Red Spark invites the reader to take stock of last year and the prospects ahead.

It is unlikely that there will be large May Day demonstrations around Australia on May 1, 2026. There have not been large May Day marches in Australia for probably two decades or more. 

In recent years there have been important smaller actions in Sydney and the Illawarra where the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) played a key role. The numbers at these actions were around 2,000 and so, with less in other cities. Most rallies have do not occurred on May 1 itself but on a non-working day.  Family picnics have been the centrepiece of such actions.

The decline in size and militancy of May Day demonstrations over the last few decades must be understood in light of the Labor Party dominated trade union movement acquiescing to Australian capitalism’s turn to neo-liberalism. Starting with the Bill Hayden leadership of the ALP, and then with Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, the ALP adopted a full spectrum of neo-liberal policies requiring a steady application of austerity measures against working people.

Of most political significance, this required a regression in political culture among workers and ordinary people. All the bourgeois political parties, including the ALP (which Lenin called a liberal-bourgeois party) shifted away from winning electoral support by promising improvements in people’s lives. Instead, they began an all-out effort to win support on the basis of being the most efficient managers of the austerity’s implementation. Their claims are similar to the following:

The Liberals: “Vote for us. We are the only ones responsible enough to implement hard decisions!”

The ALP: “No, we are even more efficient managers, vote for us. It will be worse under the Liberals.”

The acceptance of neo-liberalism meant abandonment of any tradition of industrial militancy. In 1974, there were 6.4 million working days lost due to strikes in Australia. By the 1980s this had dropped to around 2 million. Only around 170,000 days were “lost” during 2025. Union coverage has dropped from around 50 percent before the 1980s to 13 percent today and only 8 percent in the private sector.

Under these conditions, reclaiming May Day as a day of struggle must be seen as part of the struggle to rebuild the labour movement itself. In 2025, in Melbourne, a coalition of small left groups from outside the ALP organised a vibrant action of a few hundred people on May Day itself. One of the calls was to rebuild a fighting union movement.

Such a rebuilding is urgent. However, it requires going beyond the necessary call for people to join and build their unions as militant defenders of wages and conditions. The 40 years of acquiescence to neo-liberal economics and politics means that generations of people have been brought up in a propaganda atmosphere that limits their understanding.  Some budget crisis is always around the corner. Some new “geo-political” crisis threatens Australia’s fragile economy at any moment. Supposedly these crises are inevitable, meaning we should merely avoid their worsening by keeping irresponsible or incompetent economic managers out of government -, or so goes the refrain. Meanwhile, we must all tighten our belts (except the capitalist class); we must all limit our horizons.

This non-stop, wall-to-wall “lower your horizons” propaganda for 40 years also increases a sense of precariousness among most of the working class. This precariousness is reinforced by rising costs and low savings. Twenty percent of women and 13 percent of men have no savings at all. It is only the relative ease of finding work for many people (not all), even if casual, part-time and low skilled, that ameliorates this precarious state. One third of all people classified as employed work part-time (i.e. work less than 35 hours per week).

This precariousness is also heightened by an ongoing scare campaign that the best jobs, housing and so on are being taken by migrants and refugees from “failed states”. Non-white migrants are usually framed by white supremacist racists as failed races. For forty years, a subtle fear of the peoples of the Global South has been cultivated, both to deepen Australia’s sense of precariousness and to undermine any sense of solidarity between the common people of Australia and the peoples of the oppressed and exploited countries of the world.

Horizons have not only been lowered but also narrowed. What fading horizons might be glimpsed are for people in Australia alone.

In 1924, when the NSW Labor Council was, for a brief time, inspired by the Russian Revolution, it issued the following appeal, which has lost none of its relevance today:

“The Australian movement desires not only that the [labour] day [celebration] be fixed for May 1, but that the whole character and purpose of the demonstration should be changed. Dinners, sports, picnics – these are not good enough. The movement is worth more than this. Let our May Day certainly be a day or rejoicing, but let it also be a day in which all active elements of the movement take stock of the work of the last year, of the prospects ahead, and the program required. Let it also be a day of demonstrations which express a growing class-consciousness of the working class and a declaration of war upon capitalist society. We want a labour day which will give the movement a chance to unite for a real move forward on the basis of all the more pressing interests of the workers. Forward to a new battle! Forward to world revolution!”

In this statement, back in 1924, they emphasised “but let it also be a day in which all active elements of the movement take stock of the work of the last year, of the prospects ahead, and the program required.”

This coming year will see more US attacks on Cuba, intensification of efforts to control Venezuela, deepening US intervention into the Middle East, and more propaganda and trade attacks against China. The Australian state and ruling class will support all of these actions. Meanwhile, here in Australia, the Australian state remains in dictatorial control of the CFMEU, maintains its economic pressure on working people while molly-coddling the super-rich, and even condemns disabled people to further hardship. AI technology is being used as a tool to surveil workers and threaten job security but not to reduce working hours. The Australian state also remains as slow as ever on the transition to renewable energy. 

Where there are May Day actions, especially those on May 1, Red Spark members will be present. Union membership is growing again, so there may be some growth in mobilisations even if they are still small. The more that attend, the better.

But perhaps this May Day, we should also make a re-energised and recommitted effort to “take stock of the work of the last year, of the prospects ahead, and the program required.”  Let’s make May 1, 2026, to May 1, 2027, a year of hard work to develop such a program. Let’s also provide the maximum contribution our resources allow to ensure all important campaigns are a success.