Socialist Alternative leaders in the new electoral front want to ban caucuses from identifying with the party in public. NSW Socialists member Clarrie Lewis – writing in a personal capacity – argues this is a tipping point in defining the organisation’s democratic culture.
After the caucus publicly supported an ‘End the Blockade of Cuba’ demonstration in March, the secretary wrote insisting that Bread & Roses remove the reference to NSW Socialist Party from its logo.
Bread & Roses caucus members were told:
“The Bread and Roses Caucus has included NSW Socialists Party on its logo. I’m writing to inform you that this will need to be removed.”
[...]
“There are a whole series of political and legal implications if this is not adhered to. We are unable to authorise material produced by an internal grouping.”
Attempts to justify this restriction by invoking unspecified “political and legal implications” is a complete fabrication. A banner that says “Bread & Roses – NSW Socialist Party” is not an attempt to make statements under the NSW Electoral Act in the name of the registered party (New South Wales Soc). No reasonable person would think this.
The present dispute is therefore not about logos.
It is about what kind of political organisation NSW Socialists intends to become.
13 Comments
MisterFrog@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 136d
Thanks for sharing. This is kinda concerning tbh. Hopefully it all is resolved soon (and in favour of allowing Bread and Roses to keep their logo as-is).
The "NSW Socialist Party" part of their logo is comically small, in the poster shared you wouldn't even know the Socialist Party were involved. And even if you did see it, you'd obviously know it was a sub-grouping.
I'm pretty against a party secretariat unilaterally deciding these sorts of things.
If a grouping really becomes a serious problem, then have the wider membership vote on it.
I don't know Bread and Roses, but I agree with the author that this is an undesirable move from the NSW Socialists secretary.
maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 136d
I'm confused. The post makes it sound serious but afact this is the chain of events:
A caucus/faction in NSW Socialists had their logo plus the text NSW Socialist Party on event promo stuff
The NSW Socialists secretary got in touch and said 'Were not sure about this? Can you remove the NSW Socialists bit for now?'
Based on those two things someone published this?
Am I reading that correctly? If so, how do you escalate from being asked not to do something to publicly denouncing party democracy and the state secretary? I kept reading expecting there to be some back and fourth between the caucus and the secretary but there was nothing.
eureka@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 136d
The quote comes off as much stronger than that, to me. The statement isn't "unsure" or "for now" - nor does the demand offer room to discuss. Among other things, this author makes the case that the given rationale of "legal implications" is baseless.
It would have been nice to see some more development before escalating this to an external opinion piece, but if the point is true, that the party secretary is using baseless legal arguments to chill opposing caucuses, then that kind of behaviour has very serious implications for the party's future, especially considering that one of the Socialist Party's main hurdles is that it's widely perceived as a SAlt front. Given that organisation's extensive history of bad faith sectarianism, I think the author has fair reason to take this kind of chilling demand seriously and explore its ramifications.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 135d
As a side query from the topic (which I agree seems concerning):
Can you send me some info on this if you have it? I've so far not experienced this first-hand (fairly new to VS), so would like to hear the arguments from their detractors. Or perhaps your own opinion on the matter.
I have no doubt there are annoying people as part of the org, but I believe that to be true of most orgs. The vast majority of Socialist Alternative members I've encountered have not been problematic at all, and are very visible mostly because they're extremely engaged compared to most within VS, it seems.
(Personal experience, I may just be in different circles)
eureka@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 135d
I've heard from some people that it's very different by region/campus, a Uni of Wollongong friend said their SAlt campus society was far easier to work with and less hostile than the Sydney ones. So I should have been more specific and limited this to the branches I'm most familiar with - Sydney and Melbourne. Obviously, your positive experiences outweigh my local experiences when it comes to you on the ground.
::: spoiler Spoilered because criticising an org could be interpreted as infighting
If you want to hear the arguments from their detractors, try almost any other party's magazines. (Well, don't bother with SEP's WSWS - they call everyone "pseudo-left" - the word currently appear 14 times just on their front-page.) So I'll just stick to some highlights and local anecdotes.
Here's an article from Partisan!'s editor-in-chief which rejects some common criticisms of SAlt by various detractors, while explaining some legitimate criticisms: the first on the list is their sectarianism.
Here's an article (Uni of Melbourne) overviewing the perceived hostility of SAlt on campus. I don't agree with the authors views on reformism and other comments, but their survey results showed almost unanimously that people who strongly aligned with UMelb SAlt's key values would never consider joining them, as well as listing various cases of harassment.
Anecdotally, friends of mine have also encountered cases of harassment (repeatedly being called after signing a petition, then calling from another number after being blocked; having ridiculous rumors spread about them, such as calling an ex-SAlt member a climate change denialist).
Their Sydney branch has repeatedly engaged in organisational sectarianism (splitting from the first March for Australia counterprotest; stalling a near-unanimous student SGM vote on rejecting USyd's re-definition of antisemitism [note: Students for Palestine was started by SAlt, and I believe Students Against War is mainly comprised of their rival Cliffite group Solidarity, from which SAlt split]; organising concurrent Palestine protests after other campus groups had organised one; trying to split a joint march from USyd to a Palestine rally at the last minute, telling unaligned students to exit the light-rail a station early to march as a SAlt bloc, but failing to tell most of them, leaving the unaligned students to travel with the rest of the pro-Palestine groups). There are many times they've worked with other groups too, and there's credit where credit is due for that, but their chaotic opportunistic tendencies to try and dominate movements, rather then participate alongside other parties, is widely-understood here.
Personally, I met and talked with a friendly SAlt student a couple of years ago during Palestine actions, and when I asked about their view on their org's reputation for non-cooperation, they said, SAlt believe their view on how to build a revolution is correct, so why shouldn't they do whatever they can to build power and make it happen. Unfortunately, in my view, their methods ultimately destroy trust and create pointless drama. :::
MisterFrog@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 120d
Thanks for sending these through! Haven't made my way through all of them yet. I do very much appreciate the time taken to find them
The first one seemed alright, and pointed out a lot of the weak criticism others make, only to make a claim in the end without much to back it up, and in my experience working with SAlt members within my union rank and file, just isn't true.
The author seems to handwaive in saying they're not trying to build a mass-movement, when that's exactly my experience of what they're trying to do. It's just that the mass-movement they're trying to build is explicitly revolutionary.
The author claims that "While some SAlt members are in unions" when it's an explicit requirement that working SAlt members join their union.
I will keep my eye out though, because I haven't been around them that long, and I am not a member. I'm only part of VS.
In terms of what's happening in other states or other people in the org I don't know, well I'll take your word for it. I'm sure those people exist.
I also am not aware of how well they work with other groups, so that's something I'll keep my eye on too.
Thanks for sharing comrades.
Excerpt from first article I thought didn't really hold water:
(Not sure if true, but I believe their membership is at about 800 now?)
eureka@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 120d
Unfortunately their website doesn't seem to have any way to view their constitution/etc., so I'll take your word for it. I'm aware that (here, at least) a huge proportion of their members are students, but even employed students can join unions, and there are student unions. I really don't know enough to say whether or not it's unfair for the author to say "some" rather than "many" or "most".
Yep, that's their self-reported number as of 2026. [last paragraph] The previous Red Flag article posted months before the Partisan! one claimed a membership of 600 at the time.
I have to agree that the excerpt doesn't hold water. In fact, the paragraph after is also dubious:
I've seen both SAlt and Solidarity members present in the foreground of mainstream media, admittedly regarding activism around Palestine. And since the article was published, we've even seen Chris Minns essentially call out Palestine protestors as being organised by 'a pack of communists' (possibly directed towards Joshua Lees). But this isn't divorced from unions - the MUA has prominent members of CPA and Solidarity appearing in mainstream media around the ZIM protests (noting that the MUA Sydney branch secretary is a CPA member).
Perhaps their intended criticism is that these groups have presence, but aren't wearing their orgs on their sleeve: if I weren't involved in the socialist movement, I wouldn't have recognised these SAlt, Solidarity and CPA members as such.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 120d
Yeah, I would say practically any socialist org is pretty much unheard of to the general public 😅
Hopefully in time, this will change.
I suspect that whatever flavour of socialism one is interested in, it will become more popular soon.
Mostly because at some point people won't be able to afford to live.
Though, of course, we could always repeat the 20tn century :( :(
Christ on a bike... Wish us luck for the Victorian election lol. I suspect we'll get a couple One Nation seats at least...
eureka@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 119d
Oh I forgot it was in 2026. I'm too focused on the NSW one a few months later.
Best of luck, comrade, and I hope you and your friends can get some traction and help a few thousand people onto the right track before they vote.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 136d
Hard to say without more context and the full email from the secretary.
Perhaps the quotes were cherry picked, but it does kinda seem the secretary is saying (paraphrased) "you can't use NSW Socialist Party in your logo".
Which seems a little dubious to me, but perhaps that's only because of the precedent of all the Labor grouping names. I dunno how I feel about this
The NSW party constitution on the website doesn't seem to say anything about it.
I suppose they could just be "Bread and Roses".
And in fairness Socialist Alternative don't have "NSW Socialist Party" in their logo or comms at any time
(I am not part of either Socialist Alternative or Bread and Roses)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
star@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 136d
I saw the reddit post for the same article, and the brigade of clearly bad-faith replies from their rival caucus is disappointing to see. Out of 6 root comments, only one actually engages with the article.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 135d
Something something; the inevitability of leftist infighting lol :(