This report (and discussion) has to be a DSP party-building report and discussion. Comrade Peter Boyle’s report is not, even if his first half is about DSP organisational tasks, it’s still in the framework that we can build the Socialist Alliance as the “New Party”. Even if he puts building “two parties” in inverted commas, or says building two parties, but two “different types of parties”, or describes it as “two organisations”, or ambiguously interprets the phrase “new party project”, switching back and forth between interpreting it as our long term goal, perspective, (for the last two decades) of working to find ways to build a mass workers’ party, and on the other hand treating the SA as that new party we’re building.

In her PCD article “Political divisions in the DSP and how to proceed” (The Activist Vol. 15, No. 10) Comrade Pat Brewer urges “comrades to read exactly what the documents are saying so the differences can be clearly expressed”. However, she completely ignores her own advice and bases her assessment of what the NE minority is saying not upon the documents we have written, but upon the assumption that we are engaged in a “cynical manoeuvre” to shut down the Socialist Alliance. Comrade Brewer is not alone in doing this.

In the last issue of The Activist (Vol. 15, No. 9), a number of NC comrades made contributions which do little to clarify the debate on the relations between the DSP and the Socialist Alliance because they do not take up the actual issues that are in dispute – I refer in particular to those by comrades Nikki Ulasowski, Jim McIlroy, Sue Bull and Graham Matthews.

Comrades, I bring warm greetings of solidarity from Australia on behalf of the Democratic Socialist Perspective, our youth organisation Resistance, and our newspaper Green Left Weekly. We warmly salute the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, when Comrade Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnam’s independence to hundreds of thousands gathered in Hanoi on September 2, 1945. After years of fighting the French colonialists, and then five years of Japanese occupation, Vietnam was free. But full liberation was to take another 30 years of suffering and sacrifice, and fierce fighting.

At the September 26 national executive meeting comrades Max Lane, John Percy and I presented for a vote four amendments to the NE’s draft resolution on “The DSP and the Socialist Alliance” (see “Minutes from DSP national executive (extracts), September 26, 2005”, The Activist Vol. 15, No. 8). These amendments were motivated in the draft party-building report for the October 15-16 National Committee plenum presented by Comrade Percy to the NE meeting and in our PCD articles printed in the The Activist following the August 15 NE meeting.

This report (and discussion) has to be a DSP party-building report and discussion. Peter Boyle’s report is not, it’s still in the framework that we can build the Socialist Alliance as the “New Party”. Even if he puts building “two parties” in inverted commas, or says building two parties, but two “different types of parties”, or ambiguously interprets the phrase “new party project”, switching back and forth between interpreting it as our long term goal, perspective, (for the last two decades) of working to find ways to build a mass workers’ party, and on the other hand treating the SA as that new party we’re building.

1. Exciting developments are occurring today throughout Latin America, in fact there’s been turmoil on that continent for decades. But a revolutionary process is underway in Venezuela. There’ve been mass mobilisations in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay – strikes, demonstrations, governments toppled, and sometimes left governments elected. But in Venezuela, a revolution is happening, the masses are taking that road.

Comrades, I bring the warmest greetings of solidarity from the DSP in Australia, from our youth organisation Resistance, and from the newspaper Green Left Weekly, and I congratulate the comrades from the Malaysian Socialist Party for organising this inspiring conference.

In their contribution to the pre-congress discussion printed in The Activist Vol. 15, No. 5, comrades Karl M and Margarita W begin by agreeing with John Percy that we should eliminate “the hype, over-exaggerations, and substitution of hopes for a sober recognition of realities.”

How should we carry out our international work and international relations with other parties in the period ahead? As the DSP, as the Socialist Alliance, or both? And what has been our experience internationally functioning as the Democratic Socialist Perspective, an internal tendency within the Socialist Alliance?