The Workers Party has today made an application to the Electoral Commission to register as a political party able to contest the list vote in the upcoming national elections.
In the 2002 and 2005 elections (standing as the Anti-Capitalist Alliance) it has contested a number of electorate seats in the main centers, and will be doing so again this year.
In the coming election the Workers Party will be campaigning on issues that are of importance to working people, such as abolishing GST (not just on food), jobs for all with a shorter working week and no loss of pay, no restrictions on the right to strike, and scrapping undemocratic laws such as the Electoral Finance Act and the so-called “Terrorism Suppression” Act.
The Workers Party also stands for workers power and a working people’s republic. All Workers Party candidates pledge if elected to parliament to live on the average worker’s wage and to fight for the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with an economic system based not on private profit and private ownership, but on human need.
A list of the Workers Party’s 2008 electorate candidates announced to-date is available here.
For more information contact Workers Party national organiser Tim Bowron on 027 715 9178 email tim.bowron(at)gmail.com or Workers Party national secretary and Manukau East candidate Daphna Whitmore on 029 494 9865 email wpnz(at)clear.net.nz.
Interesting… Could you define:
– Abolishing GTS (in favour of what?)
– Shorter weeks of work with no loss of pay
… If you come back with realistic ideas and replacement, I am to pledge my support.
I do like your ideas but I require solutions instead of instigations. The people will ask for it.
Our starting point in calling for the abolition of GST and for a shorter working week without loss of pay is that under capitalism workers only receive a fraction of the new value that they actually create, with the rest being divided up between the state, the manufacturer, the lenders of capital etc.
Therefore we don’t think it’s necessary for workers to suffer the double burden of regressive taxes such as GST or user pays.
Instead money for things like free education and healthcare (or wage rises!) should be funded through the expropriation of the capitalists, which would free up a big chunk of revenue which at present is consumed unproductively by the capitalist class (unlike the consumption of wages by workers, which is necessary in order to reproduce their labour power, consumption by capitalists is entirely non-productive).
Productive investment and the maintenence of a social surplus does not require the existence of a parasitical capitalist class which creates no new value.
As you can see in our press release statement, we make no bones about the fact that our demands are only achievable throught the complete overthrow of capitalism, unlike those socialists who pretend capitalism can be “reformed”.
The main point of our election campaign is to put forward the demands that are objectively necessary for the working class and to raise political consciousness, rather than telling the capitalists how to better administer their dirty system.
If some time down the track we do get elected to parliament, our strategy would be to use our elected positions as a platform for revolutionary extra-parliamentary agitation, rather than trying to extract policy concessions by doing deals with the capitalist parties.
Even if by some miracle we got a majority of Workers Party MPs elected, no amount of legislation could bring about the kind of radical social and economic transformation that is needed.
Well said Tim. I appreciate that and I believe this idea is possible. I am not disagreeing with the whole perspective but I am to require clear specification (as you provided) of “what is next if elected”. I know a little of working Communism myself. Working because I had the chance to experience communism elected and I know where some of the faults are. From here, we have two options’: learning from our mistakes or learn from others’ mistakes. The second is best.
Either way, WP is ready to move forward to higher grounds and I will be following your steps all the way up to Parliament House and will raise my voice when the practice of Communism differs from the original ideology.
I believe WP has future…
“Either way, WP is ready to move forward to higher grounds and I will be following your steps all the way up to Parliament House and will raise my voice when the practice of Communism differs from the original ideology. ”
I’m hopeful that we won’t stray from the revolutionary path, but if we do make sure and let us know. 😉
“I believe WP has future…”
So do I, that’s one of the reasons I joined. Perhaps you should as well…?