Workers Party Prepares For Annual Conference

Optimism is growing on the left of politics as the Workers Party heads into its annual conference in Auckland this weekend, says the party’s national secretary.

Daphna Whitmore says the conference will bring together like-minded people to develop “their own way of thinking" about political theory and practice.

Ms Whitmore says the left is more optimistic than it was five years ago. "Out of the ruins of the nineties, when a lot of organisations disintegrated, are left the people who really want to change the world."

The conference line-up, titled Marxism 2007, includes panel discussions on socialism and the environment, mobilising working women, and resisting imperialism.

Many party members including Ms Whitmore are actively involved with unions such as Unite.

However she says the incremental change brought by unions today is not necessarily a long term solution.

"If we don’t change the system that creates the poverty wages then we’re going around in circles - campaigning for an extra five or ten cents an hour," says Ms Whitmore.

“We want to understand the system we’re living in and challenge the status quo.”

The party has around 180 members, but Auckland branch organiser Jared Philips says membership is growing.

He is optimistic they are on track to gain the 500 hundred members required to contest the party vote at the next election.

The party was previously known as the Anti-Capitalist Alliance, and contested eight seats in the 2005 general election under that name.

They received around 100 votes in each seat, says Ms Whitmore.

"We use elections like a platform to spread ideas. We try to sow seeds.”

“We know that we are in a time where the movement’s a little slow growing.”

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