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Will 'GetUp!' influence political debate? : Comments
By Mark Bahnisch, published 24/8/2005Mark Bahnisch argues 'GetUp!', the new Australian politics venture, is unlikely to set the world on fire.
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Posted by sneekeepete, Wednesday, 24 August 2005 10:30:41 AM
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The GetUp t.v ads are noting that the federal government needs to be kept accountable and under scrutiny because the Coalition government of the day now has a senate majority.
I would have more time for GetUp if it also showed equal concern for the unicameral state/territory Labor governments that have majority rule. In the NT the ACT and Queensland laws can be rammed through with the whim of the one party that holds power. Why has this been ignored by GetUp? The states deliver the bulk of our education and health services. I care very deeply how they do it and get concerned that bad law can’t be scrutinised and halted or modified by other parties It is a coalition of 2 political parties that hold the balance in the senate. As we are seeing with the debate over telstra this is proving quite different from the one party supremacy that NT, ACT and Queensland residents live under. Get Up should Get Balanced and who knows I might just get on board. Posted by jimbo, Wednesday, 24 August 2005 11:36:49 AM
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See Graham Youngs article McPolitics for a much more succinct analysis of how brokerage could occur via web activism.
Young argues the internet can perform a brokerage role once activism is aligned comprehesively. "But if it is to perform that role adequately it requires something to bolt the efforts of the various lobby sites together" (Young:29 July 2005) http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3728 Getup is a stand alone effort in a sea of other stand alone bloggs and web diaries. And remember the level of independent media in the US enabled MoveOn.com to become a lethal in brokering policy and outcomes in politics. We simply don't enjoy that privlidge here. This means we must become much more sophisticated in networking 'independent and expert opinion' GetUp may well deliver thousands of emails to our elected leaders, but there is no linkage to traditional brokerage methodologies. Posted by Rainier, Wednesday, 24 August 2005 6:41:31 PM
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While very little sets the world on fire, some initiatives are more influential than others.
Surely Mark, by your own yardstick, Getup has serious prospects as several thousand grassroot members have quickly signed up and are ‘participating’. And surely significant funds and a ‘mainstream media’ profile simply multiply its influence further. To shamelessly stretch the metaphor, the journey of a thousands kilometers starts by getting up off your arse. Surely the journey would be all the more meaningful, and more likely to head in the right direction, if it is well known, informed by many members and has resources enough to keep it on the road. Hats off to Getup. Posted by martin callinan, Thursday, 25 August 2005 1:39:01 AM
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Nice phrase "the journey of a thousands kilometers starts by getting up off your arse", but this journey is unfortunately destined to disappear up its own starting point.
Spamming senators is just plain stupid. Anyone who knows anything about spam knows that it is as easy to send 30,000 emails as it is to send 30. The commentators who are impressed that "the volume of the emails should tell politicians that there's real community concern about the government's Senate majority" are simply showing their ignorance of the medium. As Mark points out, the medium is far better suited to single-issue activism, where like-mindedness is defined within the act of joining. "GetUp's" positioning can only be one of opposition, specifically in opposition to an idea ("John Howard's government"). Capturing the "positive activists" cannot be achieved with such a broad - and as yet uncertain - agenda. Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 25 August 2005 9:07:23 AM
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I went and had a look at Getup - after Graham Young first brought it to (my) attention here.
IMHO it will be a waste of time. As a couple of posters have (more colourfully) said, "Spamming Senators is not going to make any difference" - through the process of proportional representation, the Senate elections stretches the thread of appointment of senator too far from the electorate. Posted by Col Rouge, Thursday, 25 August 2005 3:06:38 PM
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I have visited the website and found it too proscriptive and uninteresting; from a marketting point of veiw I think they have at the very least failed to attract the attention of the community based on those two minor observations.