Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

GetUp!'s attempt to rehabilitate its self-besmirched reputation at the National Press Club today failed—failed badly. Why? Because the facts speak so much better than its empty rhetoric. Rather than apologising for their tactics, GetUp! foolishly doubled down and sent out the architect of their flawed campaign to try to justify the unjustifiable. The self-serving claim that GetUp! is built on ordinary people taking action on issues they care about is hollow. Did GetUp! members actually urge GetUp! to develop and run advertisements that were demonstrably untrue, ugly, nasty and in such poor taste that GetUp! was shamed into dropping them? Of course not. They were advertisements that falsely claimed that a person who had saved another person's life would sit idly by and watch someone drown. No, ordinary decent people don't do such things, but GetUp! did. Or the advertisement against the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg—not supporter-initiated, I'm sure. Ordinary decent people don't seek to so deceive.

Who can forget the ugliness, the nastiness, the politics of division and denigration in which GetUp! wallowed, spending thousands of dollars of their so-called members' money? Shamelessly, the National Press Club was told that GetUp! asks, 'Does the campaign resonate with people's lives?', each time they run a campaign. Really? Did the false allegations against Mr Frydenberg really resonate with people's lives? I'd like to see the membership feedback on that one. Or did the campaign against Mr Dutton so resonate that his margin actually increased? GetUp! takes the Australian people as mugs, to be manipulated.

Next, GetUp! falsely asserted to the National Press Club that the Australian Electoral Commission had confirmed their political independence. That is simply false—it's not the role of the AEC to make such a finding. When I asked the AEC about this claim they said it was not their role and denied making such a claim. Nevertheless, it didn't stop GetUp! from saying exactly that at the National Press Club here today. They repeated the falsehood in front of the nation's media and, shamefully, did so without any hesitation. To take some political licence is one thing but to verbal an independent statutory authority confirms that there are no boundaries, no codes, no ethics for GetUp! For them, their self-determined correctness justifies any course of action.

But the deceit doesn't end there. GetUp! claimed they didn't just campaign against the Liberal Party. Tellingly, no mention was made of any House of Representatives members, other than Liberals, against whom they campaigned—because they couldn't. Who could forget GetUp!'s phone canvassing in Longman asking voters to put the Liberals last, thus proffering a white supremacist and convicted criminal? Yet they claim they don't only campaign against Liberals. Who can forget the campaign against Nicolle Flint? Even Labor luminaries are cringing at the GetUp! tactics and antics turning off decent Australians. When GetUp! isn't officially amending its objectives to falsely claim it's a charity and then, when exposed, saying it was an administrative error, GetUp! is claiming it has unusual levels of transparency. I agree with this. Its level is highly unusual, as is shown by listing all its important decision-makers in schedule 1 of its constitution; however, schedule 1 remained blank and empty at all times until it was finally taken out of its constitution—so much for transparency.

This time around in this election, despite spending literally millions of dollars, the people rejected the GetUp! tactics of deceit. Having spent millions themselves, they decried others that had spent millions as well. Like Clive Palmer, GetUp! can spend millions in our democracy on a campaign. But just as much as they were a wake-up to Clive Palmer as a result of the 2013 election, so too were the Australian people a wake-up to GetUp! as a result of the 2016 election. Might I finish by saying that exposing the slipperiness of GetUp! is not about trying to silence opponents or subvert democracy; it's about informing people. Once informed, they rejected GetUp! (Time expired)