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.

Bush’s National Security Strategy document – his “manifesto” for imperialism – justifies aggression on a world scale, pre-emptive strikes, “regime change”, unilateral action. “We will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively.” It demands – asserts – total rule of the globe by US imperialism.

Capitalism is in crisis, and you’d have to be blind, or a particularly gross and stupid billionaire, not to know it. Just look around the world and you’re faced with the squalor of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, exploitation, and environmental devastation. And you also see the obscene wealth, the luxury for a few. In Indonesia the crisis is very visible, in your face.

There’s an air of unreality and fakery about this election:

• The stage-managed walks through malls;
• The packaged releases of TV bites for the evening news;
• The refusal of [Kim] Beasley to really fight on the GST;
• The incompetence and repellent characters of all the main players.

Under the impact of the worldwide economic crisis, a new wave of struggles broke out in Asia in 1974. No country remained insulated, but the effects of the crisis could be seen most dramatically in the semicolonial countries. Already ground down to a subsistence level by imperialism, the workers and peasants there have been hardest hit.

For millions in Asia the spiraling inflation and developing recession meant not merely hardship but starvation. Famine on a massive scale threatens whole populations. On the Indian subcontinent hundreds are already dying each day.