Australian socialists: `Take back the wealth! Put mines, banks and energy in the hands of the people!'

Election broadsheet of the Socialist Alliance, Australia

May 1, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – Bring the mining industry, the big banks and the energy companies under public/community ownership and control, so that they can be run in a way that respects Aboriginal rights, the environment and social justice. The urgent need to address climate change alone demands that these industries be immediately taken out of the hands of the billionaires and their global corporations and operated as not-for-profit public services under the democratic control of the majority.

From Greece to Australia, the whole world has witnessed the moral bankruptcy of capitalism as it has destroyed the lives of billions of people through the wholesale privatisation of our collective wealth and socialisation of their losses.

We cannot afford to leave our future to the likes of Australian mining billionaires Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer, and the faceless bankers. If we do so, we won’t have a future worth leaving to future generations.

The mining industry needs to be publicly owned not just to redistribute the huge profits being made from exploiting finite resources, but also to stop uranium mining and to phase out coal and other fossil fuels, while creating new jobs in radically boosted renewable energy, public transport and other social infrastructure.

The banks do not have to be run as a profit-gouging private operation. They can be run as a not-for-profit public service providing cheap credit to families, community groups and small businesses and a safe and ethical way for people to invest their savings.

Instead of gambling these savings on irresponsible and dangerous corporate schemes, our collective savings can be used to fund the public infrastructure we need for a just and sustainable future.

Download the complete broadsheet HERE, or read on screen below.