Episode 39 - The Party Line on how Pauline Hanson is not a populist 

We don’t like Pauline Hanson. Like, really really really don’t like her. In fact, we think she’s scum. So this ep goes through some of her statements on migrants, muslims, Indigenous people, unions, and welfare. TLDR; she’s terrible on all of it. So we discuss all that and why, given those facts, she still gets described as a populist. We also have a chat with one of the people arrested for saying From the River to the Sea in Queensland. 

Headlines:

A father’s sword and a mother’s love: The unwavering support of the Roberts-Smiths

Ben Roberts-Smith’s comrades say he ordered them to execute unarmed civilians, court documents show 

US tech firms successfully lobbied EU to keep datacentre emissions secret | Microsoft | The Guardian

Chalmers’ 5 budget tax changes explained (and our verdict) 

Pete Hegseth quoted a fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction during a Pentagon sermon

Chris Minns’ anti-protest laws struck down. Again! 

Israel escalates attacks on medics in Lebanon with deadly ‘quadruple tap’

Hosted by Jordan van den Lamb (@purplepingers), Anneke Demanuele and Omar Hassan. Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 38 - The Party Line on Victor Orban’s defeat in Hungary ft Rob Narai

A short and sharp one this time, as the Party Line debriefs the spectacular defeat of Viktor Orban in Hungary. As the leader of Hungary since 2010, Orban has been one of the key figures strengthening and promoting far right politics across the world. His government promoted antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-migrant tropes aggressively, and ran an increasingly authoritarian government stacked with far-right stooges. As well, his time in office has seen the rich in Hungary - particularly his close mates - increase their wealth enormously, while workers and the poor have suffered. What next for Hungary? And what does this Peter Magyar fellow stand for anyway? The pod wanted to answer these questions, but we quickly realised we didn’t know very much about Hungary. So we invited a genuine Hungarian, Rob Nari, to tell us all about it.

Hosted by Jordan van den Lamb (@purplepingers), Anneke Demanuele and Omar Hassan. Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 37 - The Party Line on Trump’s blockade of Iran’s blockade 

The pod crew are happy to be back in the studio after the massive Marxism conference over Easter. We discuss the AI-isation of Mark Zuckerberg and Trump’s false idol worship. Angus Taylor has announced his first major policy position, and surprise, it’s just what Hanson has been arguing for. 

The war on Iran and Lebanon continues, despite ceasefire agreements and negotiations. The crew discusses the direction of the war, and how it resembles the beginnings of previous world war scenarios. And crucially, who has the bigger blockade. 

We need to build a left that can break the US Alliance - that’s the only solution to this terrifying scenario of global imperial confrontation. 

Hosted by Jordan van den Lamb (@purplepingers), Anneke Demanuele and Omar Hassan. Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The crew went to Marxism 2026, alongside MANY others. We broke the mould of smart and serious talks to present a bullshit heavy episode of the party line. Join us for a game of “defamation or definitely”, where we guess if Anneke has made up stories or if rich men are actually just psychos. Then we do some myth busting (exactly like the TV show) where we take up some commonly held positions on socialism and capitalism

Hosted by Jordan van den Lamb (@purplepingers), Anneke Demanuele and Omar Hassan. Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on https://patreon.com/thepartyline if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at https://patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at https://socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 35 - The Party Line on the fuel crisis + the far right in France

Omar was out sick so “friend” of the pod Luca Tavan joined us. Luca has “an internet connection and a library card” and has been doing a lot of research into the left and far right across Europe. Following the death of a fascist activist who attacked a left wing MPs meeting, the far right have been normalised and the political centre has rallied with them against France Insoumise, the party of Melanchon. We discuss the ways the far right have been normalised over the last few decades, as well as the fall out from the local elections across the country that took place this month. 

The human toll of America’s war on Iran continues to roll on, as we enter the fifth week. Thousands of civilians have been murdered, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has resulted in a global fuel and food crisis. The World Food Program estimates that 45 million more people will be plunged into acute hunger. Trump’s war for empire threatens the entire globe. 

The team also discusses the upcoming Marxism conference taking place in Melbourne this Easter. The conference will bring together over 1500 people and is organised around the theme of “Marxism for a new left”, and will discuss the dire need of developing a strong socialist movement to confront the barbarism of capitalism. Get your ticket and come along!

Readings: 

Death, destruction, destitution—and profits

First came petrol pain. Now get ready for high-priced groceries

Political confusion and fragmentation: the outcome of France's local elections - Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières  

Hosted by Jordan van den Lamb (@purplepingers), Anneke Demanuele and Omar Hassan. Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Tuesday the 24th, 30,000 teachers and education support workers went on strike demanding higher pay and better conditions. This was the first strike of AEU members since 2013. Teachers in Victoria are among the worst paid in the country. They’re expected to work full weeks and do marking and lesson planning for free, in their own time.

Anneke and Omar (with a brief cameo from Jordan) interviewed teachers, socialists, parents and unionists who came to stand up for teachers, educators and education support staff.

The Victorian Labor government is offering workers peanuts when they deserve the world.

We hope you enjoy our first Party Line live on location episode!

Hosted by Jordan van den Lamb (@purplepingers), Anneke Demanuele and Omar Hassan. Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This pod was recorded just after Trump gave the Iranians 48 hours to avoid the destruction of their entire electricity network, and Iran responded by threatening the water and energy infrastructure of the entire Middle East. So hopefully by the time you’re listening to this ep the internet still exists and World War 3 has not yet begun. In that case, we try and break down what the hell is going on in the Strait of Hormuz and generally with this war, and how the US and Israel are sending the whole planet into a political, military and economic meltdown. We then discuss the implications for all this on Australian politics, including the rise in petrol and grocery prices,  the despicable RBA’s decision to increase interest rates, the far right lies about city-dwellers hoarding all the fuel, and what a genuinely pro-working class government could do in this situation. We then look at the surge in support for Hanson in the recent SA elections, and analyse how the hell we got to a point where One Nation is the main opposition party on the right, and how the ALP is responding by emphasising a very tepid form of liberal multiculturalism. We wrap by discussing our very successful anti-Hanson door knocking campaign in Melbourne over the weekend, where nearly 200 people got together to talk to people in working class and migrant communities in Melbourne’s outer suburbs, as well as the strong results for the SA Socialists in their first ever electoral run. 

Readings:

Why the US is attacking Iran 

Horrific violence is the basis of US empire 

Unemployment rises expose RBA's costly misread of the economy

Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 32 - The Party Line on why capitalism needs war and empire

We had a request for more socialist theory, so this ep delivers some classic marxist content in classic party line style (which is not very theoretical). The concept of imperialism has been widely discussed following Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the more recent US-Israeli assault on Iran and Lebanon. We argued last week that it wasn’t about Trump’s foibles, still less Epstein files, but about profit, power and empire. This week we unpack why countries go to war, what tools they use to compete, how it evolves directly from capitalist competition in the marketplace, and why only socialism can end war for good. We also take a look at why tankies and stalinists are wrong to defend bourgeois dictatorships that happen to be opposed to the US for whatever reason (looking at Russia, China, Iran, etc here). Shout out to the PSL and the FRSP in the US for being some of the most toxic propagators of this reactionary theory that is unfortunately spreading across the world at this moment.  

Readings:

Understanding war: Lenin’s 'Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism'

Lenin and Bukharin
 on imperialism 

Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anneke is back, baby! And she brings with her a certain sniffly charm and a week of pent up bullshit (including a review of Louis Theroux’s new documentary about the manosphere). Headlines look at Canavan’s call for (white) women to have more babies, the interminable and predictable racism of the Queensland police force, and how One Nation candidates are being drawn and funded from the political and economic elite, including in Tookak and Woolhara. We then speak to Liam Parry, a palestine activist and member of Queensland Socialists who was arrested at a demonstration on the weekend for saying the words “from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea”. He talks about the new laws, their plan for resistance, and why the attack on free speech and the Palestine movement should be a focus for people across the country. We then wrap up the episode by looking at Matt Canavan’s appalling political stances and history, and reveal that in fact he had nothing to do with the arrest of Liam Parry. 

Readings:

The National Party in decline 

Matt Canavan, a communist turned economist in a bushie's hat

Matt Canavan wants more Australian babies. But Australian women might just say no    

Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 30 - The Party Line on Trump and Israel’s war on the Middle East

Anneke is sick this week, so Jordy and Omar decided to ditch her in favour of our Footscray candidate, Jasmine Duff. Is it an upgrade? You decide. (But seriously, send Anneke some love in the comments section please). This episode is all about the murderous war of choice that the US and Israel have initiated on Iran and now Lebanon. With over a thousand killed in Iran and 400 in Lebanon in just a week, the war is shaping to be a deadly one. As well, it now involves most of the region, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the UAE all involved. Why is this war happening? Some believe it’s all a distraction from the Epstein Files - we think that’s total rubbish - and that the war is about entrenching US hegemony across the highly strategic region. We then explore the Australian government’s response, which has involved supporting the war politically, having soldiers on the submarine that killed nearly 100 Iranian soldiers, and now potentially sending troops to help ‘defend’ the reactionary Gulf Monarchies. Plus some headlines about Palantir, Cathy Wilcox, social democracy in New Zealand, Kristi Noem killing her dog, Asio collaboration with Israel, and more. 

Readings:

Stop the war, break the US alliance, resist capitalist barbarism | Red Flag

Iran war: A new phase of imperialist onslaught 

Huge thanks to our tireless editors Charlie Wardrop and Persephone Waxman, and our content editor Charlotte Tavan.

While we will always release our content for free, please support us on patreon if you can.

*****************

This is a podcast by members of the Socialist Party in Naarm (Melbourne). We hope to bring a radical perspective to a podcast landscape dominated by insipid liberalism (looking at you, The Daily). The pod will come out weekly, and aims to breakdown news and current events from a socialist point of view. While a lot of what’s going on in the world is fairly bleak, The Party Line will try and highlight voices of resistance and struggle.

If you like what you hear, please rate, subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues and comrades. If you are in a position to support us financially then sign up at patreon.com/thepartyline. 

If you find yourself agreeing with us more often than not, please join your local branch of the Socialist Party at socialists.org.au. We need your help to build a fighting socialist movement that can take on both the far right and its centrist enablers.

(The views and opinions expressed in our show are ours and ours alone, and do not reflect on the Socialist Party or Victorian Socialists.) 

This pod was produced on stolen land and we stand in solidarity with our Indigenous comrades in their ongoing fight against racism and capitalism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.