By Liam Flenedy
June 19. 2013 -- Green Left Weekly -- More than 50 people gathered in the Newtown Community and Cultural Centre in Wellington on May 31 and June 1, 2013, for the annual conference of the socialist organisation Fightback.
The sessions were filled with lively and respectful debate across a number of different perspectives within the left on national and international issues.
Fightback 2013 featured speakers from Fightback, the International Socialist Organisation (Aotearoa), the Socialist Party of Australia and the Australian Socialist Alliance.
The first panel session “Global context: Crisis, Imperialism, Fightback” set the tone for the conference — all speakers noting that the global capitalist system is still deeply in crisis and that the working class is being made to pay for it.
Discussion centred on the resistance to austerity in Europe and the rise of left parties such as SYRIZA.
Another key theme was the state of the Australian and New Zealand economies now that the Australian mining boom seems to be waning.