The Saturday edition of the Daily Telegraph, the Murdoch media’s main tabloid in Sydney, cited an anti-war speech delivered to this year's WSWS international May Day rally by Socialist Equality Party (Australia) National Secretary Cheryl Crisp.
The piece was written by Joe Hildebrand. In addition to being one of the publication’s most prominent journalists, he has developed a broader television and radio presence. Hildebrand’s commentary is invariably of a far-right character.
The article was ostensibly a denunciation of the “Labor against War” organisation, which peddles the fraud that Labor can be pressured to drop the AUKUS military pact with the US and Britain, aimed at preparing for war against China. The group advances the views of a minority wing of the ruling elite, fearful of the consequences of full-blown conflict with Australia’s largest trading partner. It also serves as a safety valve, to redirect growing concern over militarism back behind Labor.
In the course of an absurd anti-communist attack on “Labor against War,” Hildebrand cited several portions of Crisp’s anti-war speech. As Crisp outlines in the tweet below, the claim that the SEP and “Labor against War” have aligning views is a fraud. Hildebrand’s absurd amalgam, however, served as a warning to his ruling class patrons of where the real threat to their militarist policies lies.
Dripping with vitriol and anti-communism, Murdoch's Daily Telegraph’s Joe Hildebrand hailed Albanese’s dispatching of the anti-AUKUS “left” Labor Against War group at the 2023 ALP Conference.
Twisting reality, he warns them they and the Greens are in the company of the Socialist Equality Party, the International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site, and to beware. They are not. Neither Labor Against War nor the Greens oppose war. They feel uncomfortable with AUKUS—a military pact between US, UK and Australia.
While unconvincingly depicting them as “closet commies,” he identifies the SEP, the ICFI and WSWS as the real enemy.
After hailing Albanese’s transformation from the “veteran warrior-warlord of the Left” to the “pragmatic moderate leader in the mould of Hawke and Keating,” Hildebrand congratulates Albanese on “the tablescraps” he has thrown to the “left” in the party.
As I state in my speech at this year’s ICFI May Day online rally: “The fight against war is a fight against Australia’s Labor government.” All the ALP Conference has done is confirm this assessment. Read the speech here.
For a genuine socialist and anti war analysis of ALP conference read this important article on the WSWS.