Australian Labour Federation Platform, 1890

Political Aims of the Federation

1. The Nationalisation of all sources of wealth and all means of producing and exchanging wealth.

2. The conducting by the State authority of all production and all exchange.

3. The pensioning by the State authority of all children, aged and invalid citizens.

4. The saving by the State authority of such proportion of the joint wealth production as may be requisite for instituting, maintaining and increasing national capital.

5. The maintenance by the State authority from the joint wealth production of all educational and sanitary institutions.

6. The just division among all the citizens of the State of all wealth production, less only that part retained for public and common requirements.

7. The Reorganisation of Society upon the above lines to be commenced at once and pursued uninterruptedly until social justice is fully secured to each and every citizen.

Means Towards Political Aims

The General Council is satisfied that political aims worthy of the Australian Labour Federation are impossible of attainment so long as political power is withheld from the people.

Queensland is so happily situated that a true People's Parliament would certainly be favourable to the Reorganisation of Industry, yet as parliaments are at present constituted the capitalistic minority rules, and has only to express its opinions to have them duly registered. Therefore the General Council recommends the adoption of a People's Parliament platform and the subordination of all other measures to that all-important step. In one year a People's Parliament will give Queensland workers more justice than can be wrung from capitalistic parliaments in a generation.

Appendix to Murphy and Hughes (eds.), Prelude to Power, pp267-91. Reprinted in Reprinted in David Lovell, Marxism and Australian Socialism before the Bolshevik Revolution, pp.270-271