"GetUp presents as a moral, mass movement, committed to ridding the nation of extremism, but is itself a purveyor of out-there ideology. It is secretive, undemocratic and a law unto itself. We welcome political debate and participation. But unlike others in the fray, GetUp doesn’t exist to elect people to parliament — its business model is to destroy careers. During last year’s campaign, the left activist group and unions conducted a sickening all-out assault on South Australian Liberal Nicolle Flint. The repulsive personal attacks on the member for Boothby created an environment for abuse, harassment, intimidation, shouting, even stalking to become the “new normal”. Other Liberals targeted by GetUp were Peter Dutton, Kevin Andrews, Christian Porter, Greg Hunt and Tony Abbott.

And where did that money go? As Brad Norington reported on Monday, GetUp spent more than 70 per cent of the $12.4m in public donations it raised last year on salaries, administration costs and travel. Hold on, doesn’t the leftist group boast “every dollar you donate to GetUp is used to build a more fair, flourishing and just Australia”? We suppose there’s some marketing juice in that phrasing, but the spiel goes on to claim “your donation will be used to fund billboards”, “hard-hitting TV ads into the lounge rooms” of key seats and “rallies demonstrating people power”. Such a contribution is an “investment in extraordinary impact”. Nice impact, if you can get some. Many people will feel dudded by these odd priorities."

Well, it's the left, it's to be expected !

'Moral' and GetUp just don't go together.

Everyone gets that you dislike GetUp. But political attack ads are nothing new - they've been around for decades! And considering Nicolle Flint retained her seat, your accusation of them destroying careers is really not credible.

You mention they've previously attacked Tony Abbott - surely he deserved to be attacked? This treacherous skunk defunded the Australia TV Network just before it was due to sign a contract to broadcast in China - meaning we lost an enormous opportunity to counteract the lies of the Chinese Communist Party. How many decades do we have to go back to see an Australian PM do something so strongly against our national interest?

As for GetUp's financial priorities, keep in mind that a lot of people donate time rather than money.

Aidan,

My objection to GetUp has two facets, firstly GetUp was set up by Bill Shorten primarily to bypass any donation laws, so they happily accepted money from overseas donors, developers etc, and as such is a vehicle for corruption.

Secondly, it does not just do attack ads, the abuse, harassment, the vile ads and sometimes outright violence make it a political obscenity.

That it is a paid training ground for labor future pollies essentially makes it essentially a branch of the Labor party.

It's about time Morrison took notice of what his backstabbing Lefty Liberals (the ones who call themselves 'moderates' as if other Liberals were really extremists) are up to. Quisling - better suited to the Green party - Dave Sharma has admitted he donates to GetUp!.

Getup and antifa are cousins. They should really be considered terrorist as they are often violent, constantly tell lies and smeer decent people. The lying liberal left media love them. That should tell you everything. You can be sure that any organisation that the abc push is full of Australian hating individuals.

I've noticed that some professional commentators have swapped the name ScoMo for SloMo. Perhaps they think that he is too slow to keep up, and if that's the case, he might not even know what the small l liberals are doing behind his back.

ttbn,
What do you reckon the odds are the Lib won't let him contest the next election as leader?

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runner,
Falsely accusing their opponents of terrorism seems to have become a feature of despotic regimes.

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Shadow,

> My objection to GetUp has two facets, firstly GetUp was set up by Bill Shorten primarily to bypass any donation laws,
Actually it wasn't; it was founded by Jeremy Heimans and David Madden. Bill Shorten was on its board early on, but so was John Hewson.

GetUp is not party political. But when a party consistently takes up odious positions (demonising refugees, treating the environment with contempt, and running disingenuous scare campaigns) it's no wonder GetUp directs so much opposition towards them.

> the abuse, harassment, the vile ads and sometimes outright violence make it a political obscenity.
Any actual evidence of that? I've never seen any signs of GetUp or its people engaging in any violence. And when I googled "getup violence", most of the results related to their campaign to get the government to do more about domestic violence. But one other thing I did find was a podcast of an interview where Paul Oosting of GetUp responds to the allegations. It can be found at http://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-paul-oosting-responds-to-getups-critics-120886

Aidan, from what we have seen historically and performance wise, the Labor party is NOT a viable or even effective political party.
We must remember, they like the greens have mis-represented themselves to the people.
The few that have some form of accedemic background are very biased towards socialism, communism and even marxism.
They are crap at anything to do with managing ANYTHING, especially an economy the size of Australia.
Labor and greens simply bungle along and get away with their con because their followers are gullible, naive, simple minded fools.
It's easy to run a company when the shareholders keep paying money, in this case, taxes, the treasury.
They spend money like it's going out of fashion, because they know we'll keep topping up the kitty with taxes and other stolen booty.
They have no economic policy worth looking at.
The Libs on the other hand are MOSTLY from industry, business and so forth, much more REAL business experience than Labor.
I give absolutely NO cred to anyone with an accedemic background over someone with actual business experience.
Go through the Labor and greens lot and pick out all the ones who have owned or run their own companies, there aren't enough to justify giving them the job of running the country, because ultimately they do not have a clue, and are fudging it or making it up as they go along.
Once they have scammed enough money from the system, they retire with benefits that they are completely undeserving of.
At least when the coalition retire, they too have scammed money, but at least they did something for the betterment of the country.
Proof of this is when labor won the election from the Libs, there was 40 odd billion in the kitty.
Labor couldn't stand seeing all that money sitting there as savings or backstop, so they went after it like pigs at a trough, until the next thing we hear we are hundreds of billion in debt.
All Laborites are, are ex-union bosses waiting for a seat in govt.
Hawke was one such useless, worthless excrement.

ALTRAV,
Business experience is certainly desirable, but it does not give a complete understanding of the situation, and can result in arrogance, particularly when people don't understand the differences between how businesses work and how the government works.

Your comment about how much is "in the kitty" is a case in point. Unlike businesses, the government has unlimited credit. It will NEVER EVER have to achieve a zero debt position; the "kitty" is irrelevant. What matters is the amount of money going into the economy, and the deficit/surplus is one part of that. During the Howard years, the surpluses were too small, so they kept having to raise interest rates to control inflation. Since 2007 the private sector have been less eager to borrow, and now inflation is below the target band and interest rates are so close to zero that cutting them won't have a big effect on private sector investment decisions. Under these conditions the economically responsible course of action is to run much bigger deficits. But the government are still obsessed with running surpluses.

Worse still, they're only interested in short term targets, and waste money on absurd false economies like FTTN.

The problem isn't confined to the Coalition of course. Though it's worst with them, Labor and the Greens are affected pretty badly too.

don't understand the differences between how businesses work
Aidan,
They change with the weather but the general tactic is exploitation ! The only system that'd really work is value for money but it won't result in as quick a buck as does the present system !

With a line up like Peter Dutton, Kevin Andrews, Christian Porter, Greg Hunt and Tony Abbott.
What do you expect, we lick their ass.

Get-up discovered the broad avenue of social media, where dwell the disenfranchised majority.
A sure winner.

Dan. X

Poor old GetUp is struggling to cover its $7.2 million wage bill, according to The Australian. Yes. $7.2 million. Last year they received $12.4 million in donations, 70% of which went on salaries, admin and TRAVEL.

Like big charity BUSINESSES, GetUp seems to be a job-creation scheme for fat cats and frauds. Volunteers (more accurately activists) are "disillusioned", poor, silly sods

I had a glance at their Aust website. Just looking at the board gave me a sense of something not being as it is portrayed to be.
They did not disclose how much of the donations go into "running" this show which has all the smell of a huge con exploiting the idealists !
It's clearly a Conservative bashing outfit with no clue as to why things are the way they are.
It looks to me they're simply having a good lurk by hood-winking well meaning, decent people.
If Getup really & I mean really wanted to do the right thing by all they'd ask people to change not ask them for their change !

Aidan, I'm sorry but I am one of those people who look at things a little more simplistically, and if your description of running the economy is how the govt thinks, I disagree.
You see, I cannot shake this feeling that we, as a country are being manipulated by external forces.
That is, the govt is being led by some foreign people or entity who are in very high positions and have the power to hold Australia to ransom, for their own end or gain.
I always resort to asking who or what is so powerful that they can change the fortunes of a whole country?
The answer is, without doubt or question; The banks!
And who or what runs, owns and controls the banks the federal reserve and so on?
I am angry at these pricks because I keep bookmarking a sight that's headed "Rothschild control nearly all the banks and federal reserves in the world".
Someone keeps removing it.
WHY?
By doing that they are effectively confirming it as being true.
Anyway, it is fact that we, the people are not privy to the truth because if we were, we would have one of the biggest uprisings against the banks and ultimately these scum-bags, and I for one would be more than happy to cut their throats and see that we are never again enslaved by sick demented vial people the likes of which are controlling the world today.

individual,
Who change with the weather?

Value for money is an objective not a tactic, and despite their greater business experience the Libs are dismally failing to achieve it. One big problem is they seem to have fallen for the rhetoric of small government: they think cutting funding will automatically result in greater efficiency; they don't understand that it will often result in false economies instead.

Hey ALTRAV,
For them, democracy and nationalism is a bus.
They ride it until the get to their destination and then get off.

Also it'd be just as valid to say we've been incredibly foolish, lazy and ignorant than it would be to give the other side credit for their cleverness.

Aidan,

Bill Shorten was one of the founding members, but the only one that brought $100 000 of unauthorised money from his union to start GetUp. The group is controlled entirely by a small clique of labor/green members.

Getup is also extremely party political, as its attacks are almost exclusively against coalition MPs and most are not related to a specific cause.

Value for money is an objective not a tactic
Aidan,
Really ? So, in your opinion the outrageous salaries paid to bureaucrats for doing very little in comparison to other Public Servants who struggle to keep their jobs by covering for their line managers are justified ?

pretty sad when those opposing gay marriage (wasn't long back Penny Wong and Julian Gillards opposed it) are considered extremist. The left who call everyone who disagrees with them Nazis demonstrate far more violence than anyone else in Australia. Getup and Antifa are good examples. They even ignore that their so called right wing murderer in NZ was a supporter of China. They never let the truth get in the way of their lying narrative.

Haven't heard much from the likes of GetUp! and ANTIFA for a while.

Should we be worried about that?
Are they hiding in the shadows like cockroaches planning their next scheme?
Or is it that ANTIFA protesters as mainly Uni Students and their weirdo Professor handlers go on holidays over the school and Christmas break and they need a few months to indoctrinate the new students after coming back and re-align all the others after their drunken debauched drug-fueled holiday breaks?

Get Up has every right to promote its own causes, as does any other entity.

It is called democracy.

It's about time GetUp formalised its extreme leftism and applied for registration as political party. It is clearly an anti-Coalition organisation, not just some kindly and well-meaning observer.

Pro Life Groups has every right to promote its own causes, as does any other entity.

It is called democracy.

Chris Lewis and runner,
It's actually called free speech. But it's closely associated with democracy, and democracy doesn't work so well without it.

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ttbn,
> It's about time GetUp formalised its extreme leftism and applied for registration as political party.
In other words, you want to see GetUp fail, and you see the surest way of doing that would be to switch its focus from issues into party politics.

GetUp didn't set out to be an anti Coalition organisation. But the Coalition's policies often conflict strongly with the values that many of our younger people have.

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individual,
I don't know what exactly the highly paid bureaucrats are doing, so I can't tell you whether their salaries are justified or not. Theoretically there are many positions where doing the job well consul save the government many millions of dollars, so they certainly could be justified. But whether they actually are is another matter.

I'd like to see more reliance on crowdsourcing to improve government spending efficiency.

It is called democracy.
runner,
That's debatable when the groups don't follow up on the consequences of their agenda.
Take Pro Life for example. They push for unwanted pregnancies to go through but once the babies are actually in need of looking after, Pro Life suddenly fades out of view !
I'm all for Life, Quality of life that is not just life for life's sake & then heap up this life with misery plus !
Pro Life should be looking at prevention instead of cure that they expect others to follow up on.
Our TV people are making a little fortune in showing us commercials about helping poor kids. The money spent on the commercials would help the kids more than any commercial !
Same with Pro Life. If they vented all their effort towards helping families in need, fewer abortions would & less misery would be the case.
If Pro Life would encourage a National Service many young females would not have unwanted pregnancies ! Why ? Because a NS would make them think !

"GetUp didn't set out to be an anti Coalition organisation".Aidan.

Pull the other one Aidan, it yodels.

Aidan,

Considering that GetUp was set up by Labor and the greens, funded by the unions, and is controlled absolutely by a cabal of 9 labor/green heavies, both the claim that Getup was not formed as an anti coalition organisation and the claim that the actions it takes is based on the youth are complete lies.

I will generously assume that Aidan is simply ignorant and is mindlessly regurgitating Getup's propaganda.

Pull the other one Aidan, it yodels.
Hasbeen,
If pulls both of them he'll fall flat on his ar$e !

That's not yodelling, Hasbeen, it's the doppler effect.
But I don't know why you shake your head so vigorously when you hear the truth.

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Shadow,
You could go even further and consider that GetUp was set up by the Easter Bunny!

Alternatively you could ditch your fantasies and accept reality:
The fact that John Hewson was on their board highlights the absurdity of your claim that GetUp was founded as an anti-coalition organization.

And what evidence do you have that GetUp is "controlled absolutely by a cabal of 9 labor/green heavies"?

Aidan,

You are with the fairies, Hewson as a climate change enthusiast with business connections was asked to sit on the board with others from labor and the greens and resigned from the board within a month in disgust. Since then the activist group set up by union funds has morphed into a vile far left anti coalition campaigning group controlled by a small cabal of labor/green heavies.

Pretending that it is a grass roots movement is a lie.

Shadow,
Repeating your assertion doesn't make it any truer, even if you word it more strongly.
I asked if you had any evidence; it seems you don't.

Aidan,

Considering that you have not posted one jot to support your opinion your request is laughable, however, here is a researched article that you can peruse.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/editorials/every-dollar-you-donate-to-getup-is-a-waste-of-money/news-story/3c87bb20ee818b792cfdab7776206a09