Section 1. Defending and extending democratic and human rights

In some parts of the capitalist world, including Australia, the struggles of working people have secured many democratic rights. In some cases these rights have been established for so long that most people regard them as automatic and unchallengable entitlements of citizenship.

Yet, as the capitalist system sinks deeper into crisis it is driven inevitably to curtail and suppress civil liberties in order to limit resistance to its austerity drive. The socialist movement opposes every attempt to encroach on the democratic rights of working people and stands for the greatest unity in struggle to preserve and extend these rights.

The new social movements engendered by the deepening crisis of capitalism reflect a determination to extend and redefine basic rights — the right to peace, to a pollution-free environment, to action to correct inequalities resulting from discrimination based on race, national origin, age, sex or sexual preference. The concept of inalienable human rights has motivated all the progressive social movements over the past two decades — struggles by women, migrants, Aborigines, students, gay men and lesbians, the aged, the handicapped, prisoners, etc.

Working people have everything to gain from taking the offensive whenever possible to secure legal recognition of the human rights of all who suffer oppression and discrimination under capitalism. Every such gain reinforces the fighting strength and unity of the working class as a whole. In the course of struggles for such rights, they will come to realise that capitalist rule and the private-property system stand in the way of the full realisation of human rights.