SEARCH National Members Forum

SEARCH National Members Forum 2024

Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 April

NSW Teacher’s Federation, 33 Mary St, Surry Hills

SEARCH members are coming together in Sydney on 20 and 21 April 2024 for a National Members Forum to discuss the interlinked crises of our time, international and local responses to them, and SEARCH’s contribution to developing a durable and effective socialist movement in Australia. There has never been a greater need for an alternative to current systems of exploitation, domination and war, and the existential threats of nuclear war and climate catastrophe.

Members and the Committee have been discussing the policy and political themes and key organisational questions that should form the basis for the Forum’s program. In finalising the program, the Committee took account of views expressed at two national pre-meetings open to all members, and of views some members submitted in writing.

Aims, themes and purpose

The National Members Forum program provides for members to discuss four major themes:

1. Inequality, the rise of the authoritarian Right and how to defeat its agenda
2. A People’s Economy for a Planet in Peril 
3. Peace, Solidarity, International Justice and an Independent Foreign Policy
4. SEARCH priorities and roles to respond to these challenges, and how should that be reflected in the vision, goals, policies and activities of SEARCH.

The aims of the NMF are:

1. Understanding the current 'multicrises' from a socialist perspective – that is the ecological-economic and the resulting political crisis, including the threat from the populist/authoritarian Right, and sharing knowledge of the contemporary and immediate left responses and progressive campaigns on those crises
2. Discussing longer-term, socialist alternatives that overcome root causes of economic, ecological and social crises
3. Developing ideas on what the left and SEARCH can and should prioritise for action in response to these crises

The format

The Forum consists of a keynote speech by Thomas Mayo, and then three main plenary panels, each followed by members breakout discussions.

Panelists will speak for ten minutes each, in panel sessions of one hour each.

Breakout discussions will start with a five minute introduction by a breakout discussion leader, and then discuss the themes of that session for between 75-90 minutes, depending on the breakout session. Those breakout groups will be of five to ten members each to provide plenty of time to have your say on the issues.

If you would like to volunteer to be a breakout discussion leader, facilitator or notetaker in the breakout discussions please email us at admin@search.org.au

Our fourth and final session, on Sunday after lunch, involves a report back from the breakout sessions, a members roundtable and an open floor discussion.

Topics and Speakers for the Panels

Our keynote speech is by Thomas Mayo, which will be at 9:45am on Saturday 20 April.

Thomas is a national figure, known for advocating for the Uluru Statement from the Heart and campaigning for Voice, Treaty and Truth. He is also an author of several books, and a senior national official with the Maritime Union (MUA). Thomas’ bio and links to his books and articles are available here. He will speak on First Nations’ continuing struggles for rights and justice.

After Thomas' keynote will then go straight into Panel 1, followed by a breakout session.

1. Plenary Panel 1: Inequality, the rise of the authoritarian Right and how to defeat its agenda

The rise of the authoritarian ‘populist’ right threatens hard-won progressive gains and further progressive reforms and radical social change. Discussion on its causes, impacts, and the role socialists can play in resisting and defeating its agenda

Panelists:

Osmond Chiu, writer and union activist, Osmond is a Research Fellow at the Per Capita thinktank. He worked in policy roles for the CPSU and the public service for over a decade. His writing has appeared in publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, Guardian Australia, Canberra Times and South China Morning Post. He was also a contributor to the book What Happens Next? Reconstructing Australia after COVID-19.

Finola Laughren is a casual academic and PhD Candidate in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. Her research scrutinises the popular idea that men and feminism are necessarily antagonistic. Finola has authored papers in Australian Feminist Studies, the Australian Journal of Human Rights, and Continuum (forthcoming). Alongside academia, Finola is an active trade union and social movement activist. She is a member of the NTEU Sydney University branch committee, Sydney Staff for BDS, and is involved in the struggle for refugee rights.

David McKnight, author and academic, David wrote ‘the book’ on the Murdoch empire in Murdoch's Politics: How One Man's Thirst for Wealth and Power Shapes Our World, and covered the rise of the populist Right and ways the Left can counter its appeal in ‘Populism, Now!’. He is an associate professor at the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. He is the award-winning author of Beyond Right and Left: New Politics and the Culture War (2005) and worked as a journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC TV's prestigious investigative programme Four Corners.

Frank Stilwell
Frank Stilwell is a critic of conventional economics and worked for forty years to establish and develop an alternative political economy program at the University of Sydney, becoming its first professor in 2001 an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He continues as Professor Emeritus in Political Economy at the University of Sydney and coordinating editor of the Journal of Australian Political Economy. He has written and co-edited twenty books on political economic issues, including Changing Track: a New Political economic Direction for Australia; The Political Economy of Inequality; and Alternative Theories of Political Economy. He is a long-time member of SEARCH and the executive of the Evatt Foundation.

For this first session our facilitator is Lilia Anderson, currently working for MEAA, and formerly Anne Kantor Fellow at the Australia Institute. Her interests span political economy, philosophy and the law. She holds degrees in Arts and Science and is completing a master’s thesis in economic and social rights, neoliberalism, and inequality. She has previously worked as a casual academic, in the not-for-profit sector, and in the trade union movement. She is a committed advocate for affordable housing, feminism, trade unionism, and working conditions in higher education.

1. Plenary Panel 2: A People’s Economy for a Planet in Peril

Radical changes towards a sustainable economy that puts people before profit and preserves Earth’s ecological systems. What are democratic ecological socialist perspectives on these crucial issues?

Panelists:

James Miranda has worked as a Policy and Research Officer for the Electrical Trades Union since 2022 across its National and NSW Divisions, advocating for an energy transition that uplifts electrical workers and their communities. James is also the current Assistant Secretary of Australian Young Labor.

Steve Murphy, National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union since September 2020, having previously held the position of NSW State Secretary since September 2017. Steve has worked for the AMWU since being elected as a workplace delegate as a young tradesperson in the NSW Hunter Valley in 1998. and represents the AMWU at ACTU Executive. During his tenure as NSW State Secretary, Steve was on the Unions NSW Executive, the ALP Administrative Committee, the NSW Labour Advisory Council and the Boards of the Mechanical and Electrical Redundancy Trust (MERT) and the Industry Capability Network.

John Wishart was recently involved in the Rising Tide People’s Blockade at Newcastle, and has been an organiser and activist in the labour and environment movements since the mid-1970s. He joined the CPA in 1976, and was later a foundation member of SEARCH. He’s been a union organiser for the FEDFA and ASU, an ESL teacher and an AEU delegate. John is currently National Councillor Australian Greens representing SA.

Felicity Wade has spent 25 years as an environmental advocate. For over a decade she led the work of the Wilderness Society in NSW, working to protect forests and end land clearing in NSW, Queensland and Tasmania. She has worked for the NSW Shadow Minister for the environment and climate change and leader of the opposition. She is the National Co-convenor of the Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN), which has successfully campaigned within the Labor party for public ownership of renewable energy infrastructure, commitments to ambitious emission reduction targets and broad-ranging environmental law reform.

Anitra Nelson
Anitra Nelson is a degrowth activist-scholar affiliated with the Informal Urbanism Research Hub (InfUr-) at University of Melbourne — Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide (2020, co-author); Housing for Degrowth (2018, co-editor) and Food for Degrowth (2021, co-editor); Routledge Handbook on Degrowth (2025, editor).

Members will also recall Anitra Nelson’s talks for SEARCH on her books on degrowth, as well as our events with Steve Murphy and Felicity Wade on energy transition and the Hunter Jobs Alliance, available here on our Youtube Channel.

Our facilitator for panel 2 is Victoria Smith, who has been involved in feminist and progressive campaigns for many years, and recently in the Voice campaign. Her work in the Pacific region has deepened her understanding and concern over the impacts of climate change.

1. Plenary Panel 3: Peace, Solidarity, International Justice and an Independent Foreign Policy

The growing threats of war, nuclear conflagration, climate catastrophe, economic exploitation and big-power domination – and the failures and hypocrisies of the ‘international rules-based order’. Prospects for a reinvigorated peace movement, the growing movement against AUKUS, and for an independent Australian foreign policy.

Panellists:

Bob Makinson, a long-term peace, environment and climate activist, Bob represents SEARCH on the new peace coalition Mobilise Against AUKUS and War and helped draft the Marrickville Declaration, which SEARCH has endorsed along with 30 other organisations.

Dr Patricia Ranald is the Convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network

of community organisations and an honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney. She is a leading advocate for trade justice and has published widely on the social impacts of globalisation and trade agreements.

Marcus Strom is a journalist and communications professional. He has been President of MEAA Media, Australia’s journalists’ union, Director of the Walkley Foundation, a senior journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald and a Press Secretary in the Albanese Government. He currently works at the University of Sydney as science media adviser. A member of the ALP, Marcus is National Convenor of anti-AUKUS group, Labor Against War.

Tasneem Roc, Campaign manager, Myanmar Campaign Network

Since the 2021 Myanmar coup, Tasneem Roc has been active in a number of groups that support the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar including CRPH/NUG Support Group Australia and Blood Money Campaign (BMC).

Tasneem is also the secretary of the Australian Karen Organisation (AKO) NSW, and the secretary for Friends of TCI Australia, an Australian charity that supports a Karen higher learning institute in a remote area in Eastern Myanmar.

Our facilitator for panel 3 is Geoff Evans, long-time peace and climate justice campaigner and researcher with decades experience working with remote Indigenous Australian communities on climate and community development issues.

4. Members Discussion Session - Socialist Reponses to the crises and SEARCH’s Role

Our final session involves a report back from the breakout sessions by rapporteurs Matt Byrne, Elliot D’arcy and Caitlin Perry, and then a roundtable of SEARCH members, facilitated by Brian Aarons, discussing socialist responses to the issues raised over the weekend. The roundtable features SEARCH members Louise Connor, Daren McDonald, Adrian Graves, Victoria Brookman, Rebecca Thompson and Bart Shteinman. That is followed followed by an open floor discussion, where once again members will have a chance to express their views.

Daren McDonald is a PhD candidate investigating the contradictions and transformative potential of workers’ capital for the socialist project. He is a former trade union official and senior public servant.

Louise Connor I have been a member of Search since it was established and, previously, a CPA member since the mid-seventies. I have been a member of the Search Committee on several occasions and have assisted with a number of Search education activities and campaigns over the years. I’m currently a committee member and a member of the Finance committee, the VTT working group and another working group for a national members meeting for 2023. I was Victorian Secretary of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance from 2004 to 2014. I am also a board member of the New International Bookshop, based at the VTHC that works with SEARCH on book launches and discussion events.

Victoria Brookman is an author, academic, and communications & campaigns specialist. She was the March Organiser of the Sydney International Women’s Day March from 2012-15. Her debut novel Burnt Out was published by HarperCollins in 2022. She is a lecturer and tutor at Western Sydney University, where she is in the final year of her doctorate. Her research focuses on the thematic intersections of mothering and ecological collapse in contemporary climate fiction.

Rebecca Thompson is a union activist, organiser and philosophy graduate. Her interests include community campaigning, political economy, feminism and climate activism. She holds an Honours degree in Philosophy and completed her thesis on the topic of the neoliberal self.

Adrian Graves

Adrian Graves was raised in Port Adelaide within a large politically active, catholic working class family. He was the first of his family to attend university, graduating from the Adelaide University in 1973 in economics and history, followed by study at the University of Oxford, graduating D.Phil. in 1979.

He was radicalised through involvement in the popular movements against the Vietnam War and Apartheid between 1968 and 1974 with a consequence that Marxism has since been at the core of his thinking, research and political activism.

He enjoyed a highly productive teaching and research career at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh. Adelaide and New South Wales and Adelaide, publishing widely on the political economy of the international sugar economy, Pacific labour migrations and the development of global capitalism.

He subsequently crossed the Rubicon into University management taking senior appointments in Universities in the UK and Australia. Amongst other achievements, Adrian led the university sector in the multibillion pound Media City UK Project at Salford Quays between 2006 and 2012, working closely with the BBC, Peel Holdings and multiple technical, creative and education partners. It is widely agreed that MediaCityUK stimulated Manchester's third industrial revolution, based on the knowledge, creative and digital economies.

Following his retirement from University management and return to Australia in 2014, he was appointed Coordinator of the SEARCH Foundation, which he served for three years. He is currently active in a wide range of not for profits in the arts, education, social justice and peace movements, and strives to better understand politics though reading, writing and other discourse.

You!

We're very pleased with this line up of speakers for our NMF, but the participants and contributors we really want now is you! So we hope that you'll register today, if you haven't already, to be part of this important Forum for all SEARCH members

Finally, remember to get your tickets for the NMF Dinner, featuring Barbara Pocock, Australian Greens Senator for South Australia on "Doing politics in the current Parliament: Is there a parliamentary road to progressive change?" followed by Maurie Mulheron singing some revolutionary tunes. Tickets are available here.

Ticket costs

We ask that members contribute $10 | $20 for a ticket, but nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. Contact us if you need assistance to attend, as per below.

Assistance to attend

This event is primarily an ‘in-person’ event – to participate in it fully you will need to be there.

Please let us know if you need assistance to travel and stay in Sydney. We have a limited budget to help with transport and-or accommodation, and some members in Sydney can provide a billet for members from outside Sydney.

Please also let us know if you require childcare or child-minding to attend.  The NSW Teachers Federation has spaces that can be used to look after children while participants engage in the discussions and workshops.

Please also let us know if you have any mobility or accessibility issues that may affect your participation.

Members can also help other members attend by either billeting or by donating to travel and other costs via the SEARCH website here.

Program Outline

This Program Outline sets out the themes and topics of the Forum’s four half-day sessions. A full program with speakers, times and other details will be provided when all speakers are confirmed. In general, the plenary panel sessions will be 60 minutes and the breakout workshops will be 90 minutes. There will be mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks.

DAY 1 – Saturday 20 April

1.  Opening remarks and Welcome
2. Keynote Address:    First Nations’ continuing struggles for rights and justice
3. Plenary Panel 1:  Inequality, the rise of the authoritarian Right and how to defeat its agenda

The rise of the authoritarian ‘populist’ right threatens hard-won progressive gains and further progressive reforms and radical social change. Discussion on its causes, impacts, and the role socialists can play in resisting and defeating its agenda

4. Members Breakout Discussions

Members will join breakout discussion groups to address the themes, ideas and issues arising from the Keynote Address and Panel 1.

LUNCH

5. Plenary Panel 2:  A People’s Economy for a Planet in Peril

Radical changes towards a sustainable economy that puts people before profit and preserves Earth’s ecological systems. What are democratic ecological socialist perspectives on these crucial issues?

6. Members Breakout Discussions

Members will join breakout discussion groups to address the themes, ideas and issues arising from Panel 2.

CONFERENCE DINNER:    Sat 20 April at 5:30pm for 6pm – with Senator Barbara Pocock, Australian Greens Senator for South Australia 

DAY 2 – Sunday 21 April

7. Plenary Panel 3:  Peace, Solidarity, International Justice and an Independent Foreign Policy

The growing threats of war, nuclear conflagration, climate catastrophe, economic exploitation and big-power domination – and the failures and hypocrisies of the ‘international rules-based order’. Prospects for a reinvigorated peace movement, the growing movement against AUKUS, and for an independent Australian foreign policy.

8. Members Breakout Discussions

Members will join breakout discussion groups to address the themes, ideas and issues arising from Panel 2.

LUNCH

9. Socialist Reponses to the crises and SEARCH’s Role

a) Rapporteur(s): Report-back on key themes, views, proposals and outcomes from the breakout workshops over the weekend

b) Roundtable:                 Several SEARCH members will speak on key outcomes from theForum, their views on priorities for SEARCH that apply our democratic ecological socialist perspectives to the current circumstances and realities, and proposals for SEARCH’s role and work in the period ahead.

c) Open session:              Members’ contributions from the floor

10.  Closing remarks:            Executive Officer and Vice President

CLOSE:                                     National Members Forum 2024 concludes      

Speakers and Program Update - March 2024


We're pleased to announce speakers for the keynote opening address and for three main panel discussions at our National Members Forum on the weekend of 20 and 21 April 2024.

Opening keynote address

Thomas Mayo will open our 2024 National Members Forum, who will talk on the continuing struggles of First Nations peoples for rights, justice and self-determination, following the Voice Referendum. Thomas is of course a national figure promoting the Uluru Statement from the Heart and campaigning for Voice, Treaty and Truth. He is also an author who has already published several books, and a senior national official with the Maritime Union (MUA).

Thomas also gave the opening keynote address at our 2017 National Members Forum, just four months after the Uluru Statement from the Heart had been adopted by about 250 First Nations representatives meeting at Uluru in May 2017. We are lucky to hear from him again, as the struggles of First Nations peoples continue in the aftermath of the Voice Referendum.

Speakers for Plenary Panel Sessions

As previously advised (see the program outline above) the Forum will consist of four half-day sessions, the first three of which will be on themes around some major issues of our times, and the last one will be a members’ roundtable on socialist responses to these issues and the role of SEARCH.

In the first three plenary sessions, each speaker will address different aspects of the topic, followed by a brief Q&A, then breakout workshops with plenty of time for members to discuss the issues raised and how we respond to them. The last session will be a plenary, with a panel of members to open the discussion with their perspectives on SEARCH’s socialist responses, followed by contributions from the floor.

SATURDAY 20 APRIL

Session I:             Inequality, the rise of the authoritarian Right and how to defeat its agenda

                                The rise of the authoritarian ‘populist’ right threatens hard-won progressive gains and further progressive reforms and radical social change. Discussion on its causes, impacts, and the role socialists can play in resisting and defeating its agenda.

Speakers:            Frank Stilwell, Osmond Chiu, Fiona Laughren and David McKnight

Session II:            A people’s economy for a planet in peril

                                Radical changes towards a sustainable economy that puts people before profit and preserves Earth’s ecological systems. What are democratic ecological socialist perspectives on these crucial issues?

Speakers:            Steve Murphy, John Wishart, James Miranda, Felicity Wade, Anitra Nelson

Dinner:                 Doing politics in the current Parliament: Is there a parliamentary road to progressive change?

Speaker:              Barbara Pocock, Australian Greens Senator for South Australia, will be the Forum Dinner speaker.  

Get your tickets now!  Tickets available here

SUNDAY 21 APRIL

Session III:          Peace, solidarity, international Justice and an independent foreign policy

                                The growing threats of war, nuclear conflagration, climate catastrophe, economic exploitation and big-power domination – and the failures and hypocrisies of the ‘international rules-based order’. Prospects for a reinvigorated peace movement, the growing movement against AUKUS, and an independent Australian foreign policy.

Speakers:            Patricia Ranald, Bob Makinson, Tasneem Roc and Marcus Strom

Session IV:          Socialist responses and the role of SEARCH

                A Report-back segment on outcomes from the previous three sessions will be followed by a roundtable panel of members to open general discussion for all participants. Speakers for the opening panel to be confirmed soon.

Speakers to open Breakout Workshop Discussions

If you would like to volunteer to be a speaker, facilitator or notetaker in workshops on particular topics, please email us at admin@search.org.au

REGISTRATION AND ASSISTANCE FOR TRANSPORT AND ACCOMMODATION

Email us at admin@search.org.au if you need help with getting to Sydney or a place to stay.

We are pleased that so many SEARCH members have already agreed to to speak on the various panels. But the participants and contributors we really want now is you! So we hope that you'll register today, if you haven't already, to be part of this important Forum for all SEARCH members.