary won the seat with about 30 per cent in both 1992 and 1993. Greens candidates have also done well. Samantha Ratnam received 35.4 per cent in 2025 (up from the Green’s 33 per cent in 2022).

The Victorian Socialist (VS) and Socialist Alliance votes (and Greens) don’t represent a new constituency of radicalising voters but gather the votes of segments that have been abandoned by the ALP (although token concessions by the ALP try to maintain some connection). Additionally, of course, voters who are alienated by the current ALP may still vote for them as the lesser evil to the LNP as long as they don’t think socialist parties can grow to be a major force.

“Socialist” electoral campaigning in the absence of social struggle

The more open, declared and consolidated abandonment by the ALP of this constituency does mean there is “space open to the left of the ALP” social democratic electoral space. This is what Socialist Alternative is orienting to with its Victoria Socialists and now Socialist Party project. As we know, VS has announced they are going national. “VS/Socialist Alternative”, as Socialist Alliance refers to them, have sought a non-aggression pact with Socialist Alliance and the two groups will have held a public meeting by the time of this conference.

Socialist Alternative’s strategy has been to eschew allocating resources to building an organised ongoing social struggle campaign such as Palestine Solidarity. Its strategic orientation has been to encourage protest mobilisations only in response to spontaneously generated anger or sentiment around issues as they arise. By being part of those protests, having a visible presence as a Red Bloc, getting speakers on platforms and organising forums immediately after protests, they recruit whomever they can. This strategy encourages them to argue against the possibility of winning reforms under capitalism and asserting that big mass campaigns are not feasible and will not happen in this period. Socialist Alternative’s (SAlt) orientation away from social movement building also fits with their conclusion that the primary potential for political work today is electoral. They do not identify any potential for building mass campaigns now, nor in the near future that they can prepare for now. They can see the definite “space” that the ALP has abandoned. Thus, their current orientation.

Socialist Alternative are in an interesting position. They do not have a perspective to build mass campaigns but they do have the perspective of encouraging any spontaneous protests. They will definitely continue to do this as part of their electoral work. I have seen on social media already, for example, Queensland Socialists spokespersons calling on people to join protests on Palestine. This may help them consolidate a position as a more militant activist alternative to the Greens in electoral politics.

From what we can see so far although we are not very well informed SAlt’s method is to mobilise its membership during elections for door-knocking as well as some local events while associating VS with protest activity, through their choice of candidates, speaking on platforms or social media promotion. In the absence of either growing social struggles or building campaign committees to encourage such movements, this variety of electoral approach will require serious resources and focus. They will also face the problems that electoral politics, no matter how angry the slogans might be, is a passive kind of politics. Even when this may be oriented to protests that happen, they are spontaneous, coming and going, while there are no movements being built.

The contradictions inherent in Socialist Alternative’s turn to a new prioritisation of electoral politics also embodies its own contradictions. It is tempting to say if we, or like the Democratic Socialist Party in the past, had as many members as SAlt we would be building campaign committees, no matter how difficult, rather than orienting to gathering votes (even if the vote gathering is connecting to whatever spontaneous protests are happening). However, SAlt cannot do that because it has recruited on the basis of consolidating a small “red bloc”, from which bigger things will spring later after a future spontaneous upturn in the objective conditions. Building an electoral campaign mechanism is an extension of Socialist Alternative’s long held priority directly building itself. That is a qualitatively different kind of political work from building broad campaign committees, or even kernels of that.

Within the given objective conditions, of which we are not yet a significant part, this process initiated by SAlt of the Socialist Party may turn out to present new opportunities, the precise nature of which we cannot yet estimate. Will there be sufficient momentum to “fill the space” to the left of the ALP that results in a formation that turns out to be genuinely democratic? Or will it expose SAlt’s sectarian character, or change that?

There is also an additional question. As a national party, the Socialist Party (SP) as they wish to call it, will be challenged to explain its position on important international questions. They will no doubt support a free Palestine and demand that Australian governments’ also do so. They will oppose AUKUS. But what will they say about the Russia-Ukraine war? Or the status of Taiwan? How will they characterise China? These will also be issues to watch.

The other party that has been trying and will continue to try to fill some of the abandoned space is Socialist Alliance. To date, its tactic has been to get their most active members into local council positions from where they build a personal profile, such as with Sue Bolton in Melbourne and Sam Wainwright in Fremantle. This tactic is logical for them as they don’t have the same capacity to mobilise large door-knock platoons as Socialist Alternative. It is not impossible that SAlt and Socialist Alliance will begin to cooperate more.

Solidarity with Palestine

There is nothing new to analyse on the Palestine solidarity activity. Support for Palestine has not waned in Australia. While polls show high numbers in Australia are opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and in support of recognising Palestine, as late as October 2024, support for the ALP government’s policies were still high. A 2024 Guardian Essential Poll showed 56 per cent approved of the government’s response (61 per cent Labor, 57 per cent Coalition, 49 per cent Greens), up 5 per cent from August. Younger voters tended to see Australia’s response as too pro-Israel.

There are also very few signs that Palestine was a significant issue affecting the election results. It is not impossible that the ALP government’s rhetorical criticisms of some Israeli policies while still defending Israel’s “right to defend itself” may have been a more palatable approach for some Liberal voters than Dutton’s aggressive assertion that he would invite Netanyahu to Australia. Maybe. But otherwise, there was no major impact.

The general character of Palestine solidarity activity is to reflect and consolidate existing sentiment. The process of winning people over to full support for serious actions like sanctions or open strong criticism of Washington is left to Israel through alienating people by more horrific policies. This can be partly put down to the lack of a strategy by the various leaderships of this activity to build a unified national campaign and campaign organisation. However, perhaps more fundamentally, it is a reflection of the fact that all the major institutions of progressive, social democratic outlook have withered. For somebody like me who witnessed the campaigns against the Vietnam war, against nuclear weapons and the invasion of East Timor in earlier periods, the absence of activists from ALP and Trade Union branches in both organising and mobilisations is extremely noticeable today.

There would no doubt be ways to start building stronger campaign organisations, despite this withering away, but while we are not capable to participate meaningfully in what organising is taking place, we will not understand what is possible and what is not. We can note this weakness, but we are not in a position to claim to know what specific new steps can be taken and, in any case, we don’t have the authority to make such calls.

Source of the Openings for Anti-imperialist Socialist Growth

Just at a time when an increasing number of people, even if initially a minority, feel the need for change, the need for something different, a stable, hegemonic ALP as the natural party of capitalist government creates the opening for promoting new initiatives. The idea that change may happen through the ALP is being eliminated even as, despite or because of its huge parliamentary majority, it stays on its status quo course. New openings for socialist or left social democratic electioneering are the direct result of the stability of the bourgeois political, especially electoral system, where that stability is stability in defence of the status quo.

And it is not going to only be an opening for door-knock socialism or the venting of protesting anger, but an opening for deeper explanations of the current stable dead-end. It is an opening for Red Spark to succeed in a wider reach-out and recruitment, convincing people of our analysis and the usefulness of the praxis we stand for: rebuild campaigns alongside advocating for socialism.

The International Context

There has been no qualitative change in the international situation. Israel’s occupation increases in brutality, despite some imperialist states upping their rhetorical criticism of some (not all) Israeli policies towards Gaza and the West Bank. The Russia Ukraine war continues, with no major military or diplomatic breakthroughs. Russian advance on the long front line stretching across South-Eastern Ukraine continues to build up speed, but not significantly.

Trump’s foreign and tariffs policies, as they zig and zag through the Middle East and elsewhere, generate discussions of uncertainty and even “chaos”, but no full-blown chaos has yet happened. Trump’s ‘get the best deal’ tactics have created tensions with some of the West European imperialists, which adds to the sense of some impending chaos in Europe. Deals between the US and Britain, with Britain’s Labour government articulating more war-like behaviour, add an additional aggressive element to the mix.

Within the United States, the chaos is in the discussion, but not in the economy. Inflation has cooled in the US over the last few months. Hiring is up. There have been bumps in the stock markets, but it has been on an upward trend over the last few months also. The rich are about to get the biggest upward channelling of wealth in decades with the new law just passed by Congress. Most importantly, there has been no instability in bourgeois politics in general. The Democrat vs Republican competition remains moderate.

This is not to say Trump’s decisions have not provoked almost constant controversy. Trump’s attacks on Harvard, DOGE driven cuts to services, more openly nepotistic incorporation of Musk into the administration (although now gone), the extreme tariff policy followed by backdowns, the use of emergency powers for tariffs (then deemed illegal in court), attempts to deport permanent residents, sections of the mass media supporting cases like Mahmoud Khalil as a way to push back against Trump’s overuse of executive power, threats to revoke the visas of ALL Chinese students these may well end up having important impacts on bourgeois politics even if that has not manifested yet owing to the backwardness of the Democrats.

Grass-roots resistance and radicalisation

Opposition to Trump by sections of the media (such as the New York Times or Washington Post on the Mahmoud Khalil case), by Harvard and by some courts may be symptoms of a growing degree of disunity and struggle within the capitalist class over the best way forward. Some more stable format may be reached as Trump’s rule normalises. This also may not occur if grassroots resistance increases, even among Republican voters.

In the US, a similar dialectic as in Australia is at work: the relative stabilisation of mainstream bourgeois politics just when, at the grassroots, there is a demand for change. Resistance is strengthening the dynamic for radicalisation, with increasing potential for that to take off.

The Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) mobilisations against oligarchy have been successful. Their rallies have had tens of thousands in attendance. While they have not yet destabilised anything in the Democratic Party, they are an indication of a significant, growing and energised critical left constituency. The fact of the ongoing protests for Palestine led by the left, and the militant, including physical, defence by grass-roots communities of those detained by ICE, all point to a sustained basis for radicalising Left politics. It may be the case that the very stability of the Democrat vs Republican competition, based on the moderation of Democrat resistance to Trump, is fuelling this sustainability.

The reality of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) getting a surge of membership applications is a very positive, hopeful development. The PSL reported its earlier surge of growth as connected to how Sanders’ campaigns radicalised the atmosphere and popularised Socialism. The contradiction between a stabilisation of accommodation between Democrats and Republicans on the one hand and a dynamic of resistance on the other must increase the potential for radicalisation. The PSL has now launched the PSL Action Network to broaden its capacity to mobilise resistance beyond its membership.

The Global South Question

As we have analysed and concluded in earlier reports, the sharpening tensions and contrasts between the Global South and the Imperialist North still frame almost all international politics as well as impinge onto Australian politics. There is no need here to repeat the statistics on the global economic divide.

Most international tensions do relate to this divide.

• The US trade war against China
• Pete Hegseth’s warmongering, claiming China is preparing to attack Taiwan
• The AUKUS project
• NATO vs Russia
• Pressure on Iran and interventions into Syria
• France vs African nations tensions

And against the activist socialist states:

• Destabilisation of Venezuela
• Intensification of embargo against Cuba, including at least rhetorical attacks on Cuba’s international medical activities. This has been horribly devasting for Cuba with crisis of deficiencies in many sectors. It is set to worsen with a tightening of the blockade.

The US trade war against China is also part of a strategy by Trump, continuing Biden era policies, to shore up US domination over global economic processes.

The divide between the Global South and the Imperialist North on Palestine is also very visible, although this is by no means always substantive. Saudi Arabia and other countries as well as a country like Indonesia play both sides.

Conclusions: What Can we Do?

Red Spark’s options are limited by our tiny size, which means our first obligation is to win more people to our perspectives. Tomorrow there will be a Tasks and Perspectives Report which will outline some plans for approach and activity.

We need to sustain a central focus on the horrific and inhumane gap in quality of life created by the imperial divide. Besides being the truth, this is also essential to broaden Australian activists’ horizons beyond the immediate needs of working people in this country, as important as many of these needs are. Without that internationalist perspective, the danger is a degeneration into either a preserve-our-way-of-life chauvinism or a focus on local, community politics. Without a thorough anti-imperialist analysis, even stances on Palestine can become more about denouncing the moral bankruptcy of the Australian ruling class than helping strengthen the Palestinian struggle. The weak ideological character of the democratic humanist sentiment that underpins high levels of support for Palestine also weakens the ability to think through developed political strategies.

Immediately after the ALP’s election victory Albanese headed for Indonesia. There he praised to the sky President Prabowo, who is a former Suharto era general and infamous leader of the dictatorship’s violent repression. Many Australian businesses salivate at the prospects for sales and some profitable investment, while the latest figures from Indonesia show that more than 80 per cent of Indonesian workers now receive less than the extremely low minimum wage. Eighty per cent! Albanese’s first overseas visit was to Indonesia. Red Spark’s first invitation to a trade union leader from the Global South will also be from Indonesia.

But our International Solidarity Dinner in October will also feature a Palestinian speaker. Palestine, for both moral and strategic reasons, must remain very important for us. Socialists can’t stand by in the face of genocide. When we can have members, or even a member, become involved in organising committees, we should do so. We must also look to the possibility of greater involvement in solidarity work with Cuba, as the Trump-Rubio stranglehold tightens.

The urgency is palpable

But so too is the potential for radicalisation and acceleration of our growth. The more the ALP declares itself the party of stable rule, the more there is profiling of any kind of alternatives: Greens or socialist or even Teals the more stimulation there will be for people to think about the alternatives. We can see it also in the interest in Marxism on social media and the emergence of a self-taught, eclectic communism, but detached from organisational praxis.

There is not simply or only the “space” that can attract electoralist activity, ultimately accommodating passivity, but a growing openness to our ideas of anti-imperialist Marxism and a praxis that includes initiating or supporting and pushing forward building ongoing social struggles.

Source: https://red-spark.org/2025/07/02/the-australian-and-international-political-situation/