Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lilley for her, as usual, excellent contribution to this chamber.

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't mean that! That's going too far! I rise to speak on the important topic of freedom of political speech. Last year we learnt how a group called Sleeping Giants Oz targets advertisers in News Corp and Sky News, claiming it is trying to stop hate speech in the media by stopping its ad dollars. Sleeping Giants Oz craves anonymity because it fears exposure as being politically inspired and because it relies on deceiving advertisers about its real level of support. Multiple anonymous Twitter accounts are used to massively amplify its campaigns. In one case, fewer than 200 individual accounts were responsible for 53 per cent of a campaign Sleeping Giants ran against Sky News. As few as 10 of these accounts generated a total of 4,500 tweets in 45 days.

Last week, The Australian,using GetUp's ASIC filings, showed that 71 per cent of donations to GetUp was spent on salaries and administration, despite supporters being told that every dollar would be used on billboards, TV ads and rallies. Yet James Shipton and Daniel Crennan at ASIC do nothing about this. In response, GetUp has embarked on a bizarre campaign targeting Woolworths for the crime of advertising 'in the Murdoch press'. A GetUp email from someone called Alix had a Twitter link so recipients could let 'Woolworths know the power of the internet'. Alix—spelt A-L-I-X, indicating their capacity to spell is equal to their political judgement—also said a mobile billboard would protest outside Woolworths' head office, and later that day GetUp posted pictures of Paul Oosting outside Wooolworths with a billboard truck calling on Woolworths to stop funding 'climate denial'. But there were more protesters than just Paul—eight more. Real people power impact GetUp is bringing to this campaign! In one picture there is a girl in sunglasses with raised fist, looking like Che Guevara. She looks like—guess who—Alix, the GetUp campaigner who sent out the email about the protest. I know this because on Sunday Alix sent out another email with a picture of her without sunglasses next to Paul Oosting outside News Limited protesting salary transparency—I mean climate denial. This email claimed that GetUp's campaign had been a great success and Woolworths was 'responding'. It turns out this response was a post from Woolies saying— (Time expired)