Sam Wainwright - Preferential Voting - Vote Socialist Alliance 1
Channel: Green Left
Date: 2021-03-10

What is preferential voting and why vote for Socialist Alliance before Greens and Labor?

*Make your vote count*
There are two chambers of parliament in WA, the Legislative Assembly (divided into 59 districts) and the Legislative Council (divided into 6 regions). Although different, in both cases, the voting system is preferential.

In this system you indicate on your ballot paper your first choice through to your least preferred candidate. If we get knocked out, your vote passes on at full value to the Greens and then Labor.

In a preferential voting system there’s no risk or cost in voting for what you want. Voting for the lesser evil first is a waste of your vote, it’s an endorsement of business as usual.

*Immediate proposals*
There are many policies we share with the Greens, and some with Labor. Where we are not standing we support the Greens before Labor, and Labor before Liberal.

Here are some of the immediate policies we are proposing that no other party is campaigning on:
- land rights for Indigenous Australians
- net zero emissions within 10 years
- democratic public ownership of banking, mining, major utilities, education and healthcare
- peg residential rent increases to the consumer price index (CPI)
- 30,000 new public housing dwellings in four years
- sustainable transport solutions as a better alternative to Roe 8 and the Outer Harbour.

By voting for us you help put these on the political agenda.

*Democracy and the planet need people power*

Unlike Labor and the Greens we think capitalism is unable to go green, meet human need or be truly democratic.

We advocate for people power over the power of big business. As long as a majority of decisions are made in corporate boardrooms rather than in parliament, we won’t have true democracy.

Furthermore, capitalism cannot stop the ecological crisis. It must pursue endless growth on a finite planet in order to maximise profits, offloading the true cost of producing goods and services onto society and the environment.

We have to break this model of economic and social organisation if we are to tackle the climate crisis and create a better world for all.

Only people power; mobilised in our communities will allow us to overcome the undemocratic grip of big business. In voting for us you help build support for the force in Australian politics we desperately need.

If you Vote 1 Socialist Alliance "above the line" in South Metropolitan your vote will be redistributed according to the Voting Ticket Preference that we have lodged with the WA Electoral Commission. You can view it here: https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/elect.../state/sgelection... Alternatively you can distribute your vote exactly the way you prefer by numbering all 64 boxes "below the line".

[Advertisement by Socialist Alliance WA. Spoken by S.Wainwright for Socialist Alliance. Authorised by J.Parker, 21 A Jarvis St, O'Connor.]