“Uni Students for Climate Justice” is an extremist front. Why isn’t the media telling you?

Who are “Uni Students for Climate Justice”?

Over the last month capital cities across Australia have seen traffic disrupted by Anti Adani protesters. While the relatively tiny “Extinction Rebellion” group has attracted the majority of the press coverage, the much larger “Uni Students for Climate Justice” group has snuck under the radar.

For anyone used to the blind spots of the Australian press, this isn’t all that surprising really. After all4 “Uni Students for Climate Justice” is a front group of the revolutionary Marxist organisation Socialist Alternative, an extremist Trotskyist group that wants to overthrow the government and implement a totalitarian state.

Sounds too strange to be true, right? If a group that openly radical and extreme were organising major events across the country, protesting a highly contentious and prominent issue, surely the media would have told us about it, right?

Well judge for yourself.

Who are “Uni Students for Climate Justice”?

“Uni Students for Climate Justice” began early this year with the purpose of mobilising university students to jack up the numbers at the “Climate school strikes” on March 15. The school “strikes” were a manufactured event where high school kids made the grand sacrifice of skipping a day of school with their teachers’ permission. Very edgy.

From the very beginning, the organisation was dominated by well-known activists from the Socialist Alternative group. Their event in Canberra was organised by Socialist Alternative activist Kim Stern. The event in Melbourne was organised by Socialist Alternative activists Anneke Demanuele and Kath Larkin. In South Australia, the event was organised by Sage Jupe and Madeleine Edhouse, again of Socialist Alternative. In Sydney, the group was organised and coordinated by very well-known Socialist Alternative activist Hersha Kadkol. In Queensland, the effort at UQ was organised by Priya De of Socialist Alternative and the QUT effort was organised by Catherine Robertson and Jessica Payne of the QUT Socialist Alternative club.

Keen-eyed readers will already be sensing a pattern. But hang in there, you’ve not seen anything yet.

The “climate strike” effort was considered successful enough for Socialist Alternative to continue the project. On April 8th, the “Uni Students for Climate Justice” held an event called “Climate crisis, a student forum” at the University of Adelaide. The main two speakers at this event were Madeleine Edhouse of Socialist Alternative and Sarah Hanson-Young of the Greens.

In the lead-up to the Federal election, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” organised a “Uni Student Climate election rally” on May 16th in Brisbane. The event was organised primarily by Catherine Robertson of Socialist Alternative but also included as a speaker, Qld Greens MP Michael Berkman.

In the aftermath of the Morrison government’s re-election, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” continued their campaign. On May 24th they organised a “Climate Action Now” protest in Adelaide’s Rundle mall. Primary organisers for the event were Tom Gilchrist (best known for leading the mob who attacked the electorate office of Cory Bernardi) and Sage Jupe, again both of Socialist Alternative.

On Jun 7th, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” held their biggest event yet in Brisbane as a response to the Qld Labor government announcing that it would approve the Adani coal project. The rally was again addressed by Greens MP Michael Berkman. The organisation and promotion of the event was mostly carried out by Catherine Robertson and Carl Jackson of Socialist Alternative with help from the tiny “Movement Against Destruction” of which Catherine Robertson is a close associate.

On the 21st of June, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” stepped up their efforts and organised large events in Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra and were one of the main organising groups for a rally in Melbourne. The Brisbane event was organised by Catherine Robertson and Carl Jackson of Socialist Alternative and was spoken at by Greens Councillor Jonathon Sri. The Canberra event was organised by Kim Stern, Grace Hill and Priya De of Socialist Alternative and was spoken at by ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury.

The Adelaide event was organised by Sage Jupe, Madeleine Edhouse, Harvey Menadue, Jack Crawford and Tom Nichols, again all of Socialist Alternative. The Melbourne event had slightly more diverse organisers but was still addressed by Socialist Alternative organiser and recent “Victorian Socialists” electoral candidate Kath Larkin.

On June 28th, the group held an event in central Brisbane outside a lunch being spoken at by Qld ALP Premier Palaszczuk. Present at the small protest of about a dozen people were Carl Jackson, Catherine Robertson, Reuban Gluckstein and Tim Heffernan, all of Socialist Alternative.

On July 5th, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” held their biggest events yet in both Brisbane and Sydney. The Brisbane event was again organised by Carl Jackson and Catherine Robertson and was spoken at by Greens Senator Larissa Waters. The Sydney event was organised by the extremely well-known Socialist Alternative activist and organiser Lily Campbell.

On the back of this success, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” began organising for a coordinated national Uni student “walkout” on August 9th. To this end, on July 11th they held a planning meeting in the State library of South Australia, attended by about a dozen people including Tom Gilchrist, Sage Jupe, Daniel Neser and Madeleine Edhouse, all of Socialist Alternative.

On July 15th, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” held an organising meeting for the Canberra branch of the August 9th “walkout” at ANU. In attendance were Nicolas Carlton, Grace Carter, Kim Stern, Grace Hill and Wren Somerville, all of Socialist Alternative.

On July 18th, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” held a “crafternoon” event at the University of Adelaide to make banners and signs for the August 9th “walkout”. Running the event were Jack Crawford and Tom Gilchrist, both of Socialist Alternative.

The Adelaide branch of Socialist Alternative will be running another organising meeting this Thursday the 25th. The Canberra branch will be attending a Student Uni meeting at ANU on the 26th to barnstorm them into supporting the “walkout”. The Brisbane branch will be meeting at QUT to bring together the Socialist Alliance activists from UQ and QUT at a single organising and coordination event.

And this of course doesn’t even mention the times that the Brisbane Socialist Alternative branch has accompanied the naive and somewhat confused kiddies of “Extinction Rebellion” on their “Gluing ourselves to the road during peak hour” escapades. It’s notable that despite numerous dedicated Socialist Alternative members attending these road-gluing protests, it’s always the Extinction Rebellion kids who get arrested, not “Uni Students for Climate Justice” organisers like Carl Jackson or Catherine Robertson. I guess solidarity only goes so far.

I use “Socialist Alternative” and “Uni Students for Climate Justice” interchangeably there at the end because it should be clear to everyone by now that they are the same organisation.

But then again, Australian journalists have shown themselves able to look at protests led by well-known Socialist Alternative organisers carrying banners with “Socialist Alternative” written on them in huge letters while waving red flags and selling copies of the Socialist Alternative newspaper and not make any connection, so I don’t hold out too much hope.

Who is Socialist Alternative?

The first sentence of the Socialist Alternative statement of principles says: “We are a Revolutionary Marxist organisation”. Anyone with even the vaguest grasp of Australian left-wing politics is aware that Socialist Alternative is a Trotskyist group that wants to overthrow the government and implement a totalitarian socialist state in the mould of the early Soviet Union. They are sadly now so prevalent at protests, on university campuses and within academia that you would have to be literally blind to be a journalist in 21st century Australia and not know who they are.

They are the largest, best-organised and best-resourced violent political extremist group active in Australia today. Through their front group “Uni Students for Climate Justice”, Socialist Alternative is organising large protests across the country with the aim of drawing in impressionable young Uni students to be indoctrinated into the creepy cult-like organisation. What’s more4 through ignorance or deliberate omission, the media is helping them do just that.

The Young ALP people cooperating with the “Uni Students for Climate Justice”, through the National Union of Students and other University student bodies, are able to do so because the nature of the group is never publicised. Greens politicians such as Sarah Hanson-Young, Johnathon Sri, Shane Rattenbury, Larissa Waters and Michael Berkman are allowed to share stages and attend events with these extremists in part because the press never points out their extremism. Socialist Alternative is able to draw hundreds of young prospective recruits to its events without any resistance or opposition because the nature of its beliefs and its ultimate goals are always hidden by its allies (unwitting or not) in the media.

On Tuesday the 23rd of July, “Uni Students for Climate Justice” gained the support of the normally anti-communist Bob Brown for their August 9th University “walkout”. Brown has fought an often-secret factional battle with the open Marxists inside his own party since he led the struggle to expel hundreds of Trotskyists from the infant organisation in the early 90s. If the press had publicised the fact that he was giving his support to a front for the extremists he has fought against for most of his political career, would he have been so quick to give it?

The cover-up, deliberate or otherwise, of these extremists working openly in our midst is one of the greatest political scandals in modern Australia. These protests are not being organised by drippy hippies but rather confirmed commies. All of us need to speak up about it; all of us need to inform the public, because by the looks of our media class, nobody else will.

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