GetUp!

This article is about an Australian political movement. For the graduate employee union, see GET-UP.

GetUp!

File:GetUp Action for Australia logo.png
Formation	2005
Headquarters	Sydney, Australia
Membership	585,581+ members
Website	http://www.getup.org.au

GetUp! is a left-leaning Australian activist group that campaigns on issues important to its members. It was launched in August 2005, the week that the Coalition took control of the Australian Senate.

GetUp campaigns are community based, and are primarily coordinated through the Internet. They involve email, its website, and traditional media. GetUp is a non-profit organisation, and states that it relies on donations from individuals, organisations, unions and community groups for funding.

GetUp describes itself as "a new independent political movement to build a progressive Australia". They identify campaigns based on the interests of its members, which are usually issues such as "social justice, economic fairness and environmental sustainability".

History

Founded by Jeremy Heimans and David Madden, the GetUp.org.au website was launched on 1 August 2005 along with a television advertising campaign. Inspired by the American website MoveOn.org, GetUp's initial campaign aimed to help voters to "keep the Howard Government accountable" after it won a majority of seats in the Australian Senate on 9 August 2005, following the Australian federal election, 2004. Although both Liberal-National Coalition parties permit their members to cross the floor to vote against party policy, this was nevertheless the first time an Australian government had been elected to hold a majority of seats in both Houses of Parliament since 1981.

GetUp! encouraged visitors to send an email to Coalition senators that read "I’m sending you this message because I want you to know that I’m watching. Now that you have absolute power in the Senate, it is only people like me who can hold you accountable. And we will."

GetUp! has campaigned vocally over issues such as pressuring the Howard Government to lobby for the release of David Hicks into the Australian community (Hicks had been in detention at Guantanamo Bay for undertaking combat training in al Qaeda-linked camps and serving with the ruling Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001); and opposing efforts by the Rudd Government to examine ways to implement an internet filter (Internet_censorship_in_Australia); and has promoted voter enrollment.

In March 2011, Getup! endorsed the controversial decision of the Gillard Labor Government to reverse its 2010 Election promise not to introduce a carbon tax as a means of addressing Australia's contribution to carbon emissions.

Campaigns

While GetUp’s primary methodology to date has been to encourage its membership to email or call their elected representatives, the organisation has also employed a range of campaigning techniques, such as taking out advertisements in major daily newspapers, holding local events [2], running television commercials [3], and hiring a skywriter to write “Vote No” above Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra [4]. Several GetUp-initiated petitions have been presented in the Australian Senate by representatives of different political parties.

As listed on the GetUp! website, some past and current campaigns include:

2005

• Now you answer to us, August 2005 - launch
• Stop preventative detention, September 2005 - against changes to anti-terrorism legislation
• We're counting on you, October 2005 - against the WorkChoices legislation
• Something you can do, December 2005 - against racism, in response to the Cronulla riots

2006

• No child in detention, 2006 - against proposed changes to migration laws
• We're calling Washington, 2006 - in support of convicted terrorist David Hicks
• Authorised bribes, 2006 - in favour of expanded terms of reference for the Cole Inquiry into the Australian Wheat Board
• Our own plan for Iraq, 2006 - against Australian involvement in the Iraq War
• Climate action now, 2006 - in favour of certain actions in relation to global warming

2007

• Don’t let them stop you from voting, 2007 - calling for the repeal of laws that close the electoral rolls the day the elections are officially called.
• Close The Gap, 2007 - action to achieve health equality for Indigenous Australians
• Australia GetsUp 07, 2007 - election campaign
• Equal before the law, 2007 - equality for same sex marriage
• No rubber stamp, 2007 - anti-Northern Territory intervention
• Save our senate, 2007 - fight for a democratic senate
• No Pulp Mill, 2007 - stop the Gunns paper mill
• APEC targets, 2007 - demanding binding climate change targets
• Promise Watch, 2007 - monitoring politicians on election promises
• How Should I Vote?, 2007 - online survey that help people find their local candidate and awareness of their issues

2008

• Equal Pay for Equal Work, 2008 - raising awareness on pay disparity and under-valued nature of women’s jobs.
• Stand Up for Tibet, 2008 - urging PM Rudd to take action and stand against China’s crackdown in Tibet.
• Save the Net, 2008 - action against the Labor Party's plan for Mandatory ISP Filtering.
• Buy Me a River, 2008 - A campaign to save the Murray River

2009

• Paid Parental Leave, 2009 - Australia is one of the only developed nations to not have paid parental leave.
• Human Rights Act & Lets Act on it, 2009 - In response to the Brennan Review on Human rights, GetUp! campaigned for a national human rights act.
• Economic Fairness, 2009 - Helping out the hundreds of thousands of Australian's who lost their jobs during the Global Financial Crisis.
• End Mandatory Detention & The Human Face, 2009-2010 - A campaign to end the suspension of the processing of asylum seekers, and to stop mandatory detention.
• Equal Before the Law (continued), 2009 - On legal equality for same sex couples
• We’re Afraid Not, 2009 - On ending the politics of fear
• iCoal 2.0, 2009 - To counter the rebranding of the major polluters
• Re-Energise Australia, 2009 - A grassroots campaign on the benefits of renewable energy in Australia
• Homelands, 2009 - A campaign attempting to save the homelands of indigenous Australians
• Censordyne & Internet Censorship, 2009 - Part of the ongoing campaign against internet censorship
• Climate Action Now!, 2009-2010 - GetUp! continued pressure on the Government to commit to binding emissions targets and a price on Carbon.

2010

• Media on Trial, 2010 - A campaign by placing a full page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Times in support of and condemnation of calls for violence against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

2011

• Safeguard our future - A campaign to create a permanent Climate Natural Disaster Fund funded by reduction of fossil fuel subsidies
• Getup! Deputy National Director Sam McLean states to ABC News that the organisation does not have plans to campaign for the top two voted campaigns; being the First Home Buyers Strike, and Removal of Negative Gearing for Wealthy Property Investors,.
• Stop Coal Seam Gas - On the 16th of August, 2011, Getup! announced its campaign to stop CSC.
• "It's Time: End Marriage Discrimination" - on November 24, 2011, GetUp! released a video titled "Love Story" calling for the legalization of same-sex marriage in Australia. By November 26, the video had garnered over 500,000 views on YouTube, had been tweeted by Stephen Fry and Marlee Matlin, and was described by The Advocate as "possibly the most beautiful ad for marriage equality we've seen."

Structure

GetUp is a non-profit organisation, registered as GetUp Ltd. In the vein of Moveon.org, much of the organisation’s funding comes in the form of small contributions made through its website. Under Australia’s taxation regime, donations to GetUp are not considered tax-deductible as the organisation advocates for changes to government policy. GetUp has a small team of staff and volunteers based in Sydney, including National Director Simon Sheikh.

GetUp's board members are:

• David Madden, a co-founder
• Jeremy Heimans, a co-founder
• Amanda Tattersall, a union researcher
• Anne Coombs, a historian and online opinion author
• Brett Solomon, former Campaigns Director of AVAAZ and former Executive Director of GetUp

Madden and Heimans ran campaigns in the United States against President George W. Bush. Tattersall serves as Director of the Sydney Alliance. Former board members have included Evan Thornley and Bill Shorten who left the board to pursue political party positions, and former Liberal Party of Australia leader John Hewson.

Criticisms

Spam claims

The GetUp! website allows visitors to send pro forma protest emails to Coalition parliamentarians, leading to charges that GetUp! generates spam. Shortly after the first GetUp! emails began to arrive, member for Wentworth Malcolm Turnbull said that "When you get 1,000 emails, all in exactly the same form, it's not exactly as persuasive as a bunch of emails people have written to independently express themselves." GetUp dismisses this criticism arguing that it rarely allows for form letters or emails, rather it encourages its members to write individual and handcrafted emails. This position is reflected in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald which acknowledges the role of GetUp in "an age in which people were interested in political issues but no longer had the time to write letters."

Labor Party 'Front' claims

GetUp has been criticised for being a partisan site because of its consistent opposition to key Liberal Party policies. On 4 August 2005, Liberal Party politician Andrew Robb said on the ABC's The 7.30 Report that GetUp is "a front for the Labor Party, it's a political front. They're quite entitled to do it, it's a free country, but it's a political front. That's what it is."

GetUp has repeatedly rejected this claim, reiterating that they are strictly independent and don’t have any affiliation with any political party. GetUp cites a number of campaigns which critique the Labor party, including “Your message to Labor” regarding climate change and also the anti-Gunns pulp mill campaigns. GetUp quotes that “our campaigns target issues and those with the power to make them happen rather than directly for or against a party”.

In August, 2005, Australian Special Minister of State Eric Abetz called for two Australian regulatory bodies — the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) — to investigate GetUp's corporate structure, donations, and affiliation with political parties. The AEC rejected the call for an investigation concluding that there were "insufficient grounds on which to undertake a formal investigation."

Since the change of Government in 2007, GetUp has criticised Labor Party policies such as FuelWatch.

In 2010 it became public that GetUp received more than $1m in donations from six unions in the course of three weeks during that year's federal election campaign, equal to about two thirds of its advertising campaign expenditure and over half of their total donations. GetUp director, Simon Sheikh, said; "we don't exactly know why they are chipping in, but we are happy that they have."

In 2011 following the Australian Labor party's decision to seek a swap arrangement with Malaysia over humanitarian asylum seekers arriving by boat GetUp were critisized for their lack of condemnation of this policy turnaround. GetUp director Simon Sheikh stated that "The government would love to see groups like us marching against this plan because that's their strategy". He further explained that the Labor party were attempting to shore themselves up as a conservative force. The refusal to take a vocal stance critical of the new policy came in the face of past criticism of mandatory detention policies (above). Human rights groups have been critical of the Malaysian swap deal noting that asylum seekers in Malaysia live under the threat of human rights abuses including punishment by caning.

Dubious membership claims

GetUp!’s homepage states "Join the movement of 585,581 Australians". This figure however is debated, as anyone who signs a GetUp! petition is automatically listed as a member. In its most recently published annual report for 2008-09, the total number of individual donors was 17,295. According to Quadrant magazine, "It quickly becomes clear, however, that much of the support GetUp claims to have is exaggerated".

See also

• Avaaz
• MoveOn
• 38 Degrees
• Internet activism

External links

• Official website