Victoria’s leading socialist party will expand nationwide in hopes of reviving the country’s political left and holding Prime Minister Anthony Albanese [1] accountable. ‘In the 19th century Marx talked about how communism was a “spectre haunting Europe”,’ he said. ‘We hope to be a spectre haunting Albanese – both by arguing for a socialist vision of society that’s better and fairer than anything Labor is offering, and by reminding him of the ideals that he, as someone who historically stood on the left wing of the Labor Party, once held and which he has failed to live up to as Prime Minister.’ Controversial squatters’ right’s activist Jordan van den Lamb ran as a Victorian Socialists senate candidate in May. Victorian Socialists, founded as a state-based democratic socialist party in 2018, will expand to become a nationwide party. Former senior Howard government advisor and political consultant Terry Barnes said Mr van den Lamb appeared to be suffering ‘delusions of grandeur’. ‘Marxism has turned out to be a discredited ideology so, if they want to stick on the fringe and have delusions of grandeur, good luck to them but they’re not going to change Australian politics one iota,’ he said.
Source: Compiled by APN from media reports