Roger Wilson
Roger Wilson
CPA 90th birthday
According to Peter Love, members of the SEARCH Foundation, organised the 90th birthday party of the Communist Party of Australia at the AMWU's Melbourne offices on Sunday 7 November, 2010.
Organizers were Cavell Zangalis, Carmel Shute, Louise Connor, Rob Durbridge and Roger Wilson.[1]
CPA
In April 1984 Bernie Taft departed the Communist Party of Australia with the rest of the Victorian State Committee, including his son Mark Taft, Linda Rubinstein, Dave Davies and Roger Wilson (assistant state secretary of the Seaman’s Union and member of the CPA’s national executive). They pledged to form a ‘new, broad, socialist organization… New ways, new patterns of thinking and new methods of organisation are needed to meet the very real opportunities for socialist growth.’
The centrality of ‘democracy’ was repeatedly proclaimed — this term being used to signal the new Socialist Forum’s unswerving allegiance to the parliamentary ALP and to ‘negotiated agreements between the industrial and political wings of the labour movement.’
Wrote Mark Taft:
- We’re talking not of an oppositional Left, but of a Left that intervenes in political and social decision-making. A Left that wants real change, not just minor tinkering with the social system. A Left that recognises the constraints of public opinion and puts up realistic and realisable proposals for social change…
- People in the Left are openly discussing issues where they would not have done so before. Significant sections of the Left now believe in the strategic need for negotiated agreements between the Labor movement and Labor governments. Sections of the Left are now saying that mechanisms other than mere protectionism are necessary for industry revitalisation and the creation of a viable manufacturing base.
- We need to have a mass conception of social change, rather than minority vanguardist conceptions. We need to recognise that change will come over time through reform based on majority popular support, not through revolutions, massive disruption and dislocation based on minorities.
Prominent members of the Socialist Forum included Julia Gillard (former president of the Australian Union of Students), Jenny Macklin, Bernie Taft and Mark Taft (the latter is now a Victorian County Court judge).
References
- ↑ [Love, Peter, Recorder, Melbourne Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, "90th ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AUSTRALIA", Recorder Number 268, December, 2010, pages 2.3, Link:https://labourhistorymelbourne.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/recorder-2681.pdf]