Queensland State Election

October 26th will bring yet another Queensland state election. Workers are expected to perform their civic duty in what is touted as one of the most important decisions for their country. In reality, they’re merely choosing which jester will have the privilege of doing fundamentally nothing to change their lives.

As with any election, the openly capitalist parties in Queensland parade their policies, promising improvements in living standards under the guise of fiscal responsibility. However, regardless of which party forms the next government, an economic crisis looms on the horizon. The parties continue to march the workers of the sunshine state into inevitable sacrifices to safeguard the interests of the ruling class.

Following Palaszczuk’s resignation last year and her succession by Miles, it is anticipated that the Liberals will seize power from Labor after their three consecutive terms. Yet, these parties’ policies guarantee the continuation of capitalism and therefore the ongoing exploitation of workers. This insidious system thrives on oppression and requires the blood of the labour force, with the tendrils of imperialism and the self-destructive chaos of the market inherent to its very nature.

As it stands, all the different parties need each other. They are either ballot spoilers, or the miserable cry of the ‘radical’ voters to draw militancy into the bog that is the state’s game. These dynamics will persist until capitalism itself is dismantled, a change that won’t be brought through voting. Whichever bourgeois party ascends to power will operate according to capitalism’s demands. Here, there can be no lesser evil.

Housing costs will continue to drain the wallets of many Queenslanders, while food prices will escalate regardless of the Greens’ efforts. Despite Labor’s ‘attempts’, childcare remains unaffordable, and the recent 50-cent public transport fare is an insult to workers who still endure long, gruelling 12-hour shifts. Labor and the Coalition are showing little genuine concern for the working class.

Unemployment rates are climbing, healthcare is deteriorating, and the NDIS openly denies support to the most disadvantaged Australians. Pay rises ‘won’ by unions don’t even cover inflation.  Your pay is decreasing, costs increasing, and yet you’re expected to work even harder to increase the company’s record-breaking profits.

With crime as the focal point of this election cycle, parties are merely dancing around and offering ‘solutions’. And yet these are inherent symptoms of an international disease: capitalism. No amount of punitive sentences, increased policing, or expanded discretionary powers will address the root causes.

The individual politicians who tout their involvement in the ‘real movement’ achieve little more than incremental changes, which are instantaneously consumed by capital’s insatiable appetite. Greens, as the ‘progressive’ party for voters, are only performing for the petite-bourgeois straws—working class be damned. Those who engage in this electoral charade will not find solace.

The excesses of the ballot mock genuine efforts, celebrating hollow victories while the true struggles for the proletariat’s emancipation remain unseen, unsupported. Tomorrow’s drudgery will continue, regardless of who wins.