Community Need Not Corporate Greed

[b_auspol]

Community Need Not Corporate Greed

How to Vote:  It’s a truism among microparty fans that if you need a quick rundown of the left to right spectrum of parties running in an election, go find the socialists on the ballot. And our plainclothes Socialist Alliance have delivered again here: 1 to themselves, 2 to the Greens, 3 to Labor, 4 to Our Local Community, and 5 to Small Business Party.

Photo comments: this candidate photo is taken down on Parramatta River Walk, on the painted path side, with Lennox Bridge in the background. I’m amused by the number of bridge showing up. Outfit wise everyone is dressed in red, which has been filtered to a red ochre, which is an interesting choice – it’s a clever combination of socialist red with an Aboriginal colour palette.

 

Susan Price

Website: https://communityneednotcorporategreed.org.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CommunityNeedParramatta

Susan Price is a hardy local Socialist Alliance member. She’s run for the Senate federally twice, in 2016 and 2019. She was actually the lead candidate in 2019.

These are your classic socialists – there’s even a write up with in the Green Left Weekly about the campaign running.

There is a lovely “What we stand for” statement, which is: “Community Need Not Corporate Greed stands for putting the needs of the community ahead of greedy developers and corporate interests.” That’s some emotive language there, with the repeated focus on greed. As I sidenote, I always side eye these rather tryhard local party names: we’re not Socialist Alliance, we’re running as a slogan!

There’s a call for an open council, resident-initiated motions, monthly ward meetings for accountability and an end to confidential briefings by developers. Now, personally, the idea of resident-initiated motions sounds like a way for over-involved residents to get their pet thing in front of the council, and monthly ward meetings sound like an oversupply of meetings to me, I’m aware that for some reason I DON’T have the deep abiding love of having a stand up fight about what council is doing. Every month. With my neighbours. Fixing developer issues seems fine though.

A climate policy! I know, I’m shocked too. Cool down Parramatta streets (this is presume is a tree planting policy), making council buildings available as heat refuges, declare a climate emergency, and a zero emissions city by 2030. I’m impressed. The first two are actually ground level polices that can be implemented at council level, and the latter two are aspirational but the sort of thing the leftier councils are moving to.

The anti-racism policy is “don’t celebrate genocide on 26 January”, say no to racism, and make the city a “Refugee Welcome Zone”. I thought we WERE the last? But I checked the list and no, Cumberland is, Parramatta isn’t. Well there’s something decidedly simple to sort out. This is all very expected and straight forward.

Development policy is to Save Willow Grove (yes shockingly Susan Price is for Willow Grove and against the Powerhouse), support the CFMEU green ban (sorry, that went during lockdown) and restore community say over development. Now I have no issues with consultation, so sure, but having spent many an hour READING submissions on other issues (hello electorate boundary redistributions) I can also say that the community tend to be NIMBYs with a loose grasp on reality. Submissions are great! But I also spend a lot of time pointing out the funniest parts to other people.

The main housing policy is a 20% affordable housing minimum in all new developments. Sure. Sydney prices are Sydney prices. More public housing – another shortage all over the city I have no issue with trying to combat. And affordable rental laws. What would that even look like? Is this rent limits? A price cap based on property value? Pegging rents to wages?

Speaking of pegging figures, Price also wants a sliding scale of rents, indexed to income. That’s all very well, but as someone who plays with income calculations for work, how expansive is the definition of income? Are we looking at income splitting and family trust situations? Or small ABN companies that hold most of the assets and pay a deliberately low ‘wage’ to their director who is the only employee? Income indexation always sounds fine for people on salaries and Centrelink, but once you add contractors and ABN workers to the mix it gets MESSY.

Price would also like an end to privatisation, outsourcing and contracting out council services. A bigger public service yessssss.

In terms of transport, the policy is actually pretty slim: it’s just “fight cuts to bus routes and services”. I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed. LABOR was telling me about the new bike paths on offer. Is bus cuts, something EVERYONE is complaining about, all you have?

 

Katrina James

Katrina James is a local activist and community events person, and founder of The Westies, which is basically a community organisation about pride in Western Sydney as a location. I know she’s organised a number of Parramatta city events and concerts over the years, and has led a bunch of climate change protests locally.

James is the only one of the three on the ticket who isn’t a Socialist Alliance member.

 

Douglas Hawthorne

Douglas Hawthorne is a member of Socialist Alliance. His areas of interest are Aboriginal rights and anti-racism campaigns, including with migrant workers and refugees. I haven’t been able to track much else down about him.

 

Overall Opinion:

Community Need Not Corporate Greed is a silly name for a party and puts me in mind of a number of joke parties, but this is at heart a Socialist Alliance ticket. While I wish they were stronger on public and active transport policies in their material, you can assume that they'll be supporting everything you'd assume a Socialist Alliance candidate would support.