I noticed some news articles recently warning that GetUp.org planned on starting a boycott of any company that did not support the carbon tax proposed by the Australian Labor/Greens government.
Here are some such articles:
I thought to myself this is a step too far; who are these people to go making threats against honest citizens who disagree with a bad and economically crippling tax.
I thought I should dig in to find out who is behind this GetUp.org because they appear to have some twisted agenda.
So obviously I went straight to their website and looked at their "About GetUp" page.
http://www.getup.org.au/about/about-getup
Here is what it says:
They represent themselves as being independent and essentially non-partisan, yet it seemed to me that any organisation that is organising boycotts against those who fail to support a government initiative can hardly be considered independent or non-partisan.
One work colleague of mine said it best "As soon as a group starts organising rallys and campaigns they are political."
But I still wanted to know who was behind it all, so once again I searched the GetUp website.
On the donations disclosure page I found the following statement:
http://www.getup.org.au/about/disclosure
"Like all advocacy organisations, GetUp is required by law to disclose to the Australian Electoral Commission the identity of any donors who give over $11,200 in a financial year."
Hold on a second what does the law say about GetUp's activities, and are they really an advocacy group or are they and entity associated with a political party or parties?
The Australian Electoral Commission refers to advocacy groups as "Third parties" which it defines as "people or organisations (other than registered political parties, candidates and Federal government agencies) who incur political expenditure under one or more of the five categories defined in the Act."
Here is an example of some recognized advocacy groups.
http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/Reports_On_Federal_Electoral_Events/1998/appendix3.htm
You will note that they typically have specific concerns based on particular interests of a small group, such as gun owners, sporting groups, community groups, etc. Each of these people and groups are typically active in supporting a particular interest and are not aligned to party political interests.
There is another type of organisation however called Associated Entities.
Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, an "associated entity" is defined in section 287 of the Act as an entity that:
■ is controlled by one or more registered political parties, or
■ operates wholly or to a significant extent for the benefit of one or more registered political parties,
So if GetUp are a specific interest third party then they would have specific non-party oriented interests and supporters, however if they are an Associated Entity then they would have broad agendas that typically align with the interests of one or more political parties.
Lets look again at what GetUp says about itself on the "About GetUp" page:
Allow me to translate the political jargon;
"progressive" means "left leaning" aka Labor/Greens;
"economic fairness" means "socialist" aka Labor/Greens;
"social justice" means "left leaning social morals" aka Labor/Greens;
"environmental sustainability" means "anti-industry" aka Greens;
The GetUp.org history of campaigns clearly demonstrates that they do not have a particular narrow set of concerns as would be expected by a third party, rather they appear to merely launch campaigns about issues that are already in the political arena and their campaigns are "to a significant extent for the benefit of one or more political parties" (Labor/Greens).
It would seem quite clear to any unbiased observer that GetUp.org is an Associated Entity of the Labor/Greens parties.
Not insignificantly the Labor and Greens party are working in a power sharing alliance within their minority government.
It is clear that Labor and Greens parties are significantly aligned and that GetUp.org is operating for the benefit of this Labor/Greens government.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (as amended) states:
"If a donation is made to an Associated Entity with the intention of benefiting a particular political party, it is considered to be made to that political party."
Remember that I wanted to know who was behind it all, now look at what I found on their website.
On the donations disclosure page I found the following:
http://www.getup.org.au/about/disclosure
"progressive" means "left leaning" aka Labor/Greens;
"economic fairness" means "socialist" aka Labor/Greens;
"social justice" means "left leaning social morals" aka Labor/Greens;
"environmental sustainability" means "anti-industry" aka Greens;
The GetUp.org history of campaigns clearly demonstrates that they do not have a particular narrow set of concerns as would be expected by a third party, rather they appear to merely launch campaigns about issues that are already in the political arena and their campaigns are "to a significant extent for the benefit of one or more political parties" (Labor/Greens).
It would seem quite clear to any unbiased observer that GetUp.org is an Associated Entity of the Labor/Greens parties.
Not insignificantly the Labor and Greens party are working in a power sharing alliance within their minority government.
It is clear that Labor and Greens parties are significantly aligned and that GetUp.org is operating for the benefit of this Labor/Greens government.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (as amended) states:
"If a donation is made to an Associated Entity with the intention of benefiting a particular political party, it is considered to be made to that political party."
Remember that I wanted to know who was behind it all, now look at what I found on their website.
On the donations disclosure page I found the following:
http://www.getup.org.au/about/disclosure
And yes your eyes do not deceive you, that is a $1.12 million dollar donation from the CFMEU.
So was that money used for non-partisan specific causes? No not at all. It was used to run a campaign specifically attacking the Liberal party leader Tony Abbott.
Here are some news articles speaking on that very topic.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/union-gave-12m-to-getup/story-e6frg6nf-1225953474319
http://www.smh.com.au/national/get-up-funded-antiabbott-ad-with-unions-1m-gift-20101112-17r7j.html
In fact GetUp.org have a history of specifically attacking Liberal party leaders and policies.
The first television campaign that GetUp ever lauched was in effect to announce that GetUp was going to act as a pseudo-opposition party to hold the incumbent Liberal party accountable.
http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/now-you-answer-to-us
Ever since their launch GetUp have specifically attacked Liberal party members and their policies, and called for public support of policies proposed by the Greens and Labor parties, spewing out a relentless trail of left wing propoganda.
If specifically biased attacks against conservative politicians was not enough GetUp sunk to new lows during the 2007 elections when it lauched a website called http://www.howshouldivote.com.au/ that claimed to give people impartial advice on which party best matched their responses to 20 questions.
However the response provided by the website questionaire was essentially rigged and no matter how you answered the questions the website apparently always claimed that the Liberal and other conservative parties least matched your response to the questionaire, and advising you to vote Greens/Labor.
How do I know this? Simple. Because the Australian Electoral Commission issued a warning to GetUp.org for their deceptive practices.
Here is an article about it.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/getup-warned-on-howtovote-site-20110225-1b8e7.html
It seems clear to any reasonably minded person that GetUp.org are an Associated Entity of the Labor and Greens parties.
I would encourage all Australians to petition the Australian Electoral Commission to classify GetUp.org as an Associated Entity of the Labor and Greens coalition parties.
Let's stop GetUp.org from any more dishonest misrepresentations.
Let's force them out of the closet, and expose them as the left wing front group for the Labor and Greens parties that they quite clearly are.
Let's get GetUp out of politics! Go on, GET LOST GetUp!