A new anti-capitalist party in Western Australia is making preparations to contest the upcoming local government elections.
Western Australian Socialists, a left-wing, anti-capitalist party, made an appearance when Australian socialist political organisation Socialist Alternative hosted the Socialism Conference 2025 in Fremantle from August 8 to 10. The party was the product of an effort by the Victorian Socialists to expand their organisation nationwide.
WA Socialists was established on July 11, 2025, and started recruiting to begin campaigning for the 2025 local government elections. They claim to have reached approximately 490 members. Some of the attendees that WA Socialists reached out to were students from Curtin University and the University of Western Australia, who have connected with active socialist movements via Socialist Alternative Curtin and UWA, respectively.
With the party being a recent addition to Western Australia’s political environment, there are questions about what they bring to the table.
“I understand people might not know what socialism is. We’re trying to build something new here that hasn’t been done in a very long time. To put it simply, I would talk about our motto, which is people before profit,” said Nick Brown, one of the candidates for WA Socialists.
The party has enlisted four candidates to contest the council elections:
- Nick Brown, an active socialist activist since 2015, currently working as a disability support worker (Stirling, Balga Ward)
- Lewis Todman, an active socialist activist since 2005 and a teacher-in-training (Bayswater, South Ward)
- Nick Everett, an active socialist activist since 1988, co-convener of the Walk Against the War Coalition, and Curriculum Transformation Team project officer at Curtin University (Fremantle, East Ward)
- Rachel Goldsbrough, working as a nurse since 2020 and a strike participant to demand a 10% per year pay rise for nurses (Canning, Mason Ward)
Mr Brown said: “The area that I am running is probably one of the most underfunded and undersupported areas in the northern parts of Perth, where working people and migrants are left to rot on social services that run on a shoestring.
Mr Todman said: “I’ve been in Maylands for five years now, and my rent has increased 80% in that time. That’s a big jump, it’s a majority of my income, and that’s actually less than the average rent increase across Australia.”
Ms Goldsborough said: “We have seen time and time again the council selling public infrastructure to private companies. So many of the elderly sell off family homes that were meant to be passed down to their children in order to afford a place in these private aged care facilities.”
Mr Everett said: “I want to make Fremantle an affordable place for people to live, and for the Fremantle council to address issues like housing and the government plans to move the port (to Kwinana).”
A common trait the candidates share is their involvement in activism.
“I became a socialist as a student at university when I saw the then government (Tony Abbott) jacking up fees for university students,” said Everett.
Mr Todman said: “There was the Iraq War; I did everything I could to oppose it at the time. That was the beginning of my path towards exploring socialist ideas.”
While the four candidates are campaigning based on their socialist ideologies, local government elections in WA do not include political party affiliations on the ballot papers. This means that while they are free to have posters and ads linking them to WA Socialists, WALGA warns that if they are elected they will need to put the needs of their electorates and their council responsibilities before their party agendas.
Asked about why the party is campaigning for local government seats, Todman said: “We’re not just a party running in elections. We’re a party of activism.”
He acknowledged that WA Socialists is primarily a means of establishing connections with unionists and mobilising people for demonstrations for causes they believe in, such as their support for the State of Palestine.
Ian Jamieson (affectionately nicknamed “Jammo”), a retired miner who was involved in organising union activities at the Renison Bell tin mine in Tasmania during the 1980s, expressed enthusiasm for the party.
“It is great to see people in Western Australia joining a socialist movement. It’s a great appreciation because there has been nothing like that for decades in Australia,” said Jamieson.
The local government elections begin on October 18, 2025.