Three of the four International Socialist Tendency groups in Australia have merged

Given its history of hair-trigger splits over issues real or imagined, it is not every day that groups from the Trotskyist tradition merge. Yet over the first weekend of February this year three groups in Australia from the British Socialist Workers Party’s International Socialist Tendency agreed to form a single organisation.

 
 
 
 
 

Why the Stop Bush, Make Howard History protest was a success

Without wanting to endorse the specific approach of the DSP, we can't help but agree that there was a lot of ultra-left posturing in the lead up to the Stop Bush demonstration. Thank goodness that the sense of the demonstrators won through and it was a peaceful and disciplined march.

By Pip Hinman and Alex Bainbridge, DSP

 
 
 
 
 

The Labor Tribune Editor originally produced his review of David McNight's Beyond Right and Left for the reborn Australian Marxist Review (AMR)

The AMR is produced by the Communist Party of Australia as something of a theoretical journal. At least it encourages "Ideas, Theory, Policies, Experience, [and] Discussion" and "welcomes articles from readers and contributions to AMR Dialogue"

 
 
 
 
 

We call for open debate and disciplined unity in the labour movement, not sect intrigue and split fever.

Well who woulda thunk it? Six Melbourne-based members of Democratic Socialist Perspective have hived off to become MSN - the Marxist Solidarity Network. (I wonder what Bill Gates thinks of that?) Further, they have also resigned from the Socialist Alliance, declaring it merely the public face of the DSP and a dead-end for left regroupment.

 
 
 
 
 

The NZ Green conference on June 3 elected a new male co-leader, Russel Norman, to fill the vacuum left by the death of Rod Donald.

It also saw a jump to the right under the tutelage of David McKnight, author of Beyond Right and Left. We republish this review of the conference by Scott Hamilton from NZ political blog, Reading the Maps.

 
 
 
 
 

Community pickets help win reinstatement for sacked Finlay Engineering workers

We publish below the Melbourne-based Socialist Party's report of the victory next to the press release of the ACTU. Note the ACTU release says that negotiation won the workers reinstatement, not class struggle. While the Socialist Party grouplet over-eggs its own importance...

 
 
 
 
 

The editor reviews:
Beyond Right and Left: new politics and the culture wars
by David McKnight (Allen & Unwin, $24.95)

The path from erstwhile Marxist to academic apologist for the system of capital is a well-worn one. Most who have travelled this path have drifted into obscurity. Not so David McKnight. He remains an advocate for social change, albeit with a twist.