Labor substantially increases its vote in WA and the Greens do well.
Socialist Alliance literally nowhere, electorally speaking

By Bob Gould

The election result in WA is a dramatic confirmation of the class
divide in Australian politics between the Labor-Green side and the
conservative side.

The rather eccentric predictions of people like Michael Berrell and
Paul Oboohov about the disappearance of the Labor vote are sharply
refuted by this result.

When you look at the map of WA, the areas where Labor and the Greens
did well were the working-class and middle-class urban seats and
non-urban areas with a high concentration of Aboriginal voters.

The Liberal-National votes were concentrated in the most affluent
urban areas and some conservative farming areas.

It's clear that organised workers rallied to the Labor government on
the general understanding that re-election of Labor was the best
defence of their interests against Howard's attacks on their right to
organise.

Peter Boyle's recent metaphysics about the healthy future prospects of
the Socialist Alliance are dramatically contradicted by this election
result, as also is the curious article in last week's Green Left
Weekly, which ended on the note that the Socialist Alliance was the
genuine electoral alternative to what the writers called the two
capitalist parties.

The radicalised working class and middle class voters clearly didn't
see it that way because the Socialist Alliance vote was so low in two
of the three upper house electorates it contested that it didn't
register a percentage, and the percentage in the other seat was .02.

The election was notable for a very tight and deliberate exchange of
preferences between the Greens and Labor, which is infuriating to the
bourgeoisie, particularly since along with NSW the WA Greens are the
sheet anchor of the left in the Greens nationally.

This election confirms the absolute necessity for socialists to adopt
a strategic united front approach to Labor and the Greens, rather than
the DSP's vitriolic exposure strategy embodied in all the nonsense
preached by the DSP leadership about the two equal capitalist parties.