Bringing Parliament to the People: Interview with Socialist Alliance for Sydney’s Rachel Evans

Well known Sydney social justice activist Rachel Evans is running on the Socialist Alliance ticket for the seat of Sydney in the upcoming May election, which is a national vote that’s expected to repeat and further progress the slide towards voting for minor parties and progressive independents, and the significant turning away from the major party duopoly that marked the 2022 federal ballot.

Evans is offering much that the Sydney incumbent, Tanya Plibersek, has long ceased to be able to provide the progressive population of the nation’s largest city. This includes a fresh face, policies prioritising people and planet over profit, and an on-the-ground presence that makes a politician a part of the community, and not just some mysterious individual featured on an electoral shopfront.

Plibersek has held her comfortable seat of Sydney for Labor since 1998. Back then, Labor was a party of the people, but it’s since spent the last decades generally drifting towards the right, as it delivers policies that reflect little difference to those advocated by the conservative Coalition opposition.

As Evans puts it, what she, as a member of the Socialist Alliance, is offering Sydney constituents is real representation in the nation’s capital, as the long-time socialist agitator will have her ear to the ground to translate what she hears into policy in Canberra, and she also wants to throw open the doors of her electoral office to the people of the local constituency.

A people’s party

The term of the current 47th Australian Parliament has been marked by an unprecedented dual cost-of-living and housing crisis that, despite much consternation, has hardly been abated, while the Australian constituency, as it struggles under these financial constraints, has watched on as federal Labor has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to feed the insatiable appetite of the war machine.

The last three years have also seen the Sydney incumbent hold the position of environment minister, and despite her party having come to office promising to end the “climate wars”, what has transpired is that Labor’s simply approved more than 30 more fossil fuel projects and extensions, whilst it’s maintained a less climate-hostile veneer compared to its predecessors.

Not only is the Socialist Alliance a party of the people that, given the chance during a cost-of-living and housing crisis, would prioritise lowering prices rather than raising profits, but the Socialist Alliance is further an eco-socialist party, so the issues of rising extreme weather will be tackled at the source with a view towards ending, minimising and transitioning away from fossil fuel use.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to the ever-recognisable face of Sydney, Rachel Evans, about what her party the Socialist Alliance is offering local constituents, as well as the entire state as it too runs candidates for NSW seats in the Senate as well, along with why it’s way past time for Sydney to see a new face representing it.

The coming May 2025 election is being held amidst the most volatile political climate the world has seen for quite some time, while domestically this nation has been plagued by dual housing and cost-of-living crises, which are now being compounded by the dissolution of long-term diplomatic norms due to the incoming Trump administration in the US.

Rachel, you’re running on the Socialist Alliance ticket for the seat of Sydney in the federal election. How would you describe the current political circumstances we find ourselves in, and what are you offering Sydney constituents that others aren’t?

We are in dangerous times. But the system isn’t broken, to quote Greta Thunberg, it is doing what it is designed to do. Capitalism is designed to make the billionaires profit at the expense of the people and planet.

We are seeing this in real time in Queensland and northern NSW at the moment, with Cyclone Alfred.

We have hit climate code red. Last year, we hit beyond 1.5°C of warming, which is what the United Nations and every climate scientist worth their salt have said we needed to avoid in order to save the planet.

So, we are definitely in this crisis phase, and now we are seeing the rise of Trump, along with a shift toward the German right-wing neofascist party in the recent German elections. Yet, conversely, we’ve seen a shift of young people voting left in Germany and the reorganising of resistance in North America.

In so-called Australia, we have a housing crisis unmatched and unprecedented in recent times, and it’s a result of the commodification and the profiteering from housing, as opposed to socially progressive policy towards housing, which would be to produce housing for the people.

Successive Labor and Liberal state and federal governments have enacted this crisis through negative gearing, capital gains tax and putting very minimal regulation on landlords, the demolishing of housing and the privatising of public lands, which involves public housing being replaced with for-profit apartment blocks and housing on formerly public land.

All of this has resulted in an extreme housing crisis. If you are a young person in Sydney in the rental market, you were slugged with an almost $200 a week rent increase on average last year, and that is jaw-dropping.

What it means is young people, and folks who haven’t managed to buy a house, have had to get two or three jobs to be able to pay the rent and pay the increased costs of food and electricity.

The inflation rates are all tied in. The government in the neoliberal stage likes to abstain from governing for the people. They say it is too hard to stop the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths from increasing their prices.

But of course, we know that the government can introduce whatever law they want, and then as long as they have people to make sure that supermarkets are abiding by them, then the supermarkets, if the law is strong enough, would have to abide by that.

For example, you could easily pass an anti-inflation law which sees supermarkets and fruit and vegetable stores only being able to charge X amount for food and no more.

They are not doing that because Coles and Woolworths are making billions of dollars in profits and funnelling some of it back to the Liberals and Labor, so they don’t want to attack their funding base. Of course, that hurts the people to the nth degree.

This is going on in the seat of Sydney and also, right across the country. What Socialist Alliance is offering Sydney city dwellers is our campaign strategy and solutions.

The campaign strategy is that people’s power gets the goods, and we have to organise in campaign groups and committees to resist every tier of government that is antiworker and antiplanet. That is unfortunately every tier of government: local council, state government and federal government.

They are all introducing austerity measures in some form or other and have amassed millions of dollars that they could be putting towards the environment and housing, but they are not.

So, they have to feel the pressure, and that is what voting socialist offers. We have got 4.5 million people who are able to vote in NSW, and when Socialist Alliance is on the ballot, people are given that option, which is a strong antisystem, antiestablishment, pro-queer, pro-Palestine and antiracist vote.

So, the higher the socialist vote goes the better it is for the progressives and the Left, workers and the poor. It is also that the ruling class can have a look at that vote and try and organise both against us but also offer a few more crumbs.

In running in the electorate of Sydney, you’re up against federal Labor MP Tanya Plibersek, who’s comfortably held the seat since 1998. The difference this election, as opposed to three years ago, is that Plibersek’s spent the last three years as the incumbent environment minister.

How would you sum up Plibersek’s form as minister over the last few years in Canberra? And why do you consider her performance warrants her losing the Division of Sydney this time around?

Plibersek is a koala killer, and she is also a coal and gas mine opener. Plibersek is definitely part of the problem, but it is the Labor Party as a whole.

We don’t want to overly personalise it being Tanya Plibersek who has implemented these draconian anti-forest and antienvironment measures, as it is not her as such, rather it is the beast of the Australian Labor Party.

Labor is a vicious privatisation beast, a deregulation beast and an antienvironment beast. It is clear that Dutton would be worse. Dutton would be opening up more coal mines at a more rapid pace and desecrating First Nations land.

But it’s Labor that has been in power, and their environment crimes are substantial.

The activists up in the Northern Rivers region have been fighting hard for a national koala park forest, and they will tell you that unfortunately, the loggers and the Forestry Corporation of NSW, have gone in hard and the promises that Plibersek made for that koala forest are now nought.

They are really trashing the areas that they promised to save for the koala park.

There are also the 32 extra coal and gas mines that they’ve approved. This is an absolute affront to the environmental warriors, like the Knitting Nannas, First Nations communities and local activists. They’ve been waging these fights against the corporations in some of the more beautiful areas of the continent, against these coal and gas mines.

Labor, however, is beholden to the coal, gas and agribusiness barons, and that is what has gotten us into this climate mess. Unfortunately, that’s Plibersek’s record.

From an ecosocialist perspective, we are in climate collapse. It is the 6th mass extinction. We are on the cusp of it, and now is the time to organise against it. We have an historic mission to save the planet, and we are up to it.

We are up to it because, as Rising Tide showed us last year, there is an extreme passion amongst so many ordinary people to organise and resist. I was one of the 170 that got arrested in the water in Newcastle last November. That campaign is super important to continue the resistance, as are all others.

What we need instead of coal and gas mines is 100 percent renewables, mass publicly owned renewables and energy.

We need a conscious approach to building. We need buildings that are environmentally sustainable. We should not be demolishing housing estates. We should be renovating and refitting them. That is a way to sink carbon, not to increase it.

We also need free mass public transport that is linked up to an ecofriendly grid. These are the ecofriendly policies that will start the carbon sinking process that is so critical in the current climate code red that we’re all facing.

Would you say the climate has gotten worse over the last three years during the term of the Albanese government, whereas the issue itself isn’t being prioritised as much as it was at the time of the last election? 

That’s right. The thing is the ALP government got in saying that it was going to deal with the “climate wars” but really, they have exacerbated the climate wars, and they’ve ruled on behalf of coal and gas and big agribusiness.

We are also seeing more fish kills in the beautiful Barka-Darling River, which is because agribusiness and cotton businesses are being prioritised over First Nations communities.

Everywhere you turn you see the crimes of the ALP government in terms of the climate.

An ecosocialist platform for the environment, and what a socialist MP would argue for, is the prioritisation of the environment campaign groups and what they’re calling for in their local areas, over the interests and wishes of big business.

Since October 2023, you’ve been one of the key organisers of a campaign known as City of Sydney for Palestine.

Can you describe what the campaign comprises of and what it has achieved?

Greta Thunberg has been doing well in linking the issue of Palestine to the environment. I agree with her, that there is no climate justice on occupied land, and Palestine is an occupied land. And as the Lancet journal article has suggested, the genocide has probably cost the lives of up to 300,000 Palestinians.

Seventy percent of those killed by Israel’s brutal assault on the people of Palestine have been women and children.

The ALP has funded, aided and abetted Israel’s genocide. We are organising to keep the ceasefire in place, but Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the stopping of aid into Gaza now is another form of genocide.

To that end, Lidia Thorpe, Fatima Payman and Mehreen Faruqi have all been doing well in raising this important decolonisation issue in federal parliament. We will join with those campaigners in parliament to keep raising the issue.

But we are also going to get pretty concrete and campaign as we do for the City of Sydney for Palestine and other campaign groups to boycott, divest and sanction Israel.

HP is a computer and printer company, which is on the boycott list. We are very pleased to hear that Darebin Council in Melbourne has passed a BDS motion after the City of Sydney did, which included divestment from HP.

We are also in the process of putting a freedom of information request in with the City of Sydney about their investments, after we successfully campaigned for the passing of a divestment motion to get a report to make sure they are divesting from Israel.

In regard to the crimes of the Labor Party, they entered into a $900 million contract with Elbit Systems, which is an Israeli weapons company. Then there are the F-35s that Australia produces the devices to open the doors of to allow the bombs to drop on the people of Palestine.

So, we are ever mindful of this when the government raises its support for a ceasefire.

We say, get a bit more concrete and stop these companies supplying Israel, and as well, ban Netanyahu from coming here, expel the Israeli ambassador, and we call on people to keep organising on the ground, because that is how we have forced local councils and state governments to support Palestine.

As its name reveals your party is a socialist party. Over recent decades, socialist parties have not performed well in Australian elections, but that’s started changing over recent years, with gains made especially in Victoria, as well as in the increasing percentage of votes that socialist candidates have garnered in NSW.

Socialist Alliance is further running two candidates to represent NSW in the Senate.

Can you tell us about how you consider the recent gains that have been made in the socialist vote?

We are an anticapitalist socialist party, and we have been running in local elections since our inception in 2001. Our vote has been increasing.

In the local council areas, where people know our work, that is where there has been this massive increase.

Sue Bolton has been a councillor for Merri-bek City Council in Naarm-Melbourne. She really led on issues of ceasefire and boycott, divest and sanctions, and she’s given us a lot of ideas on how to bring Palestine solidarity into NSW councils.

Bolton got 46 percent of the vote in the Victorian council elections just a few months ago. This is a huge vote for a socialist, and it almost mirrors the percentage of the vote that Fred Patterson, who was the Communist Party candidate elected in northern NSW about 50 years ago.

We are seeing an increase in the socialist vote, and this is because the population is seeing the devastation that capitalism is reeking on the planet, but also because we have been there in the campaigns and people see the socialists working the backend.

In NSW, the socialists are behind the socialist vote in Victoria, so we do need help. We are saying vote 1 Socialist Alliance, 2 Greens, 3 progressive independent, then Labor, the Liberals and then the far-right.

We have a preferential voting system in this country, which the Labor Party and the Liberals like to downplay. But what it does mean is that if you don’t vote for a major, you don’t waste your vote.

That is a really important thing to put out there amongst the population. Not everyone knows how the preferential voting system works due to the disinformation of the major parties.

We definitely rely on the support of the people. So, any donation is welcome. The major parties have got it all sewn up in terms of funding. They give themselves swathes of financing, whereas the minor parties get very little.

And lastly, Rachel, you’re a well-known face in Sydney city, as you’re an active member of the grassroots social justice movement, and you’re particularly known for your activism around LGBTIQA+ rights, as well as agitating for affordable housing.

So, in terms of local Sydney constituents, what will you be progressing for them in federal parliament? And why might you be better suited to represent Sydneysiders in Canberra, than the current minister for the environment?

Socialists getting elected to parliament and local councils is a bit different from other progressives, because parliament is stacked against the poor and the people, and what we want to do is open up the doors of parliament and let the people in.

I’ve been impressed with Lidia Thorpe’s agitation within the parliamentary sphere. Some of the speeches from Fatima Payman have also been very good.

We wouldn’t be speaking to the MPs in parliament, rather we would be talking to the people to organise for their own interests.

So, we would be using parliament in that way. In terms of being able to represent the different communities that I have been working with, on the housing justice front, and we would be campaigning for rent caps, rent decreases, an end to capital gains tax and a massive increase in housing funding, and specifically funding for public housing, not community housing.

We would also be opening up our offices to the housing justice movement and the LGBTIQA+ rights organising groups, in rural and regional areas in particular, to say here is the photocopier, here is the office space, and here is some information about organising dates.

We would be communicating with the groups already organising, such as Rising Tide and Extinction Rebellion, to help co-organise them into stronger units.

We will try to organise the unions alongside these movements regardless of whether Labor or the Liberals are in.

Our MPs and councillors will only ever receive a worker’s wage. Then we would take all of the rest of the money, which is substantial, and we would give it to the campaign groups and to the party.

We would also seek the organising groups advice on how we can help them, whether that be in conference organising or car convoys to Canberra, whatever it might be, because they are the ones who know best, as they are part of the community and they are organising the constituents.

Please donate to the Socialist Alliance 2025 Federal Election Campaign in NSW Fund

Main photo: Socialist Alliance candidate for Sydney Rachel Evans marching in the 2025 Mardi Gras. Photo credit: John Janson-Moore