Spending well over $2 million on election advertising, the ACTU and many affiliates again raised the spectre of an Abbott-run industrial relations agenda in the event of a Coalition victory. And despite all the denials, there is every reason to believe that a Liberal federal government would seek harsher penalties for unions and their members.

The federal election result tells two important stories, and also includes a critical subtext for the left. The first is growing insecurity among the working class in Australia and the decreasing legitimacy of neoliberal politics.

Burma’s military dictatorship is preparing so-called elections on November 7, based on the sham 2008 constitution, which was crafted to further strengthen and legitimise permanent military power. Under that constitution, the military is guaranteed at least 25% of the seats.

The Revolutionary Socialist Party candidate for the Queensland seat of Griffith, Hamish Chitts, believes that the campaign was highly successful in raising the banner of revolutionary socialism. The campaign almost doubled the socialist vote in the seat itself and spread the word about the socialist solutions to the crises of capitalism far and wide beyond the seat.

We can be very proud of the votes for the Revolutionary Socialist Party candidates, Van Rudd in Lalor (Vic) with 457 votes, and Hamish Chitts in Griffith (Qld) with 485.

The Revolutionary Socialist Party’s campaign to run Van Rudd against Julia Gillard and Hamish Chitts against Kevin Rudd was a clear step forward for the profile of revolutionary socialist ideas among working people in Australia.

In their 1977 book The Emergence of American Political Issues, Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw argued that the “the most important effect of mass communication”, i.e. the media, is its ability to “mentally order and organise our world for us.

Election statement by Hamish Chitts, Revolutionary Socialist Party candidate for Griffith.

Regardless of which party gains government from Saturday’s Federal Election the majority of people in this country, the working class, will be worse off. Whoever wins will continue to oversee measures that will profit a tiny minority of super rich, the capitalist class.

Racism is at the forefront of the 2010 Australian election.

Statement from Hamish Chitts, Revolutionary Socialist Party candidate for Griffith:

The current federal election campaign is proceeding and will proceed until August 21 without the issue of climate change being seriously discussed. Neither the Labor Party nor the Liberal-National Coalition wants a serious discussion of the issue. Julia Gillard announced a “new” policy of doing nothing, except for a Rudd-style talk-fest to be called a “Citizens’ Assembly”.

Van Rudd for Lalor (Vic)

Van Thanh Rudd was born in Nambour, Queensland and is currently working as a visual artist in Melbourne's west. His involvement in the arts over the last 15 years included his early obsession with landscape painting around Nambour and Brisbane. Once moving to Melbourne in 1995, he studied figure drawing in various community venues around Melbourne.

From the amount of fuss being made about it, some people might conclude that the Labor government’s Resource Super Profits Tax proposes important changes in the tax system. Such a conclusion would, however, be a mistake. The RSPT has more to do with the approaching federal election than it does with taxation.

Revolutionary Socialist Party federal election candidate Van Rudd, June 25, outside newly sword-in Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s electorate office in the south-western Melbourne suburb of Werribee. ABC News Online reported the same day: “Former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s nephew says he now has more reasons for fighting Julia Gillard in her seat at the next election.

In April and May, Cubans went to the polls in local government elections across the island. These were elections with a difference. Imagine if neighbours got together in open meetings in your street to nominate, by show of hands, between two and eight candidates for each electoral district. That’s what happened in each of Cuba’s 169 municipalities.

San Francisco – The “Tea Party” has had a big play in the capitalist media recently, as rallies were held across the country leading up to April 15, the day when income taxes are due. The rallies were organised by a section of the Republican Party establishment, and featured Sarah Palin, the former candidate for vice president.

The Revolutionary Socialist Party will stand two candidates in the coming federal elections, expected to be held in the second half this year. In Brisbane, Hamish Chitts will stand in the seat of Griffith, currently held by Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. In Melbourne, Van Rudd will stand in the seat of Lalor, currently held by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The Revolutionary Socialist Party will be running Van Rudd against Julia Gillard in the Melbourne seat of Lalor for the next federal election. Van Rudd’s campaign will take a stand against the failure of both state and federal governments to defend Indian students against racist attacks.

Burma’s military government, the so-called State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), is planning to hold elections some time in 2010, on yet-to-be-announced date. This follows approval of a new constitution amid chaos following the deadly Nargis cyclone in 2008.

Roberto Micheletti, nominal head of the Honduran military-backed coup regime that overthrew the country’s elected president, Manual Zelaya, in June, has instructed the public prosecutor and the Supreme Court to apply the law “ruthlessly” against anyone publicly advocating a boycott of the regime’s November 29 sham presidential election.

At the centre and south of Europe – in Germany and Portugal – parliamentary elections on September 27 marked a historic electoral setback for social democracy. In Germany, the SPD lost a third of its electorate, or more than 4.5 million votes, in five years, and with 23% of those voting, obtained its lowest score since 1949.

Sam Wainwright, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the Fremantle City Council (FCC) ward of Hilton, was elected to the FCC on October 17 with 33.4% of the vote. Wainwright received 438 out of 1310 valid votes, 100 more than his nearest competitor, Dave Hume, a member of the Australian Labor Party. (The election was first past the post, not preferential.)

Jakarta – Street protests across Indonesia greeted the inauguration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Budiono on October 20. Yudhoyono was re-elected president on July 8 with 60.8% of the 121 million votes cast. A former army general, he had served as president since winning the 2004 presidential election.

Jakarta – In the immediate aftermath of the July 8 Indonesian presidential election, the two losing sets of candidates alleged that there was widespread ballot fraud.

When Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal (widely known as “Prachandra”) became Nepal’s prime minister last August, his party – the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), UCPN (M) – pronounced it a “golden dawn” for Nepal after 10 years of civil war.