I share your scepticism about Getup. I heard one of its spokesperson interveiwed/derided on the ABC not long ago; a little unfairly I thought. While the Getup guy went to great lengths to say they were not a political party - strictly speaking they are not - and they had no real agenda - they are shaping up to be at least party like with very specific agendas;
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I bet this forum still has the edge over spam and I know my Senator for “poor farmers” has a patient lady who puts some my emails aside for his attention.

Considering the hundreds of emails we know they get today in any Polly office I reckon it’s still worth a chat over the telling bone. Some things don’t change.

Sorry Graham

I’m a bit amused by the rush to predict whether Getup will be effective or not in achieving policy change. Like so many of the technology-based tools we’ve acquired in the past decade or so, there’s a lot of bedding-down which needs to take place before it will be possible to come to any real judgement.

In the meantime, attempts to establish new models of online lobbying should be encouraged, because there is potential to (a) broaden the sources of direct feedback to our lawmakers, (b) circumvent the role of pollsters in policy development, and (c) 'broker' a wider range of views (see Graham Young's article http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3728).

Every major political issue is accompanied by a group of people who are prepared to change their vote to achieve the outcome, and to a great extent, effective political activism depends on being able to convince a politician that there are x-number of votes riding on it. In fact, single issues don’t often decide elections – (swinging) voters balance up a basket of issues as they walk into the polling booth.

What I find most attractive about Getup, and why I have joined in, is that it provides a framework in which I can quickly pass on an opinion to our lawmakers without having to pretend that it will determine my vote. It’s a more nuanced view: it sends a message, not a threat.

On the issues that really drive me, I can and do write directly to a politician or a parliamentary committee. For the other times, when I just want to pass on some feedback, Getup is very useful (of course, this lack of complete commitment could end up being it's big failure).

Nonetheless, I suspect that it has already changed the political landscape, at least just a little. I too am interested to see how much influence it will have, but more importantly, I applaud the broadening of the sources of input to politicians which it represents.

"GetUp" definitely is a bit like "MoveOn", and I'm sure they are well meaning folks which are trying to do what they think is best, and in a democracy, they should be applauded for speaking out.

However, like "MoveOn", "GetUp" won't have an effect. Polls show that many people hate John Howard and consider him a liar, but that they also view the Labour Party as whiny and ineffective and incompetent, and although I'm a Labour supporter, I have to admit that the new leadership looks less than impressive. "GetUp" might make the Liberals look evil, but they can't make Labour look good by merely bashing the Liberals on everything they do.

Oh, and thanks to the writer of this article for an interesting piece of writing. Thanks.

I might be a bit late getting in on this discussion, but being involved in Getup has given me an opportunity to get involved in issues that I care about, and for the first time I feel that I can make a difference. The last campaign I was involved with was the recent Asylum bill and I emailed and thanked four politicians who were involved in turning this bill around. I have had comprehensive replies from two politicians, with the following comment from one: "To know that so many people, like you, cared enough to have their voices
heard was very heartening and sustaining. During thirteen years in Parliament I have rarely experienced such overwhelming community concern and involvement in a single issue. It is an example of all that is good about our system of democracy, when people care enough to participate."
- and that is the crux of it. Ordinary people like me 'caring enough to participate'. I am sure Getup had substantial input into the RU486 debate also. Getup recently conducted a poll to ask us what issues etc we care about. They are fine by me and I will stick with them.